Warnings go unheeded over North Korea threat
Michael R. Gordon International Herald Tribune
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Dispatches
WASHINGTON Imagine a former official who toiled behind the scenes on the most sensitive national security issues leaving the Bush Administration in frustration and now charging that White House policies have left the United States exposed to a dangerous and growing threat.
I am not referring to Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council aide whose criticism of the Bush Administration's counterterrorism policies rocked Washington, but to Charles Pritchard, a retired U.S. Army colonel and the former point man on North Korea for the U.S. secretary of state, Colin Powell.
Jack Pritchard, as he is known around Washington, is not a celebrity. He does not have a best-selling book. He makes more appearances at research institutes than at talk shows. But for months he has warned that the White House lacks an effective strategy to dissuade North Korea from building up its nuclear arms.
With the United States understandably occupied with the escalating violence in Iraq, the issue of North Korea has not attracted the attention it deserves. But North Korea's nuclear arsenal, which was once thought to number one or two weapons, appears to be growing substantially on President George W. Bush's watch.
The Bush Administration insists that the best way to put pressure on North Korea is through six-party talks, which also include China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. There can be unofficial side conversations between American and North Korean officials, but the United States will not be blackmailed into making concessions, administration officials say.
But Pritchard's basic critique is that the administration has neither offered much of a carrot nor wielded a stick. Wary of offering inducements to a totalitarian regime, the Bush Administration has not engaged the North Koreans in the sort of direct negotiations that might lead to a diplomatic breakthrough, he argues.
But fearful of sparking another crisis at a time when American forces are tied down in Iraq, the Bush administration has not put the North Koreans on notice that further nuclear developments will trigger economic sanctions or perhaps even military action.
"This administration has adamantly refused to deal directly with North Korea, and they are not going to make any progress until that happens," Pritchard said in an interview. "And there have been no red lines. We have never said 'if you do this here are the consequences.' Now they may have developed as many as six nuclear weapons to add to the two that they confirmed that they have."
Pritchard's path from policy insider to outside critic is an unusual odyssey. A son of an army officer, Pritchard joined the army after college. He served as a foreign area officer in Japan, an expert on the politics and military trends of the region, and later became the army attach? at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
After President Bill Clinton was elected, Pritchard was assigned the Japan and Korea portfolio on the National Security Council, a responsibility he retained after he retired from the military. He was one of the officials who went to Powell's home to brief him on North Korea issues soon after Bush was elected president. After Powell became secretary of state, Pritchard, a political independent, went to the State Department as a special envoy for talks with North Korea.
But the Bush Administration was divided about how to deal with Pyongyang. While Powell wanted to engage Pyongyang hard-liners at the White House, the Defense Department cast North Korea as an untrustworthy regime that would implode over time. The North Koreans, for their part, set back chances for progress when it was discovered that they had begun a clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons from highly enriched uranium using technology imported from Pakistan, a development that violated their international commitments.
After three-party talks involving the United States, North Korea and China were arranged last year, Pritchard was expected to be the envoy. But senior State Department officials persuaded Powell that he would be unacceptable to the White House because of his past work for the Clinton Administration, Pritchard says. Pritchard figured he was an envoy without a role and submitted his resignation on April 18, 2003. Powell asked him to stay on and keep working on North Korea. So he kept his decision to resign confidential and waited to see what would happen.
What happened convinced him that the administration's policy was unlikely to succeed. As James Kelly, the State Department's top official on Asia, prepared for the three-party talks, Pritchard said he had drafted negotiating instructions that would allow Kelly to engage in "pull-aside," or informal discussions, with the North Koreans. The proposal for pull-aside discussions, he says, were cast aside after Kelly convened an interdepartmental meeting and hard-liners from Vice President Dick Cheney's staff and the Defense Department objected.
Pritchard was later asked to help organize the current six-party talks. Those negotiations do allow for informal side conversations between American and North Korean officials, but they stop short of the fuller dialogue Prichard believes is necessary to produce an agreement rolling back North Korea's nuclear program. Pritchard left the government in August.
Estimating North Korea's nuclear potential is an inexact science. But some experts say Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal is expanding and could grow by as many as six weapons if it produces plutonium from the 8,000 spent fuel rods it has kept in a cooling pod. A parallel program to produce bomb grade uranium would allow Pyongyang to expand its arsenal even more in several years time.
"Jack was here for a couple of years," Powell told The Washington Times in April. "He was an expert in these matters, and he thought we ought to be moving in another direction. And I said, 'No, the president wants us to do it this way.' And he left, and now he's writing long, tortured articles about how we are doing it wrong." Pritchard says he loyally defended the administration's line while in government but now has an obligation to call it as he sees it.
The United States has two big security problems on its hands: a violent insurgency in Iraq and a simmering dispute with a nuclear North Korea that does not always make the headlines and which is full of complexities. North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the best way to contain or end them deserves fuller debate during this election year, and Pritchard's critique is a good place to start.
Gordon can be reached at pagetwo@iht.com.
Copyright ? 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
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>> PROGRESS NOTES...


Philippines uncovers al-Qaeda linked operation
By Roel Landingin in Manila
Published: May 6 2004 11:27 | Last Updated: May 6 2004 11:27
Philippine defence and police officials said Thursday they had uncovered a new Jemaah Islamiah (JI) logistics cell in the country and arrested a suspected member who might have helped transfer funds from the al-Qaeda and JI terror networks.
Eduardo Ermita, the defence secretary, said in a press briefing that the authorities had begun proceedings to freeze several bank accounts holding a total of $25,000 of funds transferred from suspected JI leader Riduan Islamudin, also known as Hambali, currently under US custody.
It was the first time that Philippine security officials had been able to establish a detailed money trail from international terror suspects to their local partners, he said.
Philippine security officials are on heightened alert amid reports that the JI and local terror groups are planning to sabotage the May 10 presidential election.
Last month, six suspected Muslim militants said to be plotting major bomb attacks on shopping malls and western embassies in Manila were arrested.
The authorities also arrested 46-year old Jordan Mamso Addullah based on leads provided by US officials who interrogated Mr Islamudin, said Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., the Philippine police chief.
He added that according to US intelligence, the $25,000 was transferred in July 2003 and was delivered to JI members by an unknown courier flying in from Kuala Lumpur.
The authorities believe that upon receiving the money, Mr Addullah changed it into local currency and sent half of it to an Indonesian JI cell leader called "Zulkipli". "Zulkipli" was then supposed to have deposited some of it in a bank and gave the rest to a JI bomber known only as "Marwan". Mr Ebdane said the remainder might have been used to finance a safe-house for the JI cell, Mr Addulah's money trading business and the dowry for Zulkipli's fiancee.
Apart from money laundering, Mr Addullah is also facing charges for possible involvement in at least three bombing incidents in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where most of the country's Muslim minority live.

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>> EXIT STRATEGY?

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR700102004

NGO Says Trafficking Of Women Rampant In Kosovo
6 May 2004 -- Amnesty International says that trafficking of women and girls for sexual purposes in Kosovo comprises a disgraceful human rights abuse.
The London-based human rights organization said that the international community itself bears complicity for growth of a sex industry based on the abuse of trafficked women in Kosovo.
Amnesty cited reports that the number of establishments in Kosovo where trafficked women and girls may be exploited has increased from 18 in 1999 to more than 200 in 2003. The report said that clients include international police and troops.
It said the women come from Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, and Kosovo itself. The report said that the women are sold into slavery.
(dpa)
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>> IF ONLY WATCH...

Iranian Hard-Liners OK Anti-Torture Law
5 May 2004 -- Iranian state television reports that a bill to ban torture in Iran has become law after its approval by the hard-line Guardians Council.
Iran's reformist-dominated parliament approved the bill yesterday.
State television said the bill was then approved by the 12-man Guardians Council, which has vetoed dozens of pro-reform bills.
Guardians Council spokesman Ebrahim Azizi was quoted as saying on state television that the council scrutinized the bill for its compliance with Islamic law and the Iranian Constitution and did not find it contradictory.
Parliament passed the anti-torture bill after the head of the hard-line judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, last week issued an order to police and security officials, calling for an end to torture.
Iran's constitution outlaws the use of torture, but human rights groups claim the Islamic Republic's security forces routinely use it to extract confessions.
(Reuters)
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Head Of Kyrgyz Anticorruption Department Killed
6 May 2004 -- Interior Ministry spokesman Joldoshbek Buzurmankulov told a press conference today in Bishkek that Chynybek Aliev, chief of the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry's anticorruption department, was shot dead as he was driving his car last night.
Buzurmankulov blamed "criminals" for the murder and said the killing was related to Aliev's work.
Aliev was reportedly hit by 17 bullets fired from an automatic weapon.
Buzurmankulov said Aliev was investigating contract killings and appeared to have become a victim of the crime he was fighting.
(ITAR- TASS)
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Fears that oil price is fuelling inflation
By our International Staff
Published: May 6 2004 19:51 | Last Updated: May 6 2004 19:51
Central bankers around the world raised concerns about the inflationary impact of higher oil prices on Thursday as crude rose to nearly $40 a barrel in New York - its highest level since October 1990.
Oil prices have risen by 22 per cent this year. Traders fear tight supplies will be even further stretched by rising tension and attacks in the Middle East.
World equity markets retreated in response to inflation fears and the prospect of rising interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by just over 1 per cent at mid-session on Thursday.
In the UK the Bank of England pointed to the need to keep inflation under control as a reason for raising its main interest rate by a quarter-point to 4.25 per cent on Thursday. In a statement explaining its decision the Bank's monetary policy committee cited sharply rising commodity prices.
Although the European Central Bank kept rates on hold at 2 per cent, Jean-Claude Trichet, its president, adopted a more hawkish tone towards price rises. He warned that increases in oil prices might pose "an upside risk to price stability" and that Eurozone inflation could rise above 2 per cent over the next few months.
Last week Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, warned that the "dramatic" rise of oil and gas futures was "an economic event that can significantly affect the long-term path of the US economy".
Earlier this week Mr Greenspan signalled that US interest rates would be raised soon, prompting speculative investors to start to reduce their risks. As a result, emerging market bond prices on Thursday suffered their worst one-day losses in nearly two years.
JP Morgan's EMBI+ emerging debt index was down 2.2 per cent as European markets closed, the biggest one-day decline since July 2002. John Bates, analyst at West LB, said: "There was an irrational stampede to get out - there were only sellers in the market."
Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, said he had spoken to oil-producing countries about the impact of higher oil prices.
Mr Trichet also repeated his recent call for oil-producing countries to exercise "responsibility" on the price of oil. "It is is a matter of importance," he stressed.
However, an Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries official said there was nothing the oil cartel could do to reduce the soaring crude price.
Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran's representative on Opec's board of governors, told Dow Jones newswires that security fears in the Middle East and the tight US petrol market had created a $6 a barrel premium in the oil price.
Opec, which accounts for about one-third of global oil output, quashed market rumours of an emergency meeting when an official said there were no plans for a meeting before the next scheduled gathering in Beirut on June 3.
Oil prices have risen about 5 per cent since Saudi militants attacked western expatriates at a petrochemical plant at the weekend.
Reporting by Tony Major in Helsinki, Ed Crooks, Kevin Morrison and P?ivi Munter in London


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Greenspan issues warning on deficits
AP ~~article_owner~~
Thursday, May 06, 2004
WASHINGTON America's soaring federal budget deficits represent a major obstacle to the country's long-term economic stability, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Thursday.
Greenspan told a banking conference that the federal budget deficit was a bigger worry to him than America's soaring trade deficit or the high level of household debt because those two problems can be corrected by market forces.
``Our fiscal prospects are, in my judgment, a significant obstacle to long-term stability because the budget deficit is not readily subject to correction by market forces that stabilize other imbalances,'' he said in remarks to a banking conference.
Greenspan noted that the federal deficit, estimated to climb above $500 billion this year, will amount to 4.25 percent of the total economy after being in surplus just a few years ago.
He said one of the biggest concerns was that the deficits now were occurring right before the first wave of baby boomers will begin retiring.
``We have legislated commitments to our senior citizens that, given the inevitable retirement of our huge baby-boom generation, will create significant fiscal challenges in the years ahead,'' Greenspan said in his remarks, which were delivered by satellite to the conference in Chicago.
Greenspan cautioned that the country should not be lulled into a false sense of security about the federal deficit just because at the moment interest rates on long-term Treasury securities remain at low levels.
He said that the dollar's foreign exchange value has remained close to the average level of the past two decades in spite of soaring trade deficits and there have been no major economic disruptions triggered by record high household debt.
``Has something fundamental happened to the U.S. economy and, by extension, U.S. banking, that enables us to disregard all the time-tested criteria of imbalance and economic danger?'' Greenspan asked.
Answering his own question, the Fed chairman said, ``Regrettably, the answer is no. The free lunch has still to be invented.''
Greenspan said he believed market forces would provide the impetus to move the trade deficit and high household debt to more sustainable levels.
But he said his concern was that there were no market forces that would push the country to deal with the federal budget deficit.
Greenspan did not offer a solution to the budget deficit in his speech Thursday although in the past he has called on Congress to move quickly to address the looming funding difficulties in Social Security by trimming the benefits of future retirees.
Two proposals he has suggested include raising the retirement age for receiving full Social Security benefits and reducing annual cost of living adjustments that Social Security recipients receive.
Federal Reserve policy-makers met on Tuesday and left a key interest rate at a 46-year low but signaled that they planned to start raising rates at a moderate pace in coming months. Greenspan did not address interest rates in his prepared remarks.
Copyright ? 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

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EU/China: Leaders Reaffirm Blossoming 'Strategic Partnership'
By Ahto Lobjakas
Brussels, 6 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- European Commission President Romano Prodi today hailed the current rapprochement between the European Union and China as a "permanent" strategic link.
Prodi spoke in Brussels after a long meeting this morning with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.
"I congratulated the People's Republic of China on the strategic choice that it has made to build a partnership with Europe to promote our shared aims for peace and prosperity," Prodi said.
Prodi praised China's involvement in the Galileo global-navigation system and its support to the EU's efforts to set up the world's first nuclear-fusion facility.
Prodi said the EU would strive to step up political, economic, cultural, and social contacts with China, predicting also that the trade relationship between the two sides would grow to eclipse all other global trade links.
The EU is currently running a 55 billion euro ($66.9 billion) annual trade deficit with China, but officials in Brussels say they will not resort to appeals to the World Trade Organization to consider sanctions.
Both Prodi and Wen refrained from references today to partnerships with other countries, such as the United States or Russia.
Prodi stressed the EU's commitment to the "one China" policy ruling out formal ties with Taiwan.China failed today to elicit a promise from the EU to drop its weapons embargo imposed in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.
"On this specific case, me and my colleagues listened carefully to the Chinese request that the European Union lift our embargo on arms sales to China, and I explained that the issue is currently under discussion between member states," Prodi said.
While France, Belgium and Germany back the move, Britain resists -- partly in response to U.S. pleas to keep the embargo in place -- while others remain concerned about the human rights situation.
China has argued it wants the embargo lifted for predominantly symbolic reasons, describing it as obsolete. It is assumed that lifting the ban would not dramatically boost EU arms sales to China, as a bloc-wide code of conduct would still prevent most exports.
"We have also expressed our hope at these talks to President Romano Prodi and the European Commission that the Chinese government hopes the European Union will lift the arms embargo against China and will recognize China as a full market economy," Wen said. "President Romano Prodi and the European Commission both expressed their positive stance, which we appreciate."
However, China made headway on its other major goal -- that of being recognized as a market economy by the EU. Prodi said today the EU is prepared to offer China provisional recognition by the end of June -- although such a move would not have a binding impact on an eventual final decision.
Prime Minister Wen today sought to separate both the arms embargo and market economy status from considerations such as human rights.
"In resolving those two issues, from the very beginning we have not been in favor of the view that those two issues should be linked with human rights or other political issues," Wen said.
Wen said China appreciates the long-standing human rights discussion it has conducted with the EU for years. He pointed to China's recent ratification of a UN covenant on economic, cultural, and social rights. He said the adoption of a similar convention on civil and political rights is "in preparation."
Prodi today said he believes a gradual, step-by-step approach to political reform is the best way to success.
He also stressed the EU's commitment to the so-called "one China" policy ruling out formal ties with Taiwan. China has made clear that compliance with the policy is a crucial precondition for closer links.
Both sides today also discussed the effects of the recent EU enlargement. Prodi said he was certain EU investment in China would not fall. Wen, for his part, said the size of the Chinese market and its labor force were "irreplaceable."
Wen also said China would not "unpeg" its national currency from the U.S. dollar before a "proper macroeconomic situation" has been achieved and a "prudent" banking system is in place in China. The United States, among others, has argued the peg gives China an unfair trading advantage by keeping its currency artificially cheap.
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China's Wen Seeks Slowdown, Opposes `Sudden Braking' (Update4)
May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said he is taking ``forceful'' steps to slow growth and inflation without triggering a slump in the world's seventh-largest economy.
China needs to ``reduce the speed, but not a sudden braking'' in an economy that grew 9.1 percent in 2003, the fastest pace in seven years, Wen told a business forum during a visit to the European Commission in Brussels. China is studying the switch to a ``market-oriented'' foreign-exchange mechanism that won't come before an overhaul of the bank system, he said.
The Chinese government is seeking to cool growth after investment in roads, factories and other fixed assets jumped 43 percent in the first quarter. The boom has led to shortages of oil, coal and power and driven up prices of raw materials.
China may overtake Italy this year to become the world's sixth-biggest economy, according to International Monetary Fund figures. The government is targeting growth of 7 percent this year, compared with the European Commission's forecast for expansion of 1.7 percent in the 12-nation euro economy.
Hong Kong stocks rose today, lifting an index of mainland shares to a two-week high, after the South China Morning Post reported similar comments from Wen yesterday. CNOOC Ltd. and PetroChina Co. advanced as the Hang Seng Index gained 59.85, or 0.5 percent, to 12,010.31 at the 4 p.m. close in Hong Kong.
`More Comfortable'
``People are a bit more comfortable'' with the outlook for the Chinese economy after Wen's comments, said Alex Wong at Rexcapital Asset Management Ltd. His Rexcapital Asian Pacific Fund rose 88 percent in the year through March 31, according to Bloomberg data, compared with a 65 percent advance by Morgan Stanley Capital International's Asia-Pacific Index.
China is calling on banks to curb lending for makers of cars, cement and steel to lessen the economy's momentum, while giving preferential treatment for energy and transport projects to cope with surging demand.
The credit restrictions and the government's halting of a $1.3 billion steel mill project have stirred expectations that the central bank will raise interest rates for the first time in nine years.
Calming Economy
Investment in fixed assets and real estate has led to ``excessively high growth in the M2 money supply and credit,'' Wen said. He promised ``firm, resolute and forceful'' steps to bring growth down to a more sustainable pace.
The Chinese leader said his administration will ``improve'' its handling of the yuan's exchange rate, which has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since 1994. The euro's 16 percent rise against the dollar since the end of 2002 has widened the European Union's trade deficit with China.
EU imports from China rose 16 percent to 94.9 billion euros ($115 billion) in 2003, while exports to the Asian nation climbed 17 percent to 39.9 billion euros, according to EU statistics. As a result, China's trade surplus with the EU widened to 54.9 billion euros from 47.6 billion euros.
``Our trade with China is growing fast -- and there is no denying that there is a certain imbalance,'' commission President Romano Prodi told the business meeting in Brussels. ``This is not yet a major issue in Europe.''
Wen said he is ``anxious'' to loosen China's currency peg to the dollar. The country needs ``Number one, a proper macroeconomic situation, and number two, a prudent banking system'' before that can happen, he said. ``We are now taking measures to create those two situations.''
Exchange Rates
Prodi said that Chinese leaders promised that ``they will not use the rate of exchange as an instrument of trade.''
China's economy expanded at a faster-than-expected 9.7 percent in the first quarter, barely slowing from a 9.9 percent pace in the previous three months.
Wen said he wanted the EU to grant China the status of full- market economy ``at an early date.'' The commission, the 25- nation EU's executive branch, said in a statement it would reach a ``preliminary assessment'' of this by the end of June.
A full-market economy status would mean that the commission, also the EU's trade authority, would use price and cost data provided by Chinese companies rather than third-country information when investigating unfair-trade complaints by EU industry, said commission spokeswoman Arancha Gonzalez. EU punitive tariffs resulting from such inquiries affect about 0.4 percent of China's exports to the EU, she said.
Arms Embargo
Wen also asked the EU to lift the arms embargo it imposed on China after the 1989 killings of pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square. Prodi said he ``listened carefully'' to the request, on which national governments in the EU will decide. France is leading a European campaign to lift the embargo -- a move that would need the backing of all EU member nations.
During Wen's visit, China and the EU signed declaration on cooperation over the planned European Galileo satellite- navigation system, in which the Chinese government has already agreed to invest about 200 million euros.
The two sides also signed a customs accord to boost trade and an agreement for talks on competition issues including antitrust law and merger control. In addition, they agreed to hold talks aimed at addressing EU concerns about a possible rise in Chinese textile exports after the elimination next year of World Trade Organization quotas.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jonathan Stearns in the Brussels bureau jstearns2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor of this story:
Catherine Hickley at chickley@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 6, 2004 10:16 EDT

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Slowly but steadily, India will overtake China
Jonathan Power IHT
Thursday, May 06, 2004
An economy awakes
LONDON India is now in the middle of what many Chinese would give their right arm for - a general election. Yet China is the power that gets all the attention.
When President Richard Nixon first went to China it was widely assumed that he was ignoring India and courting China because China had nuclear weapons and could help balance the Soviet Union. But since 1998 India has possessed nuclear weapons and can balance China.
While Washington is slowly waking up to the fact that the tortoise soon might overtake the hare, the investors and the press continue in their old ways. Last year the inflow of foreign capital into China was two and a half times that into India. The press barely covers the Indian election while every day there is a story out of Beijing.
This skewed appreciation has been going on since the time of Mao. China basked in accolades in the 1960s and 70s, while India was mocked for its "Hindu growth rate." China's people were fed, housed, clean and tidy, while India's were ragged, hungry and sinking into a trough of despondency - "a wounded civilization," in the words of the novelist V.S. Naipaul.
With the 1981 famine we could see, to use George Watson's phrase, that "the intellectuals were duped." China had to beg around the world for grain while India had managed to survive the savage drought of 1979 without having to import a sack.
Now with Mao long dead and the capitalist reforms of Deng Xiaoping well into their stride, the story is being repeated but in a more complex way. To many, China's economic progress has been nothing less than spectacular. But inflationary pressures, bad bank loans, a rapidly increasing maldistribution of income and crime all threaten its economic stability.
India, meanwhile, has been gradually but with increasing speed loosening up its old Fabian socialist system. After a major economic crisis in 1991, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh introduced major promarket reforms and fiscal expansion and India's economy has never looked back.
India's annual growth has been averaging 5 percent - and is now 8 percent, thanks to a good monsoon. Singh, who has become Sonia Gandhi's principal economic adviser, believes that with more reforms than the present government has so far countenanced, an average annual growth rate of 6.5 percent is sustainable - which is what he privately thinks China's overhyped growth rate actually is.
India is better placed than China for future growth. Its capital markets operate with greater efficiency. They are also much more transparent. Companies can raise the money they need. India's legal system, while too slow, is much more advanced and is able to settle sophisticated and complex cases. Its banking system has relatively few nonperforming assets.
India's democracy and news media are alive and vital, which provides a safety valve for the incoherent changes that modern economic growth brings. India has religious riots, secessionist movements, urban squalor and bitter rural poverty. But the voters know they can throw the rascals out, and regularly do.
Moreover, the massive flows of foreign investment into China are a two-edged sword. It has become a substitute for domestic entrepreneurship. Few of the Chinese goods we buy are in fact made by indigenous companies. And the few that exist are besieged by regulatory constraints and find it hard to raise domestic capital. China's state-owned enterprises remain massive but bloated and possess a frightening number of nonperforming loans from China's vulnerable banking system.
India, by contrast, has created world-class companies that can compete with the best in the West, often on the cutting edge of software, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.
India's trump cards are its use of English, its emphasis on mathematics in its schools and the talents of its diaspora. For decades China has benefited from the wealth and the investment potential of its diaspora and the economic energy of Hong Kong and Taiwan. After years of ignoring its ?migr?s, India is now welcoming them back - and they have much more "intellectual capital" to offer than China's, much of it coming from Silicon Valley, where the Indian contribution has shone.
Watch the tortoise continue its course as the hare starts to lose its breath.
Jonathan Power is a commentator on foreign affairs.
Copyright ? 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

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New head named for British spy agency
AP ~~article_owner~~
Thursday, May 06, 2004
LONDON The primary author of a disputed British intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be the next head of the MI6 spy agency, Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said Thursday.
Blair's opponents said John Scarlett's promotion to head the foreign intelligence agency was tainted by politics, but Blair said he was recommended by an independent panel and chosen on merit.
``He's someone who is a fine public servant ... and I think it's very unfortunate if (the appointment) becomes a matter of political comment in any way,'' Blair said at a news conference with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Scarlett, chairman of the government's Joint Intelligence Committee, was a key figure in the judicial inquiry into the death of weapons scientist David Kelly.
Scarlett testified that he, and not Blair's aides, had the final say on the disputed September 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons.
The dossier said Iraq had an active program of making and deploying chemical and biological weapons, and had sought to buy uranium in Africa for a nuclear weapons program. Coalition forces in Iraq have found no evidence to back those claims.
That contention was the basis of the government's claim that the document was a summary of hard intelligence, not the work of political operatives.
Kelly killed himself after he was publicly identified as the source of a British Broadcasting Corp. story quoting him anonymously as saying officials exaggerated evidence about Iraq's alleged arsenal to justify war.
Scarlett's testimony matched that of Blair and his aides, who denied pressuring the intelligence committee to strengthen the dossier's claims. Lord Hutton, the judge in the highly charged case, ruled that the BBC was wrong to report that officials knowingly manipulated evidence.
``In view of the evidence at the Hutton inquiry, this appointment can only be described as highly controversial,'' said Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrat party.
Michael Ancram, foreign affairs spokesman for the Conservative Party, called the appointment ``inappropriate,'' saying Scarlett should not have been promoted while an inquiry into the quality of prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons was still under way.
``In today's world Britain's Secret Intelligence Service is central to our national security,'' Ancram said. ``And it is essential the whole country has the fullest confidence in it.''
Scarlett graduated from Oxford University in 1970 and worked at MI6 until leaving for the Joint Intelligence Committee post in 2001. He speaks Russian and has served in Paris, Moscow and Nairobi, Kenya.
His testimony at the Hutton inquiry made him the first head of that committee to become widely known to the public.
Scarlett, 55, succeeds Sir Richard Dearlove, 60, who is leaving MI6 to become master of Pembroke College at Cambridge University.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he made the appointment on the recommendation of a selection panel chaired by Blair's security and intelligence co-ordinator, Sir David Omand.
``The Secret Intelligence Service is in the front line of our defense against terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and other threats,'' Straw said. ``John Scarlett has the operational background, personal qualities and wide experience to be a worthy successor to Richard Dearlove.''
Blair's office said Scarlett would follow MI6 practice in the future by not giving interviews, making public appearances or providing on-the-record comments.
Copyright ? 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
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New UK spy chief had key WMD dossier role
By Mark Huband, Security correspondent
Published: May 6 2004 12:48 | Last Updated: May 6 2004 20:34
The new chief of Britain's foreign intelligence service will be the man who played a key role in the writing of the controversial dossier used by the government to justify its decision to invade Iraq.
John Scarlett, who was head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) that produced the Iraq dossier, will take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, when Sir Richard Dearlove retires in August.
Mr Scarlett, who served as an MI6 intelligence officer in Nairobi, Paris and Moscow before becoming JIC chairman in 2001, is seen by some government officials as tainted by the close ties he established with the office of Tony Blair, prime minister, in the run-up to the Iraq war.
He appeared last year at the inquiry by Lord Hutton into the suicide of the government scientist David Kelly, whose information was used in a BBC report that cast doubt on claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes.
During the inquiry, Mr Scarlett said he "owned" the government dossier on Iraq's WMD, and it had not been manipulated by Downing Street officials. However, his defence of the dossier left him open to the accusation that he had allowed secret intelligence to be politicised.
Lord Hutton's report exonerated Mr Scarlett. But the subsequent failure to find WMD in Iraq has discredited the US and UK intelligence services, and is likely to raise questions about Mr Scarlett's stature.
Although government mandarins, intelligence officers and diplomats rarely speak for long about Mr Scarlett before the word "integrity" slips into the conversation, the problem for him will be whether his integrity can be distinguished from that of the "JIC process" of assessing intelligence.
His qualities are those of a discreet and successful spy who lists history, medieval churches and his family as his personal interests.
A fluent Russian speaker, he was recruited to MI6 in 1971 after gaining a first class degree in history at Oxford.


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Japan's tough sell: public trust in social security
James Brooke NYT
Thursday, May 06, 2004
TOKYO With almost 40 percent of young workers skipping out on their social security payments, Japan started an advertising campaign featuring a popular actress, who sternly lectured subway riders: "So you don't mind crying in the future? Pay now. Or later, you don't get paid."
Then, enterprising reporters discovered that the 20-something actress, a self-employed worker, had neglected to pay into the national pension system for years.
But with legislation in Parliament seeking to increase pension contributions gradually by 35 percent, other enterprising reporters have uncovered that seven ministers, a third of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet, have also neglected to pay into the National Pension Plan.
With the ministers of economy, of finance and of trade and industry on the list, the opposition thought it finally had an issue to take to voters in elections this summer. Then, through more enterprising reporting, it was discovered that Naoto Kan, leader of the opposition, had neglected to pay into the plan for 10 months in 1996, when, as health minister, he was in charge of the national pension system.
"This pathetic political theater leaves us more dumbfounded than angry," an editorial in The Asahi Shimbun stated.
The Japan Times printed a cartoon showing a dozen bureaucrats cavorting on a double-decker wooden festival float, marked "Public Pension System." As the four porters, labeled "Public," staggered bug-eyed under this enormous weight, the bureaucrats did a fan dance, singing a jolly chorus: "Trust us, trust us."
But, according to a poll conducted in March by the Mainichi newspaper, 81 percent of Japanese respondents in their 20s said they "don't trust" the national pension system. For people in their 30s, the figure was 74 percent. For all adults, the "don't trust" group was 60 percent.
"Those ministers not paying their premiums certainly exacerbated the already skeptical public view of the system," Shingo Hirata, a 21-year-old economics student said here on Wednesday. "The existing system is not sustainable, and drastic change is needed."
Yusuke Tomofuji, a classmate, agreed, saying: "Honestly, I cannot trust the current pension system. I am sure that system will soon go bankrupt."
The lack of trust derives from the widespread understanding that Japan's work force is already shrinking.
Japan now has one of the world's lowest birth rates. On Tuesday, the government's statistics bureau announced that the number of children aged 15 or under had fallen by 200,000 over the last year, to 13.9 percent of the population, the lowest level on record. By contrast, the comparable American figure is 21 percent.
In 1950, when the national pension system started to take shape, 35 percent of Japan's population was 15 years or younger, and 4.9 percent of Japanese were 65 or older. Since 1970, the number of workers supporting a pensioner has dropped from 8.5 to about 3.5.
If trends hold up, the elderly population will match the working population in 2044, according to Tadashi Nakamae, president of Nakamae International Economic Research. Birthrates could stay low for years to come.
As of 2000, 54 percent of Japanese women in their late 20s were single, more than double the 1980 level of 24 percent. The comparable rate in the United States today is about 31 percent. In contrast to the United States, Japan has few births outside of marriage; at last count, 99 percent of Japanese babies were born in wedlock.
Without future workers in the pipeline, many young workers view the mandatory pension system as a one-way intergenerational asset transfer.
Where will the money come from, they ask, to pay for their own retirements 40 years down the road? The Nikkei newspaper calculates a roughly $4 trillion gap between the government's future pension obligations and its future contributions. With politicians determined to maintain a level of government spending not related to tax receipts, Japan is already the most indebted of the major industrialized nations.
Taking one step, the Parliament is to approve in coming days the plan to raise premium payments gradually by about one-third and to cut pension benefits by 15 percent. Officials are also studying ways to simplify the system's complicated rules, a trap that apparently caught many of the ministers.
To keep the program solvent through 2012, "they are 85 percent there," Robert Feldman, chief economist for Morgan Stanley Japan, said. To keep Japan's pension system solvent and its living standards high, he said, the nation needs more immigration, more free market economic policies and an annual rate of capital investment of 4.3 percent a year.
The New York Times
Copyright ? 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

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Libya
Time to make human rights a reality




"You are the only people who have come to really listen to my story. I am not a political person. I just wanted to live a normal life with my family," Ahmad 'Abd al-Salam al-'Alam al-Sharif, a fisherman and football supporter, accused of being a political opponent in the so-called "Ahli Benghazi" Football Club case, told an Amnesty International delegate. He is currently serving life imprisonment, along with two others, after a death sentence against the three men was commuted (for case details, see section below, entitled the application of the death penalty).

Introduction
This report is published after a four-member Amnesty International delegation visited the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for two weeks in February 2004, following a 15-year absence from the country. During the visit, Amnesty International delegates had an unprecedented opportunity to meet political prisoners and were also able to hold meetings with the Libyan authorities, including with Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi, Leader of the Revolution.

Amnesty International has welcomed positive steps taken by the Libyan authorities in recent years, including the long overdue decisions in 2001 and 2002 to release hundreds of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience detained since 1973. It is also pleased about the opportunities it had to discuss human rights matters during the visit of February 2004, and welcomes the assurances it received from the Libyan authorities at all levels that they would seriously consider its recommendations. However, as outlined in this report, Amnesty International continues to have grave concerns about the human rights situation in Libya.

The report is based on a comprehensive memorandum focused on civil and political rights that Amnesty International submitted to the Libyan authorities at the beginning of the visit of February 2004. It also reflects the views of the Libyan authorities and other findings during that visit. Since the visit, Amnesty International has urged the Libyan authorities to respond fully to its concerns outlined in the memorandum.

At the time of this report going to print, Amnesty International learnt of a speech given by Colonel al-Gaddafi to the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies and to other high-ranking members of the judiciary on 18 April 2004. In this speech, Colonel al-Gaddafi called for a number of legal and institutional reforms, and responded to a number of issues raised by Amnesty International and dealt with in this report. Specifically, Colonel al-Gaddafi urged the abolition of the People's Court, a special court known to try political cases, and the transfer of its jurisdiction to ordinary criminal courts. He called for a more stringent application of Libyan law, and for reducing the scope of the death penalty to the most serious crimes. Colonel al-Gaddafi also said that the authorities have no right to prevent lawyers and families visiting prisoners, and affirmed the right of families to know what happened to their relatives during incidents in Abu Salim Prison in 1996 during which large numbers of prisoners were reportedly killed. He also praised Amnesty International and other human rights groups for condemning the use of torture by governments and called on all countries to ratify international treaties that ban torture. Following Colonel al-Gaddafi's speech, the Libyan authorities indicated that they were reviewing legislation relating to the formation of associations, among other reforms.

Amnesty International welcomes Colonel al-Gaddafi's intervention addressing the organization's concerns in several areas. It hopes that it will give impetus to a comprehensive program of reform that will address fully the concerns outlined in this report.

Chapter 1 of the report gives background to the human rights situation in Libya. Chapter 2 focuses on current human rights violations faced by real or suspected political opponents, migrants, possible asylum-seekers and others. It identifies laws which severely restrict the right to freedom of expression and association; outlines a pattern of incommunicado detention by security forces, often accompanied by torture, and of unfair trials before special courts, in particular the People's Court, often leading to long-term prison sentences and the death penalty; and illustrates how, despite having set abolition of the death penalty as a goal for Libyan society, capital punishment remains prescribed, and continues to be carried out for a large number of offences including the peaceful exercise of political activities. A new rhetoric inspired by the "war on terror" has been used in recent years to justify the repetition of old practices at the expense of human rights.

In this context, Amnesty International was pleased to learn that the Libyan authorities are revising Libya's Penal Code, with a view to adopting a new code in June 2004. However, the new legal text, if adopted in the form existing in February 2004, will not redress the concerns outlined above. In particular, it still violates the rights to freedom of expression and association, and includes an extensive range of offences punishable by death.

Chapter 3 of the report examines past policies and events constituting grave human rights violations which continue to cast a shadow on Libya's human rights record, involving hundreds of victims and affecting the everyday lives of their families. It includes the policy of "physical liquidation" of political opponents of the 1980s; numerous deaths in custody without adequate explanation; the "disappearance" of political prisoners, especially since 1996; and the "disappearance" of Libyan nationals abroad and foreign nationals visiting Libya. Hundreds of families still do not know whether their relatives are alive or dead, or how they died. Many are too scared to ask about their relatives for fear of retaliation.

Chapter 4 of the report includes Amnesty International's specific recommendations to the Libyan authorities. These recommendations are aimed at ensuring that Libya complies fully, in law and in practice, with its obligations under international human rights law, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the United Nations (UN) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture).

Amnesty International calls on the Libyan authorities to undertake without delay institutional reforms and other measures necessary to address the grave human rights concerns outlined in this report. There is an urgent need for the truth to emerge in respect of many events of the last three decades. Those responsible for violations must be held to account and the victims must receive full reparations. Libyan nationals in the country must feel confident that they can engage in human rights work without fear of reprisals.

Without prompt and concrete initiatives in this direction, human rights violations in Libya are likely to continue with their toll of human suffering. It is time to turn promises into action, and make human rights a reality.


1. Background

On 1 September 1969, following a military coup overthrowing the monarchy, Colonel al-Gaddafi came to power with a small group of army officers. The country was ruled by a Revolutionary Command Council with Colonel al-Gaddafi at its head. The following years were marked by the one-party system of the Arab Socialist Union, created in 1971. In 1972, Law 71 was adopted, which prohibited the formation of political parties(1).

In 1973 Colonel al-Gaddafi announced a "popular revolution", paving the way for a political system, known as "direct democracy", which continues to operate until today. In 1976 the Arab Socialist Union was abolished and replaced by the General People's Congress, the country's highest decision-making authority, which holds its ordinary sessions annually in Sirte. This gradually evolved towards the establishment in 1977 of the Jamahiriya system, a "state of the masses", whereby all citizens over the age of 18 are meant to contribute directly to decision-making processes in the country through their participation at a local level in Basic People's Congresses. Their decisions are eventually channelled through to the General People's Congress which makes decisions at a national level. Decisions are then implemented by General People's Committees, equivalent to Ministries.

In this system, Colonel al-Gaddafi, officially referred to as the "Leader of the Revolution", is not considered a head of state in the conventional sense but rather as an influential advisor to the people. Parallel to the Basic People's Congresses lie the Revolutionary Committees, whose function it is to mobilize the people to support the ideas and policies of Colonel al-Gaddafi. This system operates in a context in which the formation of political parties continues to be prohibited.

The 1970s and early 1980s were years marked by a policy of repression of those who expressed dissent at the policies of the Libyan authorities. Student demonstrations were violently put down and political opponents were arrested and imprisoned or "disappeared". In 1980 the Libyan authorities introduced a policy of extrajudicial executions of political opponents, termed "stray dogs". The policy, known as "physical liquidation", seemed to have been endorsed at the highest levels. The Revolutionary Committees were empowered to implement this policy both at home and abroad.

At the international level, relations between Libya and several European countries and the USA deteriorated during the mid-1980s. During a demonstration in 1984 in London organized by members of the Libyan opposition, British woman police officer, Yvonne Fletcher, was shot, apparently from the offices of the Libyan People's Bureau. In 1986 three people were killed and some 250 wounded in the bombing of the La Belle nightclub in Berlin. The USA held Libya responsible, and launched bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi, hitting Colonel al-Gaddafi's residence among other places. Some 40 people died as a result.

In 1988 there was a period which appeared to herald important human rights reforms. The authorities released hundreds of political prisoners in a wide-ranging amnesty. During an extraordinary session of the General People's Congress convened that year, the Great Green Charter of Human Rights of the Jamahiriyan Era was adopted. This document restricted the scope of applicability of the death penalty, setting its abolition as an aim; outlawed degrading punishment and ill-treatment of prisoners; and proclaimed the right to a fair trial. Amnesty International was invited to visit the country, where the organization held talks with officials; met several political prisoners; gathered data on human rights developments; and attended a special session of the General People's Congress, held in June. Colonel al-Gaddafi, who had called on the General People's Congress to abolish the death penalty, intervened to seek the commutation of all death sentences in response to a request by Amnesty International. Following an undertaking in 1988, Libya became a state party to the first Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)(2) and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) in 1989.

After this brief period of positive developments in 1988, the human rights record in Libya deteriorated and the country was closed to international scrutiny, including to the independent human rights experts of the UN and international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International(3). The subsequent years were characterized by widespread human rights violations, including mass arbitrary arrest and detention, "disappearances", torture and the death penalty(4). Repression further escalated in the mid-1990s at a time of clashes between the authorities and armed political groups. Repeated requests by Amnesty International, over a number of years, to visit Libya in order to attend hearings of trials, particularly those heard before the People's Court, were met without response from the authorities. Amnesty International's only access to the country since its visit in 1988 took place in April 2001, when two delegates attended the 29th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in Tripoli. Inside the country, independent human rights organizations were not able to emerge and a climate of fear prevailed, preventing victims of human rights violations or their relatives from communicating with the outside world.

This was accompanied by an era of isolation from the international community following the bombings of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, in which 270 people were killed, and of UTA flight 772 over Niger in 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 170 people. In January 1992 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 748 which imposed an air and arms embargo on Libya. This was lifted in September 2003(5) following a period of suspension initiated in 1999 after the authorities handed over for trial two Libyan nationals suspected of carrying out the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. This trial resulted in the conviction of 'Abd al-Basit al-Megrahi in January 2001 to life imprisonment; his co-defendant al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah was acquitted. This sentence was confirmed on appeal in March 2002. In 2003 the Libyan authorities accepted "responsibility for the actions of Libyan officials"(6) for the attacks on the Pan Am and UTA flights and reached agreement over compensation to the families of victims of the bombing. Negotiations regarding compensation for victims of the La Belle nightclub bombing were underway at the time of writing.

On 19 December 2003 Libya announced the dismantling of its programs of weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, negotiations with the USA and the European Union rapidly intensified with a view to a full normalization of relations between the parties.

1.1 Human rights developments in recent years

In recent years the Libyan authorities have taken limited steps to address the human rights situation in their country, including the waves of releases of political prisoners beginning in 2001 and other initiatives illustrated below. In 2001 nearly 300 prisoners, among them political prisoners, were released. They included Libya's longest-serving political prisoner, Ahmad Zubayr Ahmad al-Sanussi, who had been accused of involvement in an attempted coup d'?tat in 1970 and who spent 31 years in prison, many of those in solitary confinement. In 2002 over 60 prisoners were released, including prisoners of conscience Muhammad 'Ali al-Akrami, al-'Ajili Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman al-Azhari, Muhammad 'Ali al-Qajiji, Salih 'Omar al-Qasbi and Muhammad al-Sadiq al-Tarhuni. They had been imprisoned for almost three decades, following their arrest in 1973 for their peaceful involvement with the prohibited Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami, Islamic Liberation Party.

To Amnesty International's knowledge, however, legal proceedings leading to reparation have not been initiated for any former prisoners with a view to compensating them for the abuses they have suffered. In many cases, they are unable to continue to live as they had prior to their imprisonment. For example, their former employers refuse to receive them back at work, a practice which has reportedly been most severe and widespread in the field of education. While some professors and lecturers were able to resume their jobs as academics after their release, others were reportedly told that, given their political background and imprisonment, they would not be allowed to return to their posts. Moreover, such restrictive practices take place in a context in which the authorities have failed to take responsibility for these past abuses, which include prolonged arbitrary detention and torture or ill-treatment.

In 2003 the Libyan authorities apparently lifted travel restrictions which had been imposed on thousands of Libyan nationals, who were forbidden from leaving the country. Since then, many have had their passports restored to them. The Libyan authorities have also embarked upon a policy of actively encouraging Libyan nationals residing abroad to return to Libya with guarantees that they will not face persecution after return. However, in at least one case known to the organization, a Libyan national returned to Libya in May 2002, after assurances from Libyan officials abroad that he would return safely, only to be arrested at the airport. When Amnesty International delegates met Mustapha Muhammad Krer in February 2004, he had still not been charged or tried. He told them: "I returned to Libya because I believed that it was changing for the better. I came here to see my family and because I love my country."(7)

While it continues to be virtually impossible for independent human rights organizations to develop in Libya, there has been limited progress with regard to allowing work on human rights violations in the country. Since its establishment in December 1998, the Human Rights Society of the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations, presided over by Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, one of Colonel al-Gaddafi's sons, has become increasingly active in the field of human rights. Since 2003 this organization has made strong calls for long-term human rights violations, including deaths in custody, to be addressed. It has also launched a campaign against torture in Libya and in the Middle East, researched scores of allegations of torture within Libya and in several cases pursued the matter with the authorities; and conducted visits to places of detention, making recommendations to improve their conditions(8).

Libya has also played an important role in regional and international bodies relating to human rights. In 2003 Libya was elected as Chair of the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, during which the Bureau of the Commission introduced a number of measures to strengthen the functioning of its mechanisms. However, Libya did not use its term as Chair of the Commission to take concrete steps to demonstrate its commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights; for example, by extending a standing invitation to the independent human rights experts of the UN to visit the country. In February 2004 Libya ratified the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights.

Libya has a good record of ratification of international human rights treaties, including the ICCPR, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Convention against Torture. However, Libya has failed to act on the majority of the recommendations made by UN treaty bodies, which monitor the implementation by states of these treaties. In addition, Libya has not yet become a state party to important human rights instruments, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

1.2 An Amnesty International visit to Libya after a 15-year absence

Amnesty International was granted access to Libya in February 2004, the first visit of its kind since 1988(9). The organization had been requesting authorization to conduct research into its human rights concerns in the country for many years and finally received a positive response from the Libyan authorities in early February 2004. A two-week visit by Amnesty International delegates to Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and Bani Walid culminated in a meeting with Colonel al-Gaddafi on 29 February. Amnesty International delegates also held talks with Muhammad al-Misrati, then Secretary of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security(10), on several occasions, and with 'Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation. They also met Karima al-Madani at the Secretariat for Women's Affairs of the General People's Congress.

Upon their arrival, Amnesty International presented a detailed memorandum to the Libyan authorities, focusing on the need for legal reform and the ongoing gap between law and practice, with particular regard to arrest, detention and trial procedures. Issues and individual cases raised in this document provided a basis for discussion in lengthy meetings with the Libyan authorities. At all levels, Libyan officials showed a willingness to discuss issues of concern to the organization.

In their discussions with Amnesty International delegates, the Libyan authorities repeatedly promised to look seriously into the organization's concerns and recommendations. Colonel al-Gaddafi personally expressed his interest in and appreciation for Amnesty International's work. However, no concrete commitments were made with a view to beginning to resolve these issues.

Delegates held detailed discussions on a range of legal issues with 'Umar 'Ali Shalbak, the then Public Prosecutor, and other prosecutors, as well as with other members of the judiciary, in particular Supreme Court judges. At the time of writing, a draft Penal Code was under examination by a committee of legal experts assembled by the then Secretariat of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security. In February 2004 the then Secretary of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security, Muhammad al-Misrati, provided Amnesty International with a copy of the draft Penal Code for analysis and told Amnesty International delegates that the draft was scheduled to be discussed before the General People's Congress in June 2004 with a view to its adoption.

Delegates also met private lawyers and lawyers from the Popular Lawyers' Office(11), linked to the People's Court, an exceptional court known to try political cases, among other offences. They held meetings with the Director of the Prison Administration, Major Belqassem al-Gargum, and several prison directors, including Milad Daman, the Director of Abu Salim Prison, known for holding political prisoners. In addition, the visit provided an invaluable opportunity to meet representatives of charitable associations and those working in the field of human rights within the country.

Amnesty International was granted unprecedented access to prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, with whom delegates were able to conduct lengthy individual interviews and collect detailed testimonies. However, without explanation, some of those prisoners whom the organization had asked to see were not made available for interview. In most cases, delegates were able to interview prisoners at their place of detention. However, in several cases, prisoners were brought to the Public Relations Department of the Secretariat of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security. While some of those interviewed were able to speak with relative freedom, others clearly feared to do so.

There was limited opportunity to meet people outside prisons, either former victims of human rights violations or their relatives. Many of them were reluctant to relay their experiences, indicating a climate of fear which still prevails and in which full expression of human rights concerns is far from being a reality. Amnesty International sought and obtained assurances from the Libyan authorities that none of the people met during the visit would face reprisals.

Delegates also attended a hearing before the Benghazi Criminal Court in the trial relating to 426 children infected with the HIV virus while in the care of al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. Delegates met the defendants and their lawyers as well as families and children of the Association for Child Victims of AIDS in Benghazi and their lawyers. They told Amnesty International that this had been their first opportunity to have their story heard by the outside world. In addition, they interviewed officers currently being tried on charges of torture in relation to the same case.

Following their visit, Amnesty International published preliminary findings in a press release(12), and called on the authorities to take prompt action to demonstrate their commitment to human rights reform. Amnesty International delegates also invited the authorities to provide the organization with a response in writing to the concerns, issues and questions raised in the memorandum. At the time of writing, Amnesty International had not received a written response to the memorandum. Neither had the authorities undertaken any concrete measures to begin to implement the organization's recommendations. This report is based largely on the memorandum and the findings of the February 2004 visit.


2. Continued human rights violations in law and practice

"It is normal in Libya to hear that your dad has died [in prison] because we have all seen it happen to a neighbour or a friend. It is only since I left Libya that I realize how bad the situation is."
These were the words said to Amnesty International by the son of a political prisoner living abroad, after he and his family, residing in Libya, were informed, years after the arrest, that his father had died in custody.

This section focuses on the need for changes in law, policy and practice in order to end the criminalization of activities merely amounting to the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and association. Unless reformed, the legal system, including a draft Penal Code currently under review, is bound to perpetuate arbitrary political imprisonment and a climate of fear among Libyan nationals.

In addition to the extensive provision of the death penalty within Libyan legislation, a variety of other punishments provided by law are also a matter of great concern. They include forms of "collective punishment", including house demolition, as well as corporal punishment, including flogging and cross-amputation (amputation of the right hand and the left foot).
2.1 Criminalization of rights to freedom of expression and association

In recent years, the Libyan authorities have used the international context and the language of the "war on terror" to further justify the continuation of a repressive policy at home which severely curtails the right of Libyan citizens to freedom of expression and association. The "counter-terrorism" argument is clearly used as a new justification for an old practice, enshrined in Libyan law, of repression of all political dissent.

Legislation prohibits the formation of associations or political parties outside the existing political system. Critics of the current system, who wish to voice their political dissent through peaceful means outside the official structures, are heavily sanctioned and even face the death penalty. They are forced to operate in secret. Movements such as al-Jama'a al-Islamiya al-Libiya, the Libyan Islamic Group, also known as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brothers, meet clandestinely in small groups, often in private houses. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood have told Amnesty International that these discussions include a variety of issues, such as reform of the system or the provision of informal support for families of political prisoners. Legislation further restricts freedom of association, making it almost impossible for independent human rights associations to emerge. Despite the risks, some Libyans, including lawyers, are calling for legal obstacles to be lifted to enable them to form independent human rights organizations.

If such activities are discovered by the security forces, those involved or suspected to be involved, are at risk of arrest, prolonged incommunicado detention often coupled with torture, followed by unfair trials and possibly the death penalty.

The "anti-terrorism" argument

In his annual address to the nation on 31 August 2002, Colonel al-Gaddafi reportedly argued that, following the 2002 releases of prisoners, those who remain in Libyan prisons, with the exception of those sentenced for "ordinary crimes", have links to al-Qa'ida or the Taleban and as such the Libyan authorities would, "...treat the heretics just like America is treating [the al-Qa'ida or Taleban detainees]... America said, these people do not have the right to defend themselves, it will neither provide them with lawyers nor respect their human rights".

At the end of December 2003, in an address to civil servants of the Secretariat of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security, Colonel al-Gaddafi reportedly reiterated that Libya had no prisoners of conscience and that current prisoners were of two kinds only: either "ordinary criminals" or "heretics" (zanadiq). This position was again reiterated by the Libyan authorities in their discussions with Amnesty International in February 2004.

In recent years, the Libyan authorities have stated their commitment to fighting acts of "terrorism" and to cooperating with other states and inter-governmental organizations in this respect(13). While Amnesty International recognizes the duty of governments to protect their citizens from acts of violence and to bring to justice those responsible, Amnesty International has stressed worldwide(14) that all means taken in this respect, including investigations and trials, must always be in full compliance with international human rights standards(15).

In its second report to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, the Libyan authorities announced that "[a] new draft Penal Code is being prepared and will include crimes qualified as terrorist acts"(16). Based on an analysis of this draft Penal Code, Amnesty International is concerned that the definition of "terrorism", according to Article 260 of the draft, may be abused in order to punish people for non-violent acts, including those related to freedom of expression and human rights work(17). The broad definition provided could be subject to wide interpretation and abuse.

Several provisions contained in Article 260 do elaborate on violent acts or the threat of such acts which, according to the text, constitute "terrorist" activity. However, in several others, terms such as "terrorism" and "terrorist acts" are used without being further defined. For example, provision 4 relates to "setting up an association or gang or society or organization which uses terrorism in achieving or implementing its aims or membership to it...". Provision 5 criminalizes "approaching or communicating with an association or society or organization or group or gang, whose headquarters are abroad, or anyone working for their interests with a view to undertaking terrorist act/s in the country or against its interests, even if abroad". Amnesty International urges the Libyan authorities to ensure that all provisions relating to "terrorism" are well defined and exclude any form of peaceful exercise of rights protected under international law, such as the rights to freedom of expression and association.

Prisoners of conscience

Despite the authorities' categorical denial of the existence of prisoners of conscience, the organization is aware of scores of individuals whom it considers to qualify as such(18). They include professionals and students, who were arrested in and after June 1998 on suspicion of supporting or sympathizing with the banned Libyan Islamic Group(19) - also known as the Muslim Brothers - which is not known to have used or advocated violence.

On 16 February 2002 Salem Abu Hanak and Abdullah Ahmed 'Izzedin were sentenced to death before a People's Court in Tripoli following a grossly unfair trial(20) of 152 people on charges relating to affiliation to the Libyan Islamic Group. Salem Abu Hanak, born in 1957 and father of five, was the head of the Chemistry Department at the Faculty of Science at the University of Qar Younes in Benghazi. He was arrested on 5 June 1998. Abdullah Ahmed 'Izzedin, born in 1950 and father of four, was working as a lecturer at the Nuclear Engineering Faculty of al-Fateh University in Tripoli when he was arrested on 7 June 1998. Seventy-three of the defendants received sentences of life imprisonment, and 11 others received 10 years' imprisonment. A further 66 were reportedly acquitted.

The appeal trial before the People's Court of Appeal has been repeatedly adjourned, with hearings taking place approximately every three months and reportedly lasting just a few minutes. At the time of writing, the next hearing was reportedly scheduled to take place on 25 November 2004, when a verdict was expected.

In all meetings with the Libyan authorities in February 2004, Amnesty International delegates raised the question of freedom of expression and association. Colonel al-Gaddafi described the activities of the Muslim Brothers in the case above as being "terrorist work", "aiming at creating an Islamic state in Libya". He argued that "they tried to impose their opinions on others" and that they "confessed to using violence".

Other officials, including the Secretaries of the General People's Committees for Justice and Public Security and for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, tended not to differentiate between acts by individuals in a given case and a political grouping as a whole, nor between various political groupings. All those who carry out political activities, peaceful or otherwise, outside the official political structure were deemed by the authorities to be "heretics".

The Director of Abu Salim Prison, Milad Daman, said that those prisoners whom Amnesty International had requested to see were "terrorist" cases, including several prisoners sentenced in the Muslim Brothers case. He said that the Muslim Brothers had given birth to other Islamist groups, such as al-Salafia al-Jihadia, the Militant Traditionalist, and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. All these groups, according to the Director, agree on the use of violence as a means to achieve their aim of assuming power in Libya. He argued that some prisoners had spent time in Afghanistan and trained with al-Qa'ida and therefore were a danger not only to Libya but also to other countries. Speaking with particular reference to his prison, he reaffirmed Colonel al-Gaddafi's point that there were no political prisoners; rather, all those imprisoned were people who had used violence.

However, in the case of the Muslim Brothers, the men were not charged with any violent acts. This was confirmed to Amnesty International in February 2004 following interviews with several lawyers defending the accused, appointed by the state Popular Lawyers' Office, and with several of the defendants themselves. The men faced charges under Law 71 of 1972 banning political parties(21) solely for the peaceful expression of their ideas and for meeting to discuss those ideas with others in secret. Abdullah Ahmed 'Izzedin told Amnesty International, "I am not against the regime, nor do I have any political aims. I just wanted to work towards reforming society and to making it a better place".

The Muslim Brothers are just one example of cases of prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience currently held in Libyan prisons. Others include members of the Harakat al-Tajammu' al-Islami, the Islamic Alliance Movement, who were arrested in the summer of 1998, at the same time as the arrests of the Muslim Brothers.

One of those imprisoned was Ramadan Mas'ud Shaglouf, a father of two who worked as a chemical engineer for an oil company in Benghazi. He was arrested on 27 September 1998 by several armed men in civilian clothes who announced that they were officers of the Internal Security Agency.
After being detained by the Internal Security Agency for a month, the interrogation began. Ramadan Mas'ud Shaglouf told Amnesty International that he was occasionally beaten and threatened with further beatings if he did not "confess" to accusations of membership of the Islamic Alliance Movement. At the end of a month of interrogation, he said he was coerced into signing papers which he was not able to read.

Ramadan Mas'ud Shaglouf's trial before a People's Court finally began on 8 October 2002, more than four years after his arrest. On 26 January 2003 he was sentenced to life imprisonment under Law 71 of 1972 banning political parties. Several others tried in the same case were sentenced to between 10 years' and life imprisonment.
Legal provisions

"All Libyans over the age of 18 can participate in the Basic People's Congresses and express their opinion freely. If others agree with them, their idea would be taken up, otherwise it would not. We are not like other countries in which there is one ruling party which may choose to imprison others from other parties. It is not possible to have a prisoner of conscience in this set-up," Colonel al-Gaddafi to Amnesty International in February 2004.

Libyan law provides certain guarantees to the rights to freedom of expression and association. According to Article 6 of the Great Green Charter of Human Rights of the Jamahiriyan Era, adopted in June 1988, "the members of the Jamahiriyan society are free to form associations, trade unions and leagues in order to defend their professional interest". However, these rights are strictly qualified. For example, Article 8 of Law 20 on the Promotion of Freedom, adopted in 1991, states that "Every citizen has the right to express his opinions and ideas and to publicise them at people's congresses and through jamahiri media. The citizen shall not be questioned in relation to the exercise of this right unless he uses it to undermine the authority of the people or for personal ends".

Within this system, all adults are allowed to express opinions and views in the Basic People's Congresses and in the local media, which provide the only vehicles for sanctioned debate. However, the system operates in a context in which the formation of political parties is prohibited and in which the media is fully controlled by the state(22). Further, vaguely-worded restrictions - such as those contained in Article 8 of the Law on the Promotion of Freedom - are placed on the expression of opinions even within the official forums, leaving even those who challenge the system from within at risk of punishment. In at least one case known to Amnesty International, a Libyan citizen was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 2002 for the peaceful expression of his views in a Basic People's Congress.

On 19 October 2002 Fathi al-Jahmi, a civil engineer born in 1941 and married with seven children, attended a session of the Basic People's Congress in al-Manshia, Bin Ashour, a suburb of Tripoli. At the Congress, he reportedly stated that reform within Libya would never take place in the absence of a constitution, pluralism and democracy. He reportedly went on to ask how issues within the country could genuinely be addressed while Libya is "ruled by criminals", naming one particular example. It appears that he was known for his outspoken views prior to this incident.
Apparently as a result of this statement, he was arrested by members of the Internal Security Agency while at the Basic People's Congress and detained for several months. According to Fathi al-Jahmi, he was tried twice under the same charges by the People's Court in two different districts within Tripoli. He reportedly received two separate sentences, one of five years' imprisonment and the other, suspended, of eight months' imprisonment. On 10 March 2004 his case was heard before the People's Court of Appeal and he received a suspended sentence of one year's imprisonment. He was finally released on 12 March 2004(23).
After his release, Fathi al-Jahmi gave several media interviews, including to the US-based Arabic channel al-Hurrah and to the Dubai-based Arabic channel al-'Arabiya, in which he continued to call for reform within Libya. Apparently as a result, basic services, such as his telephone line, were reportedly suspended. On around 26 March 2004, he was reportedly beaten outside his house. Subsequently, relatives, friends and other interested parties appear to have lost contact with Fathi al-Jahmi, his wife, Fawzia, and eldest son, Muhammad. At the time of writing, family members had received no official confirmation as to their whereabouts.

The following laws, which severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression and association, have been used to repress those suspected of being opposed to or critical of the current political system.

- Law 71 of 1972 bans any form of group activity based on a political ideology opposed to the principles of al-Fateh Revolution of 1 September 1969. Article 3 of Law 71 provides for the death penalty for forming, joining or supporting groups prohibited by law.
- Article 206 of the Penal Code (Law 48 of 1956) provides for the death penalty for those who call "for the establishment of any grouping, organization or association proscribed by law", and even for those who belong to or support such an organization.
- Article 208, which bans forming or joining an international association, states that "The punishment is imprisonment for whoever sets up, establishes, organizes or directs international non-political organizations, associations or bodies, or a branch thereof, without government authorization, or where such authorization is based on false or insufficient information."
- Article 178 prescribes life imprisonment for the dissemination of information considered to "tarnish [the country's] reputation or undermine confidence in it abroad."
- Article 207 states that "The punishment is execution for whoever spreads within the country, by whatever means, theories or principles aiming to change the basic principles of the Constitution or the fundamental structures of the social system or to overthrow the state's political, social or economic structures or destroy any of the fundamental structures of the social system using violence, terrorism or any other unlawful means."

Amnesty International had hoped that the draft Penal Code, announced by the Libyan authorities in 2003, would provide for an improvement in the legislation. The aims set out in the draft include "limiting capital punishment to serious criminals who cannot be rehabilitated...". However, it goes on to define "serious criminals" as including those who have committed crimes against the integrity and security of society and dealing with foreign countries to harm the state. This phrasing, alongside vague terms - such as "spreading rumours", "insult", "harms the reputation of the country" or "incitement" - could lead to the imposition of the death penalty for peaceful political opponents and government critics. Even those who merely participate in conferences or publish their writings peacefully expressing their views could be at risk of imprisonment.

The draft Penal Code contains specific provisions providing harsh punishments, including capital punishment, for undertaking peaceful social or political activities:

- Article 152 imposes imprisonment on any Libyan national, who while abroad publishes news or rumours constituting lies or exaggeration or creates disturbances about the internal situation in Libya in a way that harms its reputation or shakes the confidence in it or carries out an activity that in any way harms the interests of the country.
- Article 164 imposes imprisonment on anyone who seeks to undermine the reputation of the goals of the Revolution or defames its Leader, as well as anyone who insults public authorities or the Libyan people.
- Article 167 imposes imprisonment on anyone who spreads rumours against the governing system or who demonstrates in protest against the governing system. Terms used in this section of the law include "spreading rumours" and "insult".
- Article 173 imposes the death penalty on anyone who calls for the establishment of any association or party which is against the Revolution in purpose and means, or which aims to harm its public authorities, or anyone who establishes, joins, administers or funds such an association or party.
- Article 174 imposes imprisonment of no less than 10 years on anyone who promotes in the country, in any way, principles or theories that aim at changing the governing system.
- Article 175 imposes imprisonment on anyone (except for the husband, children or grandchildren) with knowledge of the crimes in Articles 173-174.
- Article 176 imposes imprisonment on anyone who establishes, organizes, or administers an international organization in Libya, without permission from the relevant authorities or with permission based on falsified information. It also imposes imprisonment on any Libyan national resident in Libya who joins or participates in any way, without prior permission, in any such organization.

For many years, Amnesty International has urged the Libyan authorities to comply with their obligation to ensure consistency between Libyan legislation and international human rights law. This includes the ICCPR, Article 19 of which states that, "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice"(24).

Furthermore, Article 6(2) of the ICCPR states that "in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes". This provision has been interpreted by several resolutions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the latest of which is resolution 2003/67, which requires ensuring that the notion of "most serious crimes does not go beyond intentional crimes with lethal or extremely grave consequences and that the death penalty is not imposed for non-violent acts such as ...non-violent religious practice and expression of conscience".

The UN Human Rights Committee - the body of experts which monitors states parties' implementation of the ICCPR - expressed, in its Concluding Observations on Libya's periodic report on 6 November 1998, "its deep concern about the numerous restrictions, in law and in practice, on the right to freedom of expression, and in particular on the right to express opposition to or criticism of the Government, of the established political, social and economic system and of the cultural values prevailing in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya."(25) The Committee urged the Libyan authorities "to undertake a truly critical analysis" of restrictions to articles guaranteeing the rights to freedom of expression and association within the ICCPR(26). The Libyan authorities have failed to implement those recommendations.
Obstacles to human rights work

Numerous charitable associations operate within Libya and Amnesty International met several of them(27) during its February 2004 visit, both on an individual level and at a broader meeting. Despite the existence of these charitable associations, human rights organizations or individuals wishing to carry out human rights work continue to be prevented from operating, with the exception of the Human Rights Society of the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations. The Human Rights Society, headed by Giuma Atiga, a lawyer and former political prisoner, has become a strong voice for human rights protection and promotion in the country. However, others wishing to carry out human rights work are forced to operate abroad.

During its visit to Libya in February 2004, Amnesty International learnt of the eagerness of a number of Libyan nationals to undertake human rights work in their country. Lawyers of the Tripoli Bar Association, who had recently established a Freedoms Committee, highlighted the legal and other constraints still faced by those seeking to operate in this field. One lawyer recounted his first short-lived attempt to create a 250-member human rights committee in 1977. In 1988 lawyers made a second attempt to establish an independent human rights body but this was soon co-opted by the authorities. In 1998 lawyers tried to form a human rights committee within the Bar Association. On this occasion, after issuing a report on the human rights situation in Libya, their activities were frozen. Recently, approximately 40 lawyers of the Tripoli Bar Association launched a Freedom's Committee. Among them, some expressed their interest in establishing an association independent from the Bar Association.

The fear of those wanting to work in this field is well-founded when faced with severely restrictive legislation. As mentioned above, Article 206 of the Penal Code imposes the death penalty on those who call for "the establishment of any grouping, organization or association proscribed by law", as well as for those who belong to or support such an organization. This provision has been maintained in Articles 141 and 145 of the new draft Penal Code, which imposes the death penalty on "any person who communicates with a foreign country or works in its service for the purpose of enabling it to attack Libya" or "who transfers news to [the enemy] or leads him or incites others to join the enemy". Furthermore, many Libyans, residing inside and outside the country, continue to be reluctant even to report human rights violations for fear of retaliation against themselves or their relatives.

This was a matter of concern for the UN Committee against Torture, the body of experts which monitors states parties' implementation of the Convention against Torture. It concluded that "the wording of article 206 of the Penal Code could be an obstacle to the creation of independent human rights non-governmental organizations"(28). International standards, such as the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders), adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1998, also grants the right to work on human rights issues both individually or in association with others(29).

2.2 Arbitrary arrest and detention

In recent years, the authorities have routinely violated international standards as well as the existing legal safeguards in Libyan law regarding arrest, detention and trial(30). These violations have disrupted the lives of hundreds of real and suspected political opponents as well as those of migrants and possible asylum-seekers. Amnesty International has documented numerous cases which illustrate such violations, including detention after expiry of sentence; arbitrary detention of Libyans returning from abroad; and prolonged incommunicado detention, where detainees are at risk of torture and ill-treatment.

Unlawful detention

Detention after expiry of sentence
The practice of unlawful detention after completion of sentence seems to be widespread and in some cases can have serious, even fatal, consequences, due to poor prison conditions or inadequate care for prisoners.

In February 2004, Amnesty International delegates met seven Eritrean nationals (Masfin Aman Adem, Mesghna Seium Tedla, Abiel Tekle Haile, Rezene Issak Yohanns, Zekerias Michael Belay, Yonas Neghasy Brhane and Michael Yemane Tekle) who had reportedly deserted the Eritrean army at different times during 2002 and fled from Eritrea to Sudan and then to Libya. They were arrested on 11 August 2002 as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean, heading for Italy where they planned to seek asylum. They were subsequently convicted of illegal entry but not released after the expiry of their three-month sentences on 19 November 2002. After being granted refugee status in March 2004, the UN High Commission for Refugees called on the Libyan authorities to release the seven men. At the time of writing, they remained in detention.

For some 18 months of arbitrary detention, the seven men lived in fear of being deported to Eritrea, where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations. They have been moved to several different prisons. In two separate instances, the men described being beaten with sticks; the first time prior to being transported in a lorry into which they were crammed with scores of others. The second time occurred while being transferred from Ghiryan Prison to three other prisons. Michael Yemane Tekle said that he was particularly badly injured on the second occasion and lost consciousness after being hit over the head with a truncheon. During a separate incident, Rezene Issak Yohanns was allegedly beaten by a guard with a wire while in Jdeida Prison in January 2004. The men told Amnesty International: "we just want to get out of detention. We have seen here in prison what we never saw in our country."

Another Eritrean national, Binyam Abraha, who was in his early 30s and married with one daughter, died in custody on the night of 16-17 September 2003. He was detained in Ghiryan Prison with the seven Eritreans mentioned above. He had reportedly been detained in Libya since early 2002 on alcohol-related charges, for which he had been sentenced to three months' imprisonment. He apparently contracted tuberculosis as a result of poor prison conditions and was allegedly denied access to medical care despite requesting it repeatedly. Just before his death, Masfin Aman Adem and the other Eritrean detainees asked again for Binyam Abraha to be sent to hospital for treatment. Instead he was apparently held in solitary confinement in a dirty room between 5 and 16 September 2003, when he died.

Arbitrary detention of Libyans returning from abroad
The Libyans authorities have publicly announced that they encourage Libyans in exile to return to the country(31), and that they would be able to resume a normal life upon return. Al-Sadeq Krimah, deputy head of the International Relations and Cooperation Department (also known as the External Security Agency, an intelligence apparatus), told Amnesty International in February 2004 that the External Security Agency had facilitated, in cooperation with the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations, the return of Libyan nationals from countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Al-Sadeq Krimah assured delegates that scores of Libyan nationals had returned to Libya in recent years without being arrested or detained after their return.

Amnesty International delegates interviewed some of the returnees. They stated that they were usually not detained upon arrival, but were summoned for questioning by the External Security Agency. Although they have to some extent succeeded in resuming a normal life, they faced financial difficulties and continued to be under close surveillance, usually by officers of the Internal Security Agency. One of them said to Amnesty International that he had shaved his beard for fear of being arrested as part of the policy against those the authorities describe as "heretics".

Amnesty International is concerned by the fate of others who have returned to Libya and have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention. It is particularly disturbing to note that some Libyan nationals were arbitrarily detained upon arrival despite assurances they had received that they would be safe and able to resume a normal life.

On 2 May 2002 Mustapha Muhammad Krer, a Libyan national with Canadian citizenship, travelled to Libya after an absence of some 15 years. He was arrested on arrival and has been detained ever since. He initially travelled to Malta, where he was reportedly assured by members of the Libyan security forces and officials from the Libyan People's Bureau (the Libyan Embassy) in Malta that he would not be arrested on his return. Both his ticket and travel documentation were apparently provided by the Libyan People's Bureau in Malta.
On arrival at Tripoli airport, he was reportedly detained for questioning, initially in the airport and later by members of the Internal Security Agency. He has been held in 'Ayn Zara Prison for most of his detention. He first saw a lawyer on 15 March 2004, nearly two years after his arrest, when he appeared for the first time before the People's Court. He is charged alongside scores of others in connection with his alleged affiliation to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group(32). He denies the accusations against him.

Mustapha Muhammad Krer had left Libya in 1989 after apparently being sought by the Libyan authorities and following the arrest of his brother, al-Mukhtar Muhammad Krer. He reportedly chose to return to Libya after his family was informed by the Libyan authorities in mid-April 2002 of the death in custody of al-Mukhtar Muhammad Krer.
At least three Libyan nationals were arrested and arbitrarily detained upon arrival after being returned from Sudan to Libya at the end of 2002. 'Abd al-Mun'im 'Abd al-Rahman, Muhammad 'Abd al-Hamid Rashid al-Jazawi and Isma'il 'Umar Jibril al-Lawati were arrested and detained in September 2002 in Sudan and fined for illegal residency there. They were then ordered to leave the country. When Amnesty International delegates met the three men in Abu Salim Prison in February 2004, they reported that Sudanese officials had promised them a safe return to Libya after they had apparently received guarantees from the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations and the Libyan People's Bureau in Khartoum. On 17 October 2002 the three men and their families were sent to Libya. Upon arrival in Tripoli, they were immediately separated from their families, blindfolded, handcuffed and reportedly held by officers of the External Security Agency (33).
After a period of detention with the External Security Agency, the men were held by the Internal Security Agency before being transferred to prison. In the first quarter of 2003, they were presented before the Popular Prosecution Office for the first time. Since then, the three men have been brought before the People's Court in separate cases linked to their alleged political activities.

According to one of the three men, Isma'il 'Umar Jibril al-Lawati, he faces trial along with more than 50 others, from many different backgrounds. They are charged with remaining outside Libya without authorization and fighting against a friendly country. He told Amnesty International that since his arrest, he had been denied the right to any contact with his family. Muhammad 'Abd al-Hamid Rashid al-Jazawi reported that he was being tried alongside scores of others(34). He said that he had never met his court-appointed lawyer. 'Abd al-Mun'im 'Abd al-Rahman said that he was also being tried in connection with his alleged affiliation to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. He commented that he was not aware that he was being represented by a lawyer in court. A verdict was reportedly scheduled for late April 2004.

Amnesty International has also documented cases of Libyan nationals who were forcibly returned to Libya and whose fate has remained unknown for several years.

On 13 February 2000 a group of eight Libyans was forcibly returned from Jordan to Libya. They were arrested in Jordan at the end of December 1999 or beginning of 2000 on suspicion of being sympathizers with Islamist groups. There were reports that three of the eight Libyans were shot after their return to Libya. The allegations reported in the media(35) did not include details of the incident or provide the names of the victims. Amnesty International issued urgent appeals in March 2000(36) but received no response from the authorities. During their visit to Libya in February 2004, al-Sadeq Krimah, deputy head of the External Security Agency, assured the delegates that none of the Libyans returned in this case had been killed.

Amnesty International delegates also met 'Adel Salem Kamuka, one of the eight Libyans returned. He too said that, to his knowledge, there were no killings after their return. However, four years after the events, the authorities continue to fail to disclose information on the fate of the seven others returned in February 2000.
After his return on 13 February 2000, 'Adel Salem Kamuka told Amnesty International that he was blindfolded, handcuffed and taken for questioning at the headquarters of the External Security Agency in Tajoura, a suburb of Tripoli. According to his testimony, he was held in solitary confinement and handcuffed at night for 10 days. While being interrogated he was threatened with the use of an electric baton. At the beginning of March 2000, he was transferred to a wing of 'Ayn Zara Prison believed to be under the supervision of the Internal Security Agency, where his interrogation continued. There he witnessed that those who did not cooperate were beaten or otherwise ill-treated.
'Adel Salem Kamuka said that on 14 July 2000 he was brought before the People's Prosecutor, who interrogated him while he was blindfolded. He explained that he had left the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group but was nevertheless charged with membership of the group under Law 71 of 1972. He was then transferred to Abu Salim Prison. At the beginning of 2003, he was brought to trial before the People's Court with some 170 others(37). Apparently, some of the defendants tried in this case were arrested as far back as 1992 while others were arrested in the mid and late 1990s. The verdict is expected to be pronounced in late April 2004.
Widespread practice of prolonged incommunicado detention
At the heart of a series of violations lies the widespread practice of prolonged incommunicado detention. For periods of weeks or months, and in some cases even years, detainees in Libya have been held without any contact with the outside world, including their families or legal counsel. In the majority of cases known to Amnesty International, detainees are held by the Internal Security Agency. During this initial period of detention, their families usually do not know where they are being held. It is during this period that they are at greatest risk of torture or ill-treatment.

The practice of prolonged incommunicado detention breaches Libyan law. Under domestic law, detainees can be held immediately after arrest for up to 48 hours at a police station. They must then be brought before a prosecutor, who can hold them for six days under investigation. Following that, detainees must be brought before a judicial authority at regular intervals of 30 days in order to renew their detention order(38). In practice, however, Amnesty International has documented numerous cases where detainees are held for lengthy periods of time without access to the outside world.

The main agency said to be responsible for the practice of prolonged incommunicado detention and of torture or ill-treatment is the Internal Security Agency. Since March 2004, the Internal Security Agency has fallen under the jurisdiction of the General People's Committee for Public Security, after the abolition of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security. The Internal Security Agency appears to have its own places of detention. During their visit to Libya in February 2004, Amnesty International delegates repeatedly requested a meeting with the Head of the Internal Security Agency but this did not take place.

Ahmed 'Ali 'Abd al-Hamid al-Khafifi was arrested on 14 June 1997 at his house in the early hours by officers of the Internal Security Agency. He told Amnesty International that he was taken for interrogation with his head covered and his hands cuffed. He also said that he was threatened into signing a document without reading it.

He was then held apparently without charge or trial in various prisons, including al-Hawari Prison near Benghazi, 'Ayn Zara Prison in Tripoli, and later back and forth between 'Ayn Zara and Abu Salim prisons. On 18 October 2001, more than four years after the arrest, his father was allowed to visit him in 'Ayn Zara Prison for the first time. On two occasions, in March and October 2002, he and his family were informed that he would be released, but when the family came to the prison to greet him, they discovered that he had not been released.
According to Ahmed 'Ali 'Abd al-Hamid al-Khafifi's testimony, it was only on 3 April 2003, nearly six years after his arrest, that he was brought before the Popular Prosecution Office, without the presence of a lawyer. He found out that the date of arrest in the court file had been falsified and the signature was not his. He was accused of supporting a prohibited organization.
On 21 October 2003 Ahmed 'Ali 'Abd al-Hamid al-Khafifi was sentenced to life imprisonment by the People's Court(39). According to his testimony, the only evidence brought against him was a confession extracted under torture from another accused in the case, who later retracted his confession. He said that on 18 February 2004 the appeal trial before the People's Court of Appeal opened in a courtroom set up in the buildings of the Police Academy in Tripoli. The hearing reportedly took place without the presence of Ahmed 'Ali 'Abd al-Hamid al-Khafifi or his lawyer. The next hearing is apparently scheduled for 12 May 2004.

Amnesty International delegates repeatedly raised the urgent need to put an end to the practice of incommunicado detention in meetings with Libyan officials, including Colonel al-Gaddafi, during their visit in February 2004. In its Concluding Observations on Libya's periodic report, the UN Committee against Torture expressed concern that, "Prolonged incommunicado detention, in spite of the legal provisions regulating it, still seems to create conditions that may lead to violation of the Convention(40)".
2.3 Torture

According to the Libyan Penal Code, torture is considered a crime. Article 435 stipulates that "Any public official who orders the torture of the accused or tortures them himself is punished by a prison term of three to 10 years". This is confirmed in Article 341 of the draft Penal Code, which stipulates a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for those who order or carry out torture. Article 337 of the draft Penal Code imposes imprisonment on "any public official who uses violence against any person while on duty in a way that is degrading and causes physical pain".

However, Libyan legislation does not define the crime of torture. Amnesty International calls on the Libyan authorities to make explicit that torture is absolutely prohibited under all circumstances, including when committed by public officials off duty, and that it is "punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature"(41).

Amnesty International also calls on the Libyan authorities to ensure that Libyan law fully reflects the definition of torture included in Article 1 of the Convention against Torture, to which Libya is a state party: "For the purposes of this Convention, the term 'torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

Use of torture to extract confessions

From the testimonies collected by Amnesty International, it appears that if a detainee "confesses" quickly, they are usually subjected to light beatings or other forms of ill-treatment. However, if a detainee refuses to "confess", torture is used in order to extract a "confession". The most frequently reported techniques are beatings with electric cables, beatings on the soles of the feet (falaqa), the use of electric shocks and being suspended from a height by the arms.

The Muslim Brothers' case
A total of 152 professionals and students were arrested in and after June 1998, on suspicion of supporting or sympathizing with the Muslim Brothers. After their arrests, the detainees were held incommunicado and their whereabouts remained unknown for more than two years. It was only at a hearing before the People's Court in Tripoli in April 2001 that the families were for the first time allowed a brief contact with the detainees, and that the men were given legal representation, mostly by popular lawyers appointed by the court.

During this period of incommunicado detention, some of the defendants alleged that they were tortured, including being beaten on the soles of the feet (falaqa), after their arrest by members of the Internal Security Agency. Defendants were also reportedly forced to sign confessions.
One of the defendants, Salem Abu Hanak, who was later sentenced to death in February 2002, told Amnesty International delegates that he was arrested on 5 June 1998 from his home in the early hours and taken to the headquarters of the Revolutionary Committees at al-Birka in Benghazi. That day he was questioned about his connection with the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to his testimony, during the questioning, electric shocks were applied to his arms and he was beaten with electric cables on his feet in order to make him confess. Later that day, his wife was brought to him and he was threatened that she would be raped. He said: "once I saw my wife and realized what they might do to her, I said that I would tell them anything they wanted to know". Once he had agreed to confess, the torture stopped.
According to a lawyer from the Popular Lawyer's Office, who was representing some of the accused in this case, at least some of the accused were referred for medical examinations in order to verify whether they had been tortured. She argued that those acquitted and subsequently released in this case were those whose torture had been confirmed. The referral of the men for medical examinations was not corroborated by any of the accused whom Amnesty International delegates interviewed during their 2004 visit. It remains the case that according to Amnesty International's information, none of the suspected perpetrators of torture or ill-treatment have been brought to justice.

Foreign nationals in the so-called HIV trial
In a separate case, over five years after their arrest in January 1999, six Bulgarian health professionals (Kristiana Malinova Valcheva, Nasya Stojcheva Nenova, Valentina Manolova Siropulo, Valya Georgieva Chervenyashka, Snezhanka Ivanova Dimitrova and Zdravko Marinov Georgiev) and one Palestinian doctor (Ashraf Ahmad Jum'a) are still on trial, alongside nine Libyan doctors. The foreign defendants are accused of deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus(42), while working in al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. At the time of writing, a verdict was scheduled to be handed down on 6 May 2004.

While Amnesty International recognizes the pressing need to bring to justice anyone responsible for the tragic consequences for these children and their families, it is imperative that the rights of the accused are respected at all stages, from the moment of their arrest. It is only by means of a fair trial that follows due legal process that the truth will emerge about how these children became infected with the HIV virus and those responsible be held fully to account.

After their arrest, the seven foreign nationals were held for more than a year with only intermittent access to the outside world, namely to their relatives and lawyers and, in the case of the Bulgarian nationals, to representatives from their embassy. For the first nine months, representatives from the Bulgarian Embassy in Tripoli met the defendants three times before meetings with the Embassy became more regular from June 2000. They met defendants on 25 February 1999, 29 April 1999 and 30 October 1999. Not all of the defendants were present at the first two meetings. For example, Nasya Stojcheva Nenova and Valya Georgieva Chervenyashka were not brought to the meeting on 25 February 1999, apparently because they exhibited scars of torture which they had undergone.
The seven foreign nationals were first brought before the Popular Prosecution Office on 16 May 1999, approximately four months after their arrest. They were subsequently taken to the Popular Prosecution Office every 30 to 45 days in order to have their detention order renewed. The first time they were granted access to a lawyer was in February 2000, after their trial had opened before the People's Court.
The very limited access to the outside world, in the form of the representatives of the Bulgarian Embassy for the Bulgarian nationals and of the Popular Prosecution Office for all the foreign defendants, did not safeguard the defendants against torture or ill-treatment. When the defendants were granted limited access to the outside world, they explained that they were too frightened to report their allegations of torture. The Bulgarian defendants told Amnesty International delegates that those torturing them instructed them not to mention their treatment to their diplomatic representatives. At the level of the prosecution, defendants said that they were taken to the Popular Prosecutor by some of those who had carried out the torture and were threatened with further torture if they did not "confess" in front of him. In the case of Ashraf Ahmed Jum'a, he was reportedly beaten on one occasion in the Popular Prosecution Office.
The foreign defendants told Amnesty International that they had been tortured in order to extract confessions, which they later retracted on the basis that they had been forcibly coerced. Methods of torture they reported included: extensive use of electric shocks; being suspended from a height by the arms; blindfolding and threats with being attacked by barking dogs; and beatings, including falaqa (beatings on the soles of the feet) and with electric cables. They said that they were tortured for approximately two months; sometimes on a daily basis. After that, the torture ceased to be used on them routinely. When Ashraf Ahmed Jum'a's parents saw him for the first time on 30 November 1999, 10 months after his arrest, they described their reaction to Amnesty International: "We did not recognize our son because he looked so terrible. We stood there for 10 minutes just holding each other and crying."
All the foreign defendants deny the accusations against them. Valentina Manolova Siropulo told Amnesty International: "I was denying the accusations against me [even after the torture had started] until they began with the electric shocks. I began to "confess" in order to stop them using electric shocks. They would raise or lower the voltage according to what I said."
Their trial began before the People's Court. However, in February 2002 their case was transferred to the Criminal Prosecution Service, which forms part of the ordinary criminal justice system. In May 2002 the foreign nationals raised allegations of torture before the prosecutor. On the basis of these allegations, the prosecutor referred the defendants for a medical examination. In June 2002 a Libyan doctor, appointed by the prosecutor, examined the defendants and, in all cases except for Zdravko Marinov Georgiev, found traces on their bodies which he argued resulted from "physical coercion" or "beatings" or both. This evidence was subsequently refuted in court by another Libyan doctor, called to give expert opinion, who argued that it would have been impossible to identify traces of torture after so much time had passed but did not examine the defendants himself.
On the basis of these allegations, eight members of the security forces and two others (a doctor and a translator) in their employ were charged in connection with the torture. They face trial alongside the foreign and Libyan health professionals before the same criminal court in Benghazi. Some of the officers alleged that they themselves had been tortured in order to confess that they inflicted torture on the defendants in the trial. At least one of them confessed to having tortured some of the defendants and named several of the others as having tortured them too. Another officer reportedly denied torturing them himself but said that he had witnessed others torturing them. During the February 2004 visit, Amnesty International delegates interviewed two of the police officers accused of having inflicted torture, who denied the allegations against them.
A context of impunity

In all cases known to Amnesty International, except for the so-called HIV trial, no investigations are known to have been carried out and suspected perpetrators have not been brought to justice in connection with alleged human rights violations, including torture or ill-treatment.

In addition to prohibiting torture and ill-treatment under any circumstances, Libya's obligations under the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture include taking "effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture" (Article 2(1) of the Convention against Torture); investigating thoroughly and impartially all complaints of torture or ill-treatment (Article 12 of the Convention against Torture; Article 2 of the ICCPR); prosecuting suspected perpetrators in accordance with international standards for fair trial and punishing those found guilty (Article 4(2) of the Convention against Torture); and compensating victims of torture or ill-treatment (Article 14 of the Convention against Torture).

Amnesty International calls on Libya to also take preventive measures. In this context, it urges Libya to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (the Protocol), which allows independent international experts to conduct regular visits to places of detention within states parties, to assess the conditions of detention and the treatment of those detained and to make recommendations for improvements. The Protocol also requires states parties to set up national mechanisms to conduct visits to places of detention and to cooperate with the international experts. The Protocol received overwhelming support at the UN General Assembly when it was adopted in December 2002, but Libya abstained in the vote.

Amnesty International recalls that the UN Committee against Torture recommended on 11 May 1999 that 'the law and the practices of [Libya] be brought in line with article 3 of the Convention' (43). The Committee against Torture further recommended that Libya 'should send a clear message to all its law-enforcement personnel that torture is not permitted under any circumstances. In addition, those who committed the offence of torture should be subjected to a prompt and impartial investigation and rigorously prosecuted in accordance with the law' (44).


Corporal punishment

Corporal punishments provided by law remain in force. Amnesty International has received information that corporal punishments, including the amputation of the right hand and the left foot, have been carried out in recent years.

According to Libyan media reports(45), four men convicted of robbery under Law 13 of 1425(46) (Case 10/2002) had their right hand and left leg amputated on 3 July 2002, after the punishment was endorsed by the Supreme Court. Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad al-Sharif, Sayyid Muhammad Ahmad, Dahmu Muhammad Abu Bakr al-Sharif and Barkah Sidi Jira Barkah had been accused by the Public Prosecution of seizing by force some vehicles, telecommunications sets, food supplies and a quantity of fuel belonging to a Chinese company for oil exploration. The amputation was carried out after the Supreme Court had ruled on 25 June 2002 that the sentences were endorsed.

A number of laws passed since the 1970s have introduced corporal punishment for various crimes. They include Law 70 of 1973 which provides flogging as a punishment for those convicted of the crime of zina - adultery or fornication -(Articles 3 and 4); Law 52 of 1974 on had al-qadhaf - defamation - which also provides for flogging (see Article 4). Law 13 of 1425 on theft and haraba - highway robbery or rebellion - states that the accused convicted of theft is to be punished by having his right hand amputated (Article 2); for the crime of haraba, the death penalty is prescribed if there has been a killing, or cross amputation (right hand and left foot) (Article 5).

Amnesty International is further concerned that corporal punishments are provided in several articles of the draft Penal Code, which is currently being discussed.
- Article 317 imposes the punishment of 100 lashes on anyone convicted of adultery. In the case of incestuous adultery, the punishment is increased to life imprisonment and flogging.
- Article 318, relating to the crime of rape, states that the punishment is increased to execution by stoning in the case of incestuous rape.
- Article 345 imposes 80 lashes on anyone who falsely accuses another in any way of adultery.
- Article 350 imposes the punishment of amputation of the right hand for theft.
- Article 352 imposes the death penalty for armed robbery that results in death (regardless of whether or not theft occurred), and amputation of the right hand and left foot if the robbery resulted in theft but no death.

Amnesty International unconditionally opposes the judicial punishments of flogging and amputation, which inflict pain and suffering amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment(47). As a state party to the Convention against Torture, Libya is obliged not to impose any such punishments. In its Concluding Observations in 1999, the Committee against Torture stated that corporal punishment "should be abolished by law" (48).

2.4 Special courts and the independence of the judiciary


The People's Court

The principle of the independence of the judiciary is enshrined in the 1991 Law on the Promotion of Freedom, which states that "Judges are independent in their decisions and there is no authority above them [in their decision making] apart from the law" (Article 31). According to Article 5 of Law 5 of 1988 establishing the People's Court, "Members of the People's Court are independent and shall only be subject in their judgements to the law and their conscience".

However, Amnesty International is concerned that the People's Court continues to operate and that the legal proceedings before it fail to comply with minimum standards for fair trial, as guaranteed by Article 14 of the ICCPR. Many lawyers in Libya have already been refusing to practise before the People's Court in protest at the lack of adequate procedural guarantees for a fair trial. In February 2004 Amnesty International delegates were informed that the People's Court system was under review before the Basic People's Congresses and that there were recommendations for it to be abolished. 'Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, told Amnesty International that he personally agreed that the People's Court should be abolished. Moreover, while Colonel al-Gaddafi told Amnesty International that he thought the People's Court was a good idea in theory, he acknowledged that in reality it may not be. He expressed his willingness to review the system based on Amnesty International's analysis. Amnesty International supports calls within the country advocating the abolition of the People's Court.
In Libya, several judicial systems operate side by side. One is the ordinary criminal system, containing a prosecution service headed by the Public Prosecutor and criminal courts of first instance and appeal, presided over by a Supreme Court. Another relates to the People's Court(49). The current system of the People's Court, which has been in operation since the promulgation of Law 5 of 1988, contains its own prosecution service, the Popular Prosecution Office, in addition to courts of first instance and appeal. Within this second system, the Popular Prosecution Office has extensive powers, operating as both an examining magistrate and a prosecutor, as well as having the prerogatives of an arraignment chamber(50).

For over 15 years, the Libyan authorities have defended the system of the People's Court. In May 1988 the Libyan authorities wrote to Amnesty International, arguing that the People's Court was primarily established to promote human rights and enhance freedom. They also stated that the People's Court specializes in criminal offences, which include political and economic offences; complaints by citizens against the state, such as grievances relating to property confiscation and calls for compensation; and appeals against decisions taken by the Basic People's Congresses. In 1988 a new law was passed, redefining the role of the People's Court(51).

More recently, in a statement(52) commenting on Amnesty International Report 2002, the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security reiterated that the People's Court is an "independent body" which "maintains all legal safeguards with regard to levels of litigation and the rights of the defence"(53). In February 2004 Muhammad al-Misrati, then Secretary of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security, argued that the People's Court is a specialized and not an exceptional court as it primarily examines cases of "terrorism", torture, human rights and administrative corruption. He further argued that it is designed to expedite justice because its procedures do not suffer from the same prolonged delays that plague ordinary courts.

In February 2004, senior members of the judiciary briefed Amnesty International delegates on the composition and workings of the People's Court. According to them, the People's Court is primarily composed of legally-trained judges, although the statute does not specify that as a condition. They explained further that the court focuses on administrative and civil offences as well as criminal and political cases. It is bound by the Code of Criminal Procedure, which also applies in ordinary courts. They added that it provides for the right of defence, has a three-judge chamber at first instance and a five-judge chamber at appeal. Members of the judiciary also argued that the existence of exceptional courts should not deprive ordinary courts from their jurisdiction over the same range of offences.

A special court trying political cases
Amnesty International has brought to the attention of the Libyan authorities the cases of scores of people brought before this court for their real or alleged political activities, particularly under Law 71 of 1972 prohibiting party activities. Amnesty International has documented numerous cases in which the People's Court has handed down harsh sentences, including the death penalty and life imprisonment, primarily on the basis of confessions allegedly extracted under torture. In other cases, confessions of co-defendants that are neither corroborated by independent evidence nor by the admittance of the defendant in question have been used to secure a guilty verdict. The example of Ahmed 'Ali Abd al-Hamid al-Khafifi (page 30) is a case in point.

The cases brought before the People's Court have confirmed its role as a special court trying political cases. The UN Human Rights Committee has clarified that while the ICCPR does not prohibit trials of civilians in special courts, "the trying of civilians by such courts should be very exceptional and take place under conditions which genuinely afford the full guarantees stipulated in Article 14 [of the ICCPR]"(54). Article 5 of the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary guarantees the right "to be tried by ordinary courts or tribunals using established legal procedures. Tribunals that do not use the duly established procedures of the legal process shall not be created to displace the jurisdiction belonging to ordinary courts or judicial tribunals."

Amnesty International believes that there is no justification for maintaining the special People's Court system, which has operated as an instrument of political repression. It should be abolished and its jurisdiction transferred to the ordinary judicial system.
Violations of the rights of the accused
In trials before the People's Court documented by Amnesty International, international standards for fair trial, such as Article 14 of the ICCPR, are flagrantly violated. The rights of the accused are routinely violated, even in instances where these rights are guaranteed in Libyan law. These include the rights of detainees to access to the outside world, the right to appoint a lawyer of their own choosing, the right to trial within a reasonable time, the right to a public hearing, the right to be tried without undue delay and the right to a full review before a higher tribunal.

Amnesty International is further concerned by the role of the Popular Prosecution Office and the role of the People's Court in overseeing its actions. Pre-trial procedures, including detention, are overseen by the Popular Prosecution Office, which falls outside the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecutor and do not appear to fall under any judicial supervision. In the cases documented by Amnesty International, the People's Court has not questioned the lawfulness of incommunicado detention. To Amnesty International's knowledge, the court has neither ordered investigations into allegations of torture nor questioned the lawfulness of a confession said to have been extracted under torture. Inadequate legal representation has made it almost impossible for defendants to challenge the lawfulness of their pre-trial detention or to seek remedies for procedural irregularities.

Amnesty International is concerned that, with the exception of death penalty cases, appeals procedures fall entirely within the People's Court system and outside the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Law 7 of 1426 amending Law 5 of 1988 restricted the right to appeal (Article 16). Prior to this amendment, defendants had the right to two stages of review, one before a People's Court of Appeal and a second before the Supreme Court. Currently, only death penalty cases are subject to a further stage of review before the Supreme Court. Such a measure sustains the status of the People's Court as a special court with its own prosecution and appellate services. In addition, it lacks accountability to a higher judicial authority at all stages from arrest, interrogation and pre-trial detention, which may last for several years, to the verdict.


Violations of the right to trial without undue delay

One of the fundamental standards for a fair trial is the right to be tried without undue delay. The UN Human Rights Committee, commenting on Article 14(3)(c) of the ICCPR, which guarantees everyone the right to be tried without undue delay, stated that: "This guarantee relates not only to the time by which a trial should commence, but also the time by which it should end and judgement be rendered; all stages must take place "without undue delay". To make this right effective, a procedure must be available in order to ensure that the trial will proceed 'without undue delay', both in first instance and on appeal." (55)

In February 2004 Muhammad al-Misrati, then Secretary of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security, told Amnesty International that due to a backlog of cases more than 50 per cent of the prisoners in Libya are pre-trial detainees. The practice of prolonged pre-trial detention appears to be particularly widespread in political cases. There has been a long pattern in Libya of detaining political prisoners, in some cases for several years, without bringing them before a court of law. Until recently, political detainees were often held for many years without charge or trial.

The following cases illustrate the fate of detainees who have been denied the right to a trial without undue delay.

Detained for almost seven years without being presented before a judicial authority
Sudanese-born Jalal al-Din 'Uthman Bashir, born in 1969, was studying economics at Qar Younes University in Benghazi when he was summoned by the Internal Security Agency in connection with violent clashes in 1995 between armed Islamist groups and the authorities. He was arrested on 25 September 1995 and held initially by the Internal Security Agency. He told Amnesty International delegates that he was beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and had freezing water poured on him, and was then forced to sit in front of the air conditioning in order to force him to "confess". He said that, as a result of the torture, he was transferred to hospital on 7 October 1995 where he stayed for nearly three weeks.

Jalal al-Din 'Uthman Bashir further explained that he was brought before a prosecutor for the first time in August 2002 and that his trial before the People's Court began in mid-January 2003. He was sentenced on 13 October 2003 to life imprisonment in connection with his alleged support of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. He denies any connection with the accusations against him.

Detained more than four years without access to the judiciary
Ahmed Muhammad al-Taleb, a 39-year-old school inspector from Benghazi, was arrested in the early hours of 14 July 1998 when armed officers of the Internal Security Agency stormed his house without a warrant. He told Amnesty International that he was blindfolded, handcuffed and put in a car and taken to an unknown location pending investigation. He said that, during the investigation which lasted approximately 10 days, he was accused of belonging to the Islamic Alliance Movement and forced to divulge the names of people allegedly connected to this group. Ahmed Muhammad al-Taleb claimed that there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations made by the security forces and told Amnesty International delegates in February 2004: "I personally don't know the Islamic Alliance Movement".
After periods of detention in al-Hawari, al-'Uruba and 'Ayn Zara prisons, he was transferred on 5 December 1998 to Abu Salim Prison. For approximately two years his family did not know where he was. His mother, brother and sister visited him for the first time on 26 January 2002 after hearing only via 'unofficial' channels where he was held.
For more than four years, Ahmed Muhammad al-Taleb reportedly had no access to the judiciary, and was not even able to have legal counsel. He said that he was finally brought in mid-August 2002 before the Popular Prosecution Office where he discovered that dates in the file had been falsified: the file indicated that the arrest and investigation took place in 2002 instead of 1998. When he protested, the Popular Prosecutor reportedly replied that he should not worry. Ahmed Muhammad al-Taleb said that, "unfortunately, in Libya, people are not used to fair legal proceedings as there is no culture of the law nor of freedom".
According to Ahmed Muhammad al-Taleb, his trial began before the People's Court in the Police Academy in Tripoli in October 2002(56). His family were reportedly not allowed in the courtroom and he was defended by a court-appointed lawyer. On 16 January 2003, in a hearing reportedly held in camera, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of belonging to a prohibited organization under Law 71 of 1972. In the same case, others received sentences of between 10 years' and life imprisonment. Following the first instance verdict, he lodged an appeal, which had not started by February 2004.

In recent years, in addition to the waves of releases of long-term political prisoners, the Libyan authorities have increasingly begun to put detainees on trial. The recent trials of alleged members of the Muslim Brothers, of the Islamic Alliance Movement, of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and others arrested years ago have been a welcome, though overdue, development. However, there have been further delays in the appeals process.

In the case of the 152 alleged members of the Muslim Brotherhood arrested in 1998, hearings in the appeal trial have been repeatedly adjourned following the first instance verdict in February 2002. After the appeal trial began before the People's Court in the summer of 2002, hearings have taken place approximately every three months, and in many instances were reportedly adjourned without any discussion of the substance of the case.
Violations of the right to a lawyer of one's own choosing

While the right to have a lawyer is guaranteed by Libyan law(57), detainees are not advised of their right to legal representation during the period of interrogation. This was confirmed to Amnesty International delegates during a meeting with the then Public Prosecutor in February 2004, who clearly stated that the presence of a lawyer during the period of investigation was not prevented but that he did not see this as fundamentally important.

In many cases heard before the People's Court, defendants have not been allowed to choose their own lawyer. According to Article 13(58) of Law 5 of 1988 establishing the People's Court, the Popular Lawyers' Office is the institution which provides legal services for those standing trial before the People's Court. Neither this article nor others within Law 5 of 1988 explicitly give defendants the right to choose their own lawyer outside the Popular Lawyers' Office.

One lawyer described to Amnesty International delegates the way in which he was prevented from defending his client before the People's Court in Tripoli. At the end of 2000, following racist attacks against sub-Saharan Africans in Libya, a number of Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans were tried in connection with the events. This lawyer was appointed to defend a young Libyan accused of attacking a group of sub-Saharan Africans. When the lawyer went to the Popular Prosecution Office to look at the case file, he was refused access to the file and later prevented from entering the courtroom.

Once in court the accused is automatically appointed a lawyer, even if he declines the offer. Lawyers are usually appointed during the first hearing of the trial. The court appoints lawyers from the state Popular Lawyers' Office which, as explained to Amnesty International by the Director of its Tripoli Branch and his staff of lawyers, provides legal aid to those in financial need. While Amnesty International welcomes the opportunity offered to defendants in financial need to use court-appointed lawyers before the People's Court, there are many instances where court-appointed lawyers are imposed on defendants seeking to use lawyers of their own choice.

Several of the lawyers whom Amnesty International delegates met in February 2004 explained that in the vast majority of cases there is no time given to adequately review the case since they only receive the case file in the first trial session. With regard to cases featuring large numbers of defendants, it is not uncommon for the accused not to know who his or her lawyer is, particularly since each lawyer often represents dozens of clients. All of the individuals interviewed by Amnesty International said that their court-appointed Popular Lawyers had never met or questioned them about the charges brought against them. In short, there is usually very little contact, if any, between the lawyer and his or her client.

As a result of the shortcomings of trials before the People's Court, defendants often have little faith in a fair outcome of their trial. As Ramadan Mas'ud Shaglouf(59), sentenced by the People's Court to life imprisonment in January 2003 in connection with his peaceful activities relating to the Islamic Alliance Movement, told Amnesty International: "There is no point in having a private lawyer [of my own choosing]. It is just a waste of money because the verdict is already decided in advance"(60).


2.5 Application of the death penalty


No concrete steps toward the proclaimed objective of abolition

The abolition of the death penalty has been for the past 15 years a proclaimed objective of Libya. Article 8 of the Great Green Charter of Human Rights of the Jamahiriyan Era states that "the goal of the Jamahiriyan society is to abolish capital punishment". In February 2004 Colonel al-Gaddafi confirmed to Amnesty International his continued opposition to the death penalty. He said that he had called for its abolition since first asking the General People's Congress to do so in 1988, but Libya's decision-making bodies did not heed his appeals. 'Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, also stated to Amnesty International his personal opposition to the death penalty.

Amnesty International regrets that since 1988, no concrete steps seem to have been taken towards the abolition of the death penalty. The organization remains extremely concerned that capital punishment continues to be prescribed for a large number of offences, including for activities which merely amount to the peaceful exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and association, and that death sentences continue to be handed down and implemented. The authorities have clearly failed to reduce the scope of the death penalty to the "most serious crimes". Amnesty International is further concerned that the draft Penal Code contains 26 articles prescribing the death penalty. It maintains the death penalty for activities merely amounting to freedom of expression and association(61) and for a wide range of crimes, including hudud (62) crimes which are all punishable by death, among other punishments.

Amnesty International also regrets that Libya did not support the resolution on "The question of the death penalty" at the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2003, which called for the abolition of capital punishment and a moratorium on executions. On the contrary, Libya not only voted against the resolution but also supported the statement of dissociation of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, read out by Saudi Arabia, outlining the reasons for opposition to the resolution.

Executions continue to be carried out

Libyan law provides certain safeguards for the application of the death penalty. All death sentences, including those imposed by the People's Court, have to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, which can overturn the ruling in favour of the accused. When a death sentence is confirmed by the Supreme Court, it cannot be implemented without the consent of the Supreme Council of Judicial Bodies(63). However, death sentences have been pronounced after proceedings which violated international standards for fair trial, particularly in cases before the People's Court.

Amnesty International has received information that several prisoners under sentence of death had their sentence commuted. However, prisoners met by Amnesty International testified about the trauma of being brought to the scene of execution and being informed at the last minute that the execution would not be carried out.

During their February 2004 visit, Amnesty International delegates met Libyan nationals Ahmed Muhammad Kheir Farag al-Zalawi, 'Abdel Salam 'Abdel Salam Jum'a al-Gamaty and Ahmed 'Abdel Salam al-'Alem al-Sherif. In a ruling issued on 30 October 2001(64), the Supreme Court in Tripoli confirmed death sentences against the three men(65). Following their arrest in 2000 along with several others, they were accused of having used the Ahli Benghazi Football Club as a cover to form a clandestine and illegal group based on political ideas opposing the principles of the al-Fateh Revolution(66). The men told Amnesty International that they had been tortured in order to make them "confess".


On 10 February 2002 they were brought to a place for execution in the Jdeida Prison. They told Amnesty International delegates that they were blindfolded, attached to crosses and held there for over one hour waiting for their execution by

firing squad to take place. Eventually, instruction was given not to carry out the execution. The prisoners understood that their death sentences had been commuted but had no further information regarding the exact procedure or when this happened. Ahmed Muhammad Kheir Farag al-Zalawi, 'Abdel Salam 'Abdel Salam Jum'a al-Gamaty and Ahmed 'Abdel Salam al-'Alem al-Sherif continued to serve a prison sentence in al-Kuweifiya prison in Benghazi.

In another case, a Nigerian national, Nathaniel Notibo, and three Ghanaian nationals, were convicted of murder on 21 January 2003 and sentenced to death. Their sentences were reportedly commuted, just days after their execution was due to have been implemented.

In line with the worldwide trend towards the abolition of the death penalty, it is imperative that Libya does not delay further in taking concrete measures to realize its long-standing aim to abolish the death penalty. The UN Commission on Human Rights calls on all states that still maintain the death penalty "to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty"(67). Amnesty International delegates called on Colonel al-Gaddafi in February 2004 to consider calling for a moratorium on death sentences, and he replied that it was a good idea. However, no calls for a moratorium seem to have been made during the latest session of the General People's Congress, convened in March 2004, or since.

In the meantime, Amnesty International continues to receive unconfirmed reports that executions of people sentenced to death continue to be carried out. In the memorandum addressed to the authorities in February 2004, Amnesty International asked for detailed information on the number of death sentences passed and executions carried out in recent years, but received no response.
2.6 Collective punishment

International and regional human rights treaties, by which Libya is bound, stipulate that punishment for an offence may be imposed only on the offender and that the imposition of collective punishment is prohibited. However, Amnesty International is concerned that forms of "collective punishment" are sanctioned and continue to take place in Libya.

Provisions for collective punishment fall under what is known as the "Charter of Honour", a notion inspired by tribal customary law and institutionalized by the political system. Its application appears to fall outside the ordinary judicial system. UN treaty bodies have expressed deep concern regarding this law. In 1998 the UN Human Rights Committee expressed "deep concern that the law enacted in 1997 known as the 'Charter of Honour', which authorizes collective punishment for those found guilty of collective crimes (including 'obstructing the people's authority..., damaging public and private institutions'), violates several articles of the Covenant, including articles 7, 9 and 16"(68). In 2003 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that "the Collective Punishment Law, which may affect children, violates fundamental human rights principles"(69).

The transformation of a local tradition into a repressive political tool

Many Libyan tribes have, over decades, developed a "Charter of Honour", an unwritten customary law which regulates the behaviour of members of the tribe in many spheres of life, including at times of marriage and funerals, and is seen to act as a form of protection to the tribe as a whole.

In March 1997, during its annual session, the General People's Congress passed a resolution, also known as a "Charter of Honour", which was subsequently accompanied by Resolution 8 of 1428 relating to its application. These texts, while not as extensive as the tribal charters, do include provisions for what are termed "crimes", which are defined in very broad terms. Those deemed criminals are "[t]hose who carry out or encourage or give shelter to or defend any individual or group phenomenon or activity or behaviour, which can be described as treachery or heresy or corruption in any form...".

This "Charter of Honour" establishes the notion of collective responsibility for the actions of others at three main levels: the family; society; and at an official level. Further, the text of the Charter allows for the application of collective punishment to all members of a given group, whether small or large, believed to be linked to the "crime". As punishment, the Charter prescribes in broad terms deprivation of public services and publicly-funded projects. It appears that this can mean being deprived of the right to participate in the Basic People's Congress and of the right to benefit from public services, such as electricity, water and telephone, as well as access to food supplies, social benefits or basic administrative services.

During a visit on 26 February 2004 by Amnesty International delegates to the small town of Bani Walid, south of Tripoli, a local clan leader and local officials described the operation of a system, parallel to the official judicial system, in which clan leaders decide the innocence or guilt of an accused and allocate punishment for those found guilty of crimes such as murder and theft, as well as for "moral crimes", namely committing treacherous acts against the state or society. Therefore, those accused can face two punishments, one from the authorities, if legal proceedings are instigated, and another from the tribe.

The local clan leader went on to define "treacherous acts" as criticism of the state or society outside of the Basic People's Congresses and appropriate tribal channels. In his opinion, any criticism expressed outside the official structures necessarily implies personal ambitions to acquire political power. The crime of treachery is considered the most serious crime, resulting not only in the punishment of the individual who is alleged to have committed the act but also of his family. He told Amnesty International delegates that in such cases the appropriate punishment would be the expulsion of the immediate family from the area and removal of all traces of them, namely the demolition of their home.

While in Bani Walid, Amnesty International delegates met "offenders" and their relatives, who had been subjected to forms of collective punishment. Amnesty International was told that on 15 October 2002 six houses belonging to members of the al-Jadik clan were demolished in Bani Walid. Since 1993 members of the al-Jadik clan have reportedly been intermittently subjected to varying forms of punishment, including temporary suspension of basic services such as telephone and electricity, temporary eviction from their homes, not receiving a salary for prolonged periods, not being allowed to study or to work and being asked to leave the area.

Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik was reportedly among dozens of people, including army officers, who were arrested and held in prolonged incommunicado detention in unknown locations in connection with an attempted military coup, which took place in the city of Misrata in October 1993. Amnesty International met residents of Bani Walid who understood that they were being punished for Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik's alleged actions and his being cast as a "traitor". In late 1999 Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik's house was apparently demolished(70).
These measures can also be accompanied by others which fall within the official state structure, including the practice of arbitrary arrest and detention of family members of "traitors". In this case, Sawf al-Jadik, brother of Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik, was reportedly detained for almost five years without charge or trial between 16 August 1995 and 13 July 2000. He believes that this was also connected to the alleged activities of his brother.
On 10 September 2002 'Abd al-Wahab Sawf al-Jadik and Hussein Sawf al-Jadik, nephews of Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik, were arrested at a petrol station in Bani Walid. While detained, they were allegedly beaten with thick cables and beaten on the soles of the feet (falaqa). They were apparently given a blank piece of paper and asked to write their "confessions", which they reportedly related to the case of their uncle, Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik. 'Abd al-Wahab Sawf al-Jadik was released on 13 September 2002 but Hussein Sawf al-Jadik was apparently found hanging in the toilet in their cell. No investigation into the causes of his death is known to have been carried out and no death certificate has been provided to the family.
Amnesty International raised its concern about the treatment of members of the al-Jadik clan with the then Public Prosecutor, 'Umar 'Ali Shalbak, who said that he was not aware of the case but agreed to look into the matter and to open an investigation if he deemed that a crime may have taken place. At the time of writing, no such investigation is known to have been opened.

"If you try to affect our traditions and our customary law, you will cause many deaths amongst our people, you should realize that." These were the words said to the Amnesty International delegates in Bani Walid by the local clan leader, as he explained the house demolition of another former resident, Abdullah Muhammad Mas'ud Zubeida(71). While Amnesty International takes no position on tribal systems per se, it calls on the Libyan authorities to ensure that "Charters of Honour" are not used as a pretext to violate basic human rights.

3. The legacy of human rights violations

The legacy of human rights violations committed in the past continues to cast a long shadow on Libya's human rights record. They have taken place in a context of near-total lack of accountability over decades, which has perpetuated the suffering of victims and their relatives and continues to do so. The toll of this impunity has been the repetition of human rights violations and an undermining of the rule of law.

The Libyan authorities have not begun to address the gross human rights violations, to which hundreds of Libyan nationals have fallen victim in the past. These have included long-standing cases of political imprisonment and "disappearance". In addition, dozens of Libyan dissidents inside and outside the country have been killed over the past decades in circumstances suggesting that they were extrajudicially executed by members of the security forces or by agents working on behalf of the Libyan authorities(72). This formed part of a deliberate policy, known as "physical liquidation", used against political opponents, which appears to have been endorsed at the highest levels, including by Colonel al-Gaddafi himself.

Impunity denies truth and justice and undermines confidence in the justice system. Lasting human rights protection will not be achieved without proper investigations leading to fair trials in which perpetrators of human rights violations are brought to justice. By such measures, the authorities would send a clear message that human rights violations will not be tolerated and that those who commit such crimes will be held accountable before a court of law. Victims have the right to see justice done, to have the truth about what happened to them acknowledged and to receive compensation and other forms of reparations.


3.1 Deaths in custody


Inadequate information to families about the death of detained relatives

Around the time of the releases of political prisoners in 2001 and 2002, the authorities started to inform the families of other detainees that their relatives had died in custody. Initially, the authorities apparently posted lists of those who died on the walls of the prisons, including Abu Salim Prison in Tripoli. Soon afterwards, in what seems to have been the application of a new policy, officers of local branches of the Internal Security Agency either visited the families individually or summoned them to their office.

It appears that the families were usually informed orally of the death in custody of their relatives and that, at least initially, death certificates were not issued. When the families inquired about the date of the death, they reportedly either received no response or were told that the detainee had died some years earlier. Usually, no information was disclosed regarding the circumstances or cause of death. In at least three cases known to Amnesty International, when a death certificate was subsequently issued to the family it apparently stated simply that the prisoner had died of natural causes, without further explanation or any evidence. In all cases reported to Amnesty International, the authorities have refused to return the detainee's body to the family. The failure of the authorities to systematically deliver death certificates, to disclose fully the details of how the detainees died and to return their bodies has forced families to mourn the deceased without having formal evidence of the death or the circumstances surrounding it.


In May 2002 two such families were informed of the death of their relatives:
Ibrahim Khalifa Muhammad al-'Alwani, born in 1970 in al-Bayda; and Mustapha 'Ali al-Jihani, born in 1933 in Benghazi.
On 25 May 2002 members of the Internal Security Agency came to the house of Ibrahim Khalifa Muhammad al-'Alwani to inform his family that he had died in prison. When his brothers inquired about the cause of the death and asked for the body, they reportedly received no answer. Ibrahim Khalifa Muhammad al-'Alwani was arrested on 28 July 1995, along with one of his brothers, Faraj Khalifa Muhammad al-'Alwani, by several armed men dressed in civilian clothes, whose faces were covered with scarves. They were taken to a detention centre of the Internal Security Agency in al-Bayda. His brother was released three days later. Ibrahim Khalifa Muhammad al-'Alwani was transferred with eight others to an unknown location. After his transfer, there was no news about him whatsoever until the authorities informed the family nearly seven years later that he had died in custody. A death certificate was subsequently delivered to the family, which apparently stated that Ibrahim Khalifa Muhammad al-'Alwani died in Tripoli Hospital in 2001 without specifying the cause of death.
Mustapha 'Ali al-Jihani, a father of seven, was taken from his house on 19 June 1995 by members of the Internal Security Agency. When his family inquired about him at the office of the Internal Security Agency, they were informed that he had been transferred to Tripoli approximately seven days after his arrest. They heard that he was detained in Abu Salim Prison but received no official confirmation regarding his whereabouts. Despite all their efforts, Mustapha 'Ali al-Jihani's family had no contact with him from the time of his arrest and on 9 May 2002 officers of the Internal Security Agency informed the family that he had died. When they asked for the body and for a death certificate, officers of the Internal Security Agency reportedly refused, saying simply that Mustapha 'Ali al-Jihani had been ill and had died several years before. The Internal Security Agency gave the family permission to hold the mourning. A death certificate was subsequently delivered to the family.
Amnesty International does not have a comprehensive list of detainees who have died in custody and whose families have been informed of their deaths. In February 2004 the Geneva-based organization, Human Rights Solidarity, issued a list of 96 such prisoners. The majority were prisoners who had been arrested in mass arrests in 1989 and 1995. It is believed that some prisoners may have died as a result of diseases, such as epidemics of tuberculosis. Poor prison conditions, which were at their worst in the mid-1990s, may have contributed to these deaths. However, it is also feared that scores of others may have died in suspicious circumstances.
1996 events in Abu Salim Prison

It has been widely alleged that prisoners were killed in large numbers in June 1996 in Abu Salim Prison, located in a compound of the Military Police in the area of Abu Salim, a suburb of Tripoli. One of the reasons fuelling these allegations is that some families of prisoners who had received news from, or had been allowed visits to, their relatives up to 1996 were barred from visiting them and received no information at all since June 1996.

In February 2004, Colonel al-Gaddafi spoke to Amnesty International delegates about the events in Abu Salim Prison in 1996. This was the first time that the organization had heard official recognition that any such events took place. Colonel al-Gaddafi described the events as a tragedy. He said that one of the prison guards was handing out food to prisoners in their cells. When the guard reached the first cell, the prisoners attacked and killed him and stole his keys. Using his keys, they then opened all the other cells in the same block and the prisoners began to attack the guards, taking their weapons and killing some of them. Police from outside the prison intervened and there was an exchange of fire resulting in casualties, including deaths, on both sides. Those who were still alive were placed back in their cells. Colonel al-Gaddafi went on to say that a number of prisoners also managed to escape during these events and some even reached Afghanistan.

Another version heard by Amnesty International and based on the testimony of former prisoners is that, at the end of June 1996, a riot took place in Abu Salim Prison, apparently sparked off by appalling prison conditions. At least one guard was allegedly taken hostage by several prisoners who managed to steal his keys. The prisoners opened a number of cells but failed to escape from the prison as they were not able to open one of the gates. Security forces reportedly intervened at this stage, threatening to kill whoever attempted to approach the gate.

Shortly afterwards, a senior security official reportedly came to the prison and urged the prisoners to return to their cells. According to this version of events, as there was no sign of order being restored, the same senior official began to negotiate with a group of four prisoners. Their demands apparently included that the scores of prisoners in bad health be hospitalized; that adequate health care be provided to all prisoners; that they be allowed visits by their families; and that prisoners be given the right to a fair trial. Prisoners allegedly received guarantees that the first demand would be met. The negotiation continued until late in the night, after which prisoners returned to their cells.

Several prisoners have reported having heard shootings which lasted some two hours the following morning. At the time, they did not know what was happening but later heard from others that scores of prisoners had been killed. Estimated figures of the numbers of those killed range from tens to hundreds.

Immediately after the events of June 1996, Amnesty International wrote to Colonel al-Gaddafi urging that a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation be set up to establish the circumstances in which the prisoners were killed, and that the findings of the investigation and the names of those killed be made public(73). Since then, Amnesty International has repeatedly called for such an investigation but these calls have yielded no results. 'Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, told Amnesty International that he would provide the organization with information regarding these events but to date none had been received beyond what Colonel al-Gaddafi told Amnesty International's delegates.

Amid a general climate of fear in Libya to speak about human rights violations, the events of 1996 in Abu Salim Prison are of particular sensitivity. Many of those who had the courage to talk about the issue with Amnesty International delegates in February 2004 did so with great anxiety.

Abu Salim Prison's unique status was confirmed to Amnesty International by several Libyan officials in February 2004. 'Umar 'Ali Shalbak, the then Public Prosecutor, explained that Abu Salim Prison was supervised by the Internal Security Agency and did not fall under his jurisdiction. Major Belqassem al-Gargum, Director of the Prison Adminstration, also explained that it does not fall under his jurisdiction.

Urgent need for investigations into all deaths in custody

As Colonel al-Gaddafi told Amnesty International delegates in February 2004, "families have a right to know". In order for the truth to emerge, there is a pressing need for thorough, independent and impartial investigations to be carried out into all deaths in custody which occurred in the past, including those which took place at the time of the 1996 events in Abu Salim Prison.

Article 48 of Law 47 of 1975 on prisons requires that families be informed immediately when the life of relatives in prison is in danger in order that they can visit them. In cases of the death of a prisoner, the family must be informed and the body returned to them on request. The failure of the authorities to investigate all cases of death in custody is also a clear breach of their obligations under international human rights standards.

Amnesty International's calls for investigations into deaths in custody have recently been echoed within Libya. For example, the Human Rights Society of the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations called for investigations into cases of several prisoners who had died in custody in unclear circumstances(74). In recent years, several Libyan human rights organizations operating outside the country - including Human Rights Solidarity, the Libyan League for Human Rights and Libya Watch for Human Rights(75) - have made similar calls.

In a statement reported by the daily Arabic newspaper al-Hayat on 5 September 2003, the Secretariat of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security acknowledged "the death of some detainees in police stations" as "limited and known cases which are investigated by the public prosecution". However, it appears that the statement does not refer to the cases of people who died in prison and which have remained uninvestigated.

The Special Rapporteur on Torture raised seven cases of deaths in custody in Libya in a letter dated 3 September 1998, which remains without response. The cases raised by the Special Rapporteur on Torture include that of Muhammad al-Furtiya, who was aged in his early seventies, and who died at the end of 1994 or early 1995 in Abu Salim Prison. He was said to have been suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes and had reportedly not been receiving adequate medical care in the prison. He had been held without charge or trial since 1989(76).


3.2 Political prisoners who have "disappeared" in custody

According to Amnesty International's information, the fate of dozens of political prisoners, some imprisoned since the 1980s, remains unknown. They have effectively "disappeared". Human Rights Solidarity has published a list of 258 names of prisoners whose relatives have had no contact with them since their detention. In some cases, prisoners have been detained apparently without charge or trial for more than a decade. In other cases, even people who were acquitted by the court are believed to still be detained although their families have had no news for years.

Since his arrest in 1989, there has been no news of Belqassem al-Furtiya, an electrical engineer born in 1965 in Misrata. He was allegedly part of an unauthorized group calling peacefully for reform in society. In 1989, his family house was surrounded by members of the Internal Security Agency and Belqassem al-Furtiya, his father Muhammad and his brother Ismail were arrested. For the first few days, they were detained together in the office of the Internal Security Agency in Misrata. Shortly afterwards, Muhammad and Ismail were transferred to Tripoli and lost contact with Belqassem. Muhammad al-Furtiya died in Abu Salim Prison in 1994(77). Ismail al-Furtiya was released in 1995 without having been charged or tried.

There has been no news of Belqassem al-Furtiya since his arrest in 1989 despite repeated attempts by his family to approach the authorities or to get information from released prisoners. Like many other mothers in her situation, Belqassem al-Furtiya's mother, aged in her sixties, who already lost her husband in prison, lives with the daily reality of not knowing whether she will ever see her son again or whether she should mourn for him.

Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi, an engineer, born on 30 June 1955 in Benghazi, was taken for questioning on 18 April 1986. He remained held under investigation until July 1986. He returned home briefly before being arrested again on 26 July 1986.
He was reportedly accused of sabotage and membership of an illegal political organization, but was acquitted by a criminal court in 1987 due to a lack of evidence against him. However, he remained in detention. On 17 March 1990 Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi's family received a summons for him from the Popular Prosecution Office to appear before a criminal court in Tripoli. The court was apparently surprised to learn that Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi had not been released following his acquittal several years earlier.
Between 1981 and 1985, he had lived and studied in the United Kingdom (UK). During his time abroad, he became politically active in the opposition and organized many peaceful demonstrations in the UK, including a demonstration before the Libyan People's Bureau in London in 1984, during which British police officer, Yvonne Fletcher, was shot dead.
In April 1988 Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi's family was allowed to visit him in Abu Salim Prison where he was then detained. In June 1988 Amnesty International delegates visiting Libya were also able to visit him. Visits by the family then continued, with some interruptions, until June 1996. On 10 June 1996 his wife visited Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi for the last time.
Information from former prisoners indicates that he was last seen in Abu Salim Prison in June 1996. Other information has filtered out suggesting that until some three years ago, he was still alive. However, requests for information by his family to the authorities have gone unanswered. When he was arrested, his wife was pregnant. His now 17-year-old son, his elderly mother and the rest of the family have had no news about his fate and whereabouts for nearly eight years.
In February 2002 six men, including Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi(78), were reportedly sentenced to life imprisonment. Apparently, only two of the accused were present in the court room; they were Yousef Lahaywal and Najm al-Din al-Naquzi, who both later benefited from the wave of releases of political prisoners in September 2002.
During the February 2004 visit by Amnesty International, the Director of Abu Salim Prison, Milad Daman, told delegates that Ahmad 'Abd al-Qadir al-Thulthi was "alive and well" and being held in Benghazi. Requests by delegates to visit him there were not granted.

3.3 Developments in other "disappearances"

"If we had detained them, we would have the courage to say that we had done it", 'Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation told Amnesty International in February 2004 with reference to Libyan nationals who had "disappeared" abroad. He continued, "Why not investigate? We must reach the truth. Those who participated in these 'disappearances' are criminals".

Over the years, Amnesty International has worked to seek the truth in the cases of "disappearances" within and outside of Libya(79). With regard to all the people named below, families and other concerned parties have also sought clarification from the authorities about their fate and whereabouts but have received no concrete information. They continue to try to obtain answers from the authorities on whether their relatives are held in secret detention, have died in custody or were killed. However, no thorough, independent and impartial investigations by the Libyan authorities are known to have taken place into any of these "disappearances" and nor have those responsible been held to account.

Mansur al-Kikhiya, a human rights activist and the Secretary General of the National Libyan Alliance, an opposition group based abroad, "disappeared" in Cairo, Egypt in 1993. He had worked in the Libyan government for a number of years and resigned from office in 1980 in protest at the execution of political opponents by the Libyan authorities that year. Before his "disappearance", Mansur al-Kikhiya was attending the general conference of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo and was last seen on the evening of 10 December 1993 at the al-Safir Hotel.

Baha al-Kikhiya, Mansur al-Kikhiya's wife, told Amnesty International: "As a woman and as a mother, I have had to live with the suffering of not knowing where my husband is and whether he is still alive. My children and I just want to know the truth, whatever that may be".

In 2002 the Libyan authorities wrote to Amnesty International, stating that they had "conducted a series of investigations to determine [Mansur al-Kikhiya's] whereabouts" but that "[his] disappearance remains a mystery". The letter further proffered the theory that he may have been "forcibly abducted as part of a settlement of conflicts among competing groups or as part of tactics orchestrated by foreign intelligence services"(80). However, in February 2004, 'Abd al-Rahman Shalgam, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, was not able to offer any details about investigations into this "disappearance".

Jaballah Hamed Matar and 'Ezzat Youssef al-Maqrif, two prominent members of the Libyan opposition group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL), "disappeared" in Cairo in March 1990. Their whereabouts since that time have remained unknown, although unconfirmed reports have suggested that they were both handed over to the Libyan authorities.

Amnesty International has received information that at least until 1995 Jaballah Hamed Matar was detained in Libya. In 1995 he was reportedly seen by another prisoner in Abu Salim Prison in Tripoli. Amnesty International also received an audio taped message, said to be recorded in the early 1990s, in which Jaballah Matar confirmed that he was being held in a Libyan prison.
In 2001 Jaballah Hamed Matar's name reportedly appeared on an indictment of several people accused of belonging to a secret and prohibited organization and smuggling explosives from abroad (Case 2001/1). During the trial, the defence reportedly asked for Jaballah Hamed Matar to be brought to court, but this request yielded no result. In the verdict, pronounced by the Permanent Military Court on 5 February 2002, Mahmud Hamed Matar, a brother of Jaballah Hamed Matar, was sentenced to life imprisonment. At the time of writing, Mahmud Hamed Matar was said to be held in Abu Salim Prison. Amnesty International requested to meet him in February 2004 but he was not made available for interview.

Imam Musa al-Sadr, a prominent Iranian-born Shi'a cleric of Lebanese nationality, "disappeared", along with two others, Sheikh Muhammad Ya'qub and 'Abbas Badr al-Din, during a visit to Libya in 1978. In 2002 the Libyan authorities wrote to Amnesty International, saying that there was evidence showing that Imam Musa al-Sadr "departed Libya to travel to a European country" and expressing readiness "to cooperate in finding the truth about his disappearance"(81). The case of Imam Musa al-Sadr was also mentioned by Colonel al-Gaddafi in his annual address to the nation on 1 September 2002. According to media reports, Colonel al-Gaddafi said Imam Musa al-Sadr had "'disappeared' in Libya" and that it was imperative that a solution be found to clarify his fate.

Amnesty International suggested in February 2004 that the Libyan authorities consider forming joint investigation commissions with the countries where these people allegedly "disappeared" or to which they were nationals. Such commissions, which should be chaired by independent and impartial experts, would ensure that all the available information is shared and that further investigative steps are taken to clarify the fate of those individuals.

Amnesty International recalls that "disappearances" are a continuing crime. In other words, the violation continues as long as the fate and whereabouts of the victims have not been established. The UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1992, states in Article 17, "Acts constituting enforced disappearances shall be considered a continuing offence as long as the perpetrators continue to conceal the fate and the whereabouts of persons who have disappeared and these facts remain unclarified".(82)
4. Conclusion and recommendations

The human rights situation in Libya remains a matter of grave concern to Amnesty International. Laws, institutions and practices violating human rights continue to operate and the truth about past events remains undisclosed. Perpetrators enjoy impunity and victims suffer, often in silence. With few but important exceptions, Libyans remain afraid to engage in human rights activities in the country.

Despite positive developments in recent years and expressions of readiness to engage seriously with the human rights situation in Libya, the Libyan authorities have yet to undertake structural reforms and take other measures to redress violations. In this context, the legal system continues to produce new generations of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners likely to spend decades behind bars. Making sure that there is full accountability for the perpetrators and justice for the victims is also necessary to prevent the repetition of the human rights violations witnessed over the last three decades.

Amnesty International recommends that the Libyan authorities take, as a matter of urgency, the following steps:

Ensuring the rights to freedom of expression and association

? Release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally;
? Repeal all laws, including Law 71 of 1972 and relevant articles of the Penal Code, which criminalize activities which merely amount to the peaceful exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and association;
? Ensure that the draft Penal Code, currently under review, is amended to ensure that the provisions relating to the rights to freedom of expression and association conform with Libya's obligations under the ICCPR; and
? Ensure that, in law and in practice, "collective punishment" is prohibited, and never imposed to punish families of opponents or suspected opponents to the political system, or for any other reason.


Protecting human rights activism
? Ensure that all Libyan citizens can engage freely in human rights work, including by forming independent human rights associations, without legal or practical obstructions;
? Allow Libyan nationals to freely communicate on human rights matters both in the country and outside it without fear of reprisal; and
? Fully implement the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders).

Ending the practice of incommunicado detention

? Ensure that all detainees are brought before an independent judicial authority without delay to review the lawfulness and necessity of their detention;
? Give prompt and regular access to relatives, lawyers and doctors of the detainees' own choosing; and
? Send a clear message to the security forces, especially the Internal Security Agency, that incommunicado detention will not be tolerated and abuses will be punished.

Ending torture

? Amend the Penal Code to include a detailed definition of the crime of torture that fully reflects the definition of the Convention against Torture. All forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment should be prohibited;
? Ensure that all allegations of torture and ill-treatment are promptly, thoroughly, independently and impartially investigated and that the full findings of such investigations are made public;
? Ensure that confessions or other evidence obtained under torture are not admissible in a court of law;
? Ensure that all those responsible for torture and other human rights violations are brought to justice, as stipulated by Article 435 of the Libyan Penal Code;
? Stop implementing corporal punishments, including the amputation of a hand and foot as well as flogging;
? Repeal all provisions prescribing corporal punishment, including those contained in Law 70 of 1973, Law 52 of 1974 and Law 13 of 1425;
? Review the draft Penal Code, which is currently being discussed, to ensure that all forms of corporal punishment are abolished; and
? Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.


Guaranteeing the right to a fair trial
? Ensure that all detainees have access to legal counsel of their choice, and that court-appointed lawyers are not imposed on detainees who have the financial means and desire to hire a private lawyer;
? Ensure that both private lawyers and court-appointed lawyers are free from improper interference in the exercise of their professional duties, including by having sufficient access to their clients in order to prepare their defence;
? Ensure that members of the judiciary are free from external intervention or influence, not only in law but also in practice;
? Abolish the People's Court and related institutions, including the Popular Prosecution Office, and transfer all pending cases to the jurisdiction of the ordinary criminal court system; and
? Review all cases of prisoners who were tried by the People's Court. They should be retried before ordinary courts, in full compliance with international standards for fair trial, if they are not to be released.


Taking steps toward the abolition of the death penalty
? Announce a moratorium on executions, in line with the call by the UN Commission on Human Rights to all states that still maintain the death penalty "to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty";
? Review all Libyan laws and the draft Penal Code to ensure that the death penalty is restricted to the "most serious crimes", as required by the ICCPR, with a view to its early abolition; and
? Ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.


Ensuring truth, accountability and reparations for human rights violations
? Carry out thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all cases of extrajudicial executions, including those resulting from the policy of "physical liquidation";
? Ensure that the families of all those who died in custody over the years receive detailed information regarding the circumstances of the deaths of their relatives;
? Ensure that a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the killings in Abu Salim Prison in June 1996 is carried out, that the findings are made public and that the families are informed of the fate of their relatives involved in those events;
? Transfer jurisdiction of Abu Salim Prison to the ordinary prison system;
? Fully clarify the fate of all other prisoners still unaccounted for;
? Make immediately public the information available regarding all those who "disappeared" inside or outside Libya, including the Libyan nationals abducted in Cairo in 1990 and 1993, and hold independent, impartial and thorough investigations into these cases;
? Consider establishing joint mechanisms of inquiry with states relevant to these cases, in order to facilitate the establishment of the truth about what happened to those who "disappeared";
? Ensure that no arbitrary measures are imposed on former prisoners after their release;
? Ensure that all those responsible for human rights violations are held to account, including through prosecutions where crimes were committed, regardless of the rank or status of the perpetrators; and
? Establish an independent and impartial body to ensure that all those who have been victims of human rights violations, including torture, arbitrary detention or imprisonment after unfair trials receive full reparations, including rehabilitation and compensation.

Ratifying human rights treaties and cooperating with UN mechanisms

? Ratify further international human rights treaties, including the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court;
? Extend a standing invitation to all the UN Commission on Human Rights' special procedures and implement their recommendations;
? Submit periodic reports to the UN treaty monitoring bodies on time and in accordance with reporting guidelines; and
? Implement the recommendations of the treaty monitoring bodies following consideration of periodic reports and communications, in particular those made by the Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee.


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(1) After the independence of Libya in 1951, political parties were banned in 1952 under the monarchy of King Idris al-Sanusi.


(2) Libya became a State Party to the ICCPR in 1976.


(3) The first visit of this kind took place in October 2003 when the UK-based International Centre for Prison Studies conducted a visit focusing on prison conditions.


(4) For further details, see: Libya: Amnesty International's Concerns in the Light of Recent Legal Reforms (AI Index: MDE 19/02/91); and Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation (AI Index: MDE 19/08/97).


(5) UN Security Council Resolution 1506


(6) ibid


(7) For full details of the case, see section below, entitled Unlawful detention


(8) More details of their activities can be found at http://www.gaddaficharity.org


(9) The delegation was composed of Claudio Cordone, Senior Director, International Law and Organizations; Abdel Salam Sidahmed, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program; and Sara Hamood and J?r?me Bellion-Jourdan, experts on Libya in the Middle East and North Africa Program. During the 1990s, despite the lack of access to the country, Amnesty International issued several reports and made specific recommendations to the Libyan authorities. Among them: Libya: Amnesty International's prisoner concerns in the light of recent legal reforms (AI Index: MDE 19/02/91, June 1991); and Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation (AI Index: 19/08/97, June 1997).


(10) After a government reshuffle, reported on 6 March 2004, the post of Secretary of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security, previously held by Muhammad al-Misrati, was replaced by the creation of two new posts, one in charge of Justice, held by 'Ali 'Umar Abu Bakr, and one in charge of Public Security, held by Nasser al-Mabruk. Muhammad al-Misrati was appointed Public Prosecutor, replacing 'Umar 'Ali Shalbak.


(11) The Popular Lawyers' Office is comprised of state-appointed lawyers who provide legal aid services. They are linked to the system of the People's Court. For further details, see section below, entitled Special courts and the independence of the judiciary.


(12) Libya: Towards ensuring human rights protection - Initial findings of Amnesty International visit (AI Index: MDE 19/005/2004, March 2004)


(13) Reports of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the UN Counter-Terrorism: S/2001/1323, 31 December 2001 and S/2002/1021, 13 September 2002


(14) For example, see: USA: The threat of a bad example - Undermining international standards as "war on terror" detentions continue (AI Index: AMR 51/114/2003, August 2003); and The backlash: human rights at risk throughout the world (AI Index: ACT 30/027/2001, October 2001).


(15) This includes ensuring respect for fundamental rights, such as the requirement that detainees be brought before a judicial authority without delay, as stipulated by Article 9(4) of the ICCPR and by Principle 11(1) of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (Body of Principles). People deprived of their liberty also have the right of prompt access to and assistance of a lawyer; the right to be informed immediately upon arrest of the reasons for their arrest and promptly informed of any charges brought against them; and the right to a fair trial. These rights are also contained in the ICCPR and the Body of Principles.


(16) Report of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the UN Counter-Terrorism, S/2002/1021, 13 September 2002.


(17) Amnesty International has also raised concerns relating to the definition of terrorism in the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, which Libya has ratified. For a detailed analysis of the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, see: Amnesty International. The Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism: A serious threat to human rights (AI Index: IOR 51/001/2002, January 2002).


(18) Amnesty International calls for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience - those detained for their political, religious or other conscientiously-held beliefs or because of their ethnic origin, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, economic status, birth or other status - who have not used or advocated violence. The organization calls for political prisoners, who are accused or having used or advocated violence, to be tried for recognisably criminal offences in accordance with international standards for fair trial and without recourse to the death penalty, or be released.


(19) Al-Jama'a al-Islamiya al-Libiya, the Libyan Islamic Group, should not be confused with al-Jama'a al-Islamiya al-Libiya al-Muqatila, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. According to Amnesty International's information, the Libyan Islamic Group does not use or advocate the use of violence.


(20) Case 254/2000


(21) For details, see section below, entitled Legal provisions


(22) However, satellite television is widely viewed by Libyans and access to the Internet is available.


(23) Despite repeated requests by the Amnesty International delegation visiting Libya in February 2004 to meet Fathi al-Jahmi, he was not made available. He was reportedly transferred from Abu Salim Prison to 'Ayn Zara Prison, located in the outskirts of Tripoli, during the visit.


(24) Article 19(2). Article 19(3) recalls that this article carries special duties and responsibilities, rendering it subject to certain restrictions, namely "(a) ...respect of the rights or reputation of others; (b) ... protection of national security or of public order...or of public health."


(25) Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. CCPR/C/79Add.101, Para.15


(26) In its Concluding observations on the Republic of Korea's Second Periodic Report (1 November 1999, CCPR/C/79/Add.114, para. 9), the UN Human Rights Committee stated that "[t]he Covenant does not permit restrictions on the expression of ideas, merely because they coincide with those held by an enemy entity or may be considered to create sympathy for that entity."


(27) These included the Libyan Red Crescent Society; Hana Philanthropic Association for Orphans; Watismo Charity Society; and the Islamic Call Association, among others.


(28) Concluding Observations of the Committee against Torture: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. 11/05/99, para.184


(29) Article 6 of the Declaration notably states:


"Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others: [...]


(b) As provided for in human rights and other applicable international instruments, freely to publish, impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms;


(c) To study, discuss, form and hold opinions on the observance, both in law and in practice, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and, through these and other appropriate means, to draw public attention to those matters."


(30) Safeguards within the Criminal Procedure Code include: the necessity to produce an arrest warrant (Article 30); limiting the period of detention (Articles 26, 115, 122, 123, 124 and 175); the right of detainees to challenge the legality of the detention (Article 33); the right to be informed of the charges brought against them (Article 105); the right to legal counsel (Article 106); and prompt access to a judicial authority (Article 112). In addition, Article 53 of Law 47 of 1975 on prisons provides the right to lawyers to visit their clients in custody.


(31) See, for example, the statement issued on 10 August 2003 by the Secretariat of the General People's Committee for Justice and Public Security.


(32) Case 120/98


(33) In February 2004, the deputy head of the External Security Agency assured Amnesty International delegates that this agency did not hold people and ran no place of detention.


(34) Case 120/98


(35) The news was reported in al-Jazeera TV, Agence France Press and the British Broadcasting Corporation.


(36) Forcible return/fear of torture or ill-treatment of seven Libyans deported from Jordan (AI Index: MDE 19/01/00, EXTRA 21/00, 7 March 2000)


(37) Case 120/98


(38) In 2003 the Criminal Procedure Code was amended by Law 3 of 1371 reducing the maximum number of days a person can be detained before they must appear before a prosecutor from 45 to 30.


(39) Case 104/2003


(40) Concluding Observations of the Committee against Torture: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. 11/05/99, para.182


(41) Article 4(2) of the Convention against Torture


(42) Prosecutors originally gave the number of infected children as 393, but at a trial session in September 2003, they increased the number to 426.


(43) Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 11 May 1999, para.11


(44) Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 11 May 1999, para.13


(45) Libya: Limbs of four people amputated, BBC (Text of report by Libyan radio), 4 July 2002.


(46) In Libya, three different calendars are used: the Gregorian calendar; the Hijra calendar; and another beginning in the year of the death of the Prophet Muhammad.


(47) In 2003 the UN Special Rapporteur on torture argued that he cannot accept the notion that the administration of such punishments as stoning to death, flogging or amputation - acts which would be unquestionably unlawful in, say, the context of custodial interrogation - can be deemed lawful simply because the punishment has been authorized in a procedurally legitimate manner. See Appendix 15, Corporal punishment: Observations of the Special Rapporteur on torture in combating torture - a manual for action (AI Index: ACT 40/001/2003, June 2003).


(48) Concluding Observations of the Committee against Torture: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. 11/05/99.


A/54/44, para.189.


(49) In February 2004, Amnesty International also raised the issue of other special courts with the Libyan authorities, namely the Permanent Revolutionary Court and the Military Court. However, Amnesty International did not obtain detailed information about their functioning.


(50) Article 19 of Law 5 of 1988.


(51) Law 5 of 1988 establishing the People's Court


(52) Sent to Amnesty International on 29 October 2002


(53) During their February 2004 visit, Amnesty International delegates repeatedly requested a meeting with the President of the People's Court, who presides over the whole system, including the Popular Prosecution, but were not granted such a meeting. In addition, delegates requested numerous court documents from the People's Court but these were not made available.


(54) General Comment 13 of the Human Rights Committee: Equality before the courts and the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent court established by law (Article 14), 13 April 1984.


(55) ibid


(56) Case 333/2002


(57) Article 106 of the Criminal Procedure Code.


(58) As amended in 1427. It appears that in the original law of 1988 defendants enjoyed higher levels of guarantees of the right to legal counsel: Article 13 stated that the court would only appoint a lawyer from the Popular Lawyers' Office if the accused had not already chosen someone for his defence.


(59) For case details, see section entitled Prisoners of conscience


(60) Prisoners sentenced by the People's Court also reportedly suffer from different treatment, such as not being eligible for release on grounds of good behaviour after having completed three-quarters of their sentence; not being allowed to work while in prison; and not being allowed extended family visits.


(61) For further details, see section above, entitled Criminalization of rights to freedom of expression and association


(62) Specific penalties sanctioned by shari'a, Islamic law.


(63) Article 131 of Law 51 of 1976 on the organization of the judiciary, amended by Law 10 of 1425


(64) Case 48/1551


(65) Case 353/2000


(66) After these events took place, an article was added to the Penal Code by Law 15 of 2002 providing for punishment including the death penalty for taking part in riots or demonstrations during or after a sporting event (Article 198 bis of the Penal Code).


(67) UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2003/67 adopted on 24 April 2003


(68) Concluding observation of the Human Rights Committee: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, CCPR/C/79/Add.101, 6 November 1998, para.12


(69) Concluding observation of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, CRC/C/15/Add.209, 4 July 2003, para.45(c)


(70) Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik appeared, with three others, on Libyan television in early March 1994. While being interrogated at length on camera, they confessed to being American "spies" and to having been recruited as US intelligence agents by members of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. It was alleged they had been tortured into making these confessions. Charges against them included spying, treason, "instigation of violence, use of armed forces channels to achieve political and social goals" and "cooperation with the enemy to harm the interests of the country", all of which are punishable by death.


They were tried by a lower military court in 1995, which reportedly handed down sentences of up to life imprisonment on at least 12 people. However, the Libyan authorities were said to have ordered a retrial on the grounds that the initial sentences were too lenient. The men were retried by a military court at the end of December 1995 and 12 were sentenced to death.


On 2 January 1997 Libyan television stated that eight men - six senior army officers and two civilians - were executed after the Supreme Military Court upheld their death sentences. The court sentenced at least five men to prison terms and acquitted at least five others. The six army officers executed included Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik. (For further details, please refer to: Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation [AI Index: MDE 19/08/97]) Major Khalil Salem Muhammad al-Jadik's family was reportedly not directly informed of his execution.


(71) In its report, entitled Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation (AI Index: MDE 19/08/97, June 1997), Amnesty International raised the case of 'Abdallah Muhammad Mas'ud Zubeida, an alleged member of the banned Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami, the Islamic Liberation Party, who "disappeared" after his reported arrest in 1982.


(72) While not detailed in this report, such cases have been previously raised by Amnesty International. For further information, see Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation (AI Index: MDE 19/08/97, June 1997).


(73) Libya: Political prisoners in Abu Salim Prison, Tripoli - Fear for safety / Deliberate killings / Medical neglect (Urgent Action 188/96, AI Index: MDE 19/05/96, July 1996).


(74) For details, see their five-page report, entitled Report on Human Rights in Libya (17/07/2003)


(75) For further details, see their websites: http://www.lhrs.ch and http://www.libya-watch.org. The Libyan League for Human Rights does not have a website but can be contacted at allibyah@yahoo.com


(76) See Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation (AI Index: MDE 19/08/97, June 1997)


(77) For details, see section above, entitled Urgent need for investigations into all deaths in custody


(78) The five others were: Mustapha Bin Daga, 'Ali al-Zirqani and 'Ali Kanunu, who had been released in 1988; and Yousef Lahawyal and Najm al-Din al-Naquzi.


(79) For examples, see Libya: Gross human rights violations amid secrecy and isolation (AI Index: MDE 19/08/97) and Libya: Time to break the 10-year silence on Mansour al-Kikhiya (AI Index MDE 19/021/2003, December 2003).


(80) Response of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the 2002 Annual Report of Amnesty International - December 2002


(81) Response of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the 2002 Annual Report of Amnesty International - December 2002


(82) The continuing nature of "disappearances" is also explicitly mentioned in the draft International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Forced Disappearance, Article 5 of which states:

"This offence is continuous and permanent as long as the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person have not been determined with certainty."


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>> DIRT BAG? WHERE?


Arafat Fortifies Compound Fearing Attack
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH
Associated Press Writer
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Fearing Israel will seize him, Yasser Arafat fortified his West Bank headquarters with hundreds of concrete-filled barrels and wrecked cars Thursday, saying he's determined to go down fighting.
Israel, which has repeatedly threatened the Palestinian leader, said it has no immediate plan to go after Arafat. One senior Israeli official said Arafat and his aides are being "hysterical" - although Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned only last month he is no longer bound by a promise to the United States not to harm Arafat.
Palestinian officials said the obstacles in the courtyard are meant to slow tanks and prevent helicopters from landing nearby, but he acknowledged that heaps of scrap metal would not hold back the Middle East's mightiest army for long.
Israel has confined the 74-year-old Arafat to his Ramallah offices for more than two years. In September, Israel's Cabinet decided Arafat should be "removed" and has repeatedly threatened him since then, but never taken any action.
Arafat's aides would not say what spooked the Palestinian leader.
However, he has become increasingly jittery since Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March. Yassin had widely been considered immune, with Palestinians assuming Israel would be held back by concern about a bloody backlash. After Israel killed Yassin - and Hamas failed to carry out a major revenge attack - Arafat increasingly feared he might be next, his aides said.
Israeli jeeps drive close to Arafat's compound from time to time, and sometimes park outside for hours. Recent visitors to Arafat's compound said he asked them on arrival whether they had seen Israeli jeeps in the vicinity. "They usually come after midnight. Today, they came early," Arafat was quoted as saying.
Arafat said he wouldn't go down without a fight. "I am going to enter this battle with my gun by my side," a visitor quoted Arafat as saying Wednesday over a supper of salads and cooked vegetables. "I will resist until I become a martyr."
Israel has contingency plans for seizing and expelling Arafat, and troops have practiced taking over his compound. However, it is believed Israel would not act without provocation, such as a major attack by Palestinian militants.
Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin said there is no immediate plan to raid Arafat's compound. "We are not going to carry out any operation, but they are hysterical," Gissin said of Arafat and his aides.
Sharon said last month he is no longer bound by a promise to President Bush not to harm Arafat. Although the United States rebuked Sharon for the comments, the veiled threat raised speculation that Israel might target Arafat, whom it accuses of backing Palestinian militants.
Earlier this week, Israeli troops briefly surrounded Arafat's compound during an overnight raid. The army said Arafat was not the target, but Palestinian officials said the veteran leader fears for his life.
"We have a real concern that they (Israeli troops) may come here," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.
On Thursday, cement mixers filled hundreds of blue barrels with concrete, and they were then scattered across the main courtyard outside Arafat's compound. Bulldozers also spread dozens of wrecked cars - remnants of previous Israeli raids - across the courtyard.
Security officials said they also set up a new system to alert Arafat's guards if Israelis approach the compound, but gave no details.
Addressing a rally in the Gaza Strip by phone Thursday, Arafat said the Palestinians are ready to meet their obligations under the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan and hope to resume negotiations with Israel. However, the plan has been stuck since its launch last year, and neither side has kept its promises.
The Palestinians are to dismantle violent groups, and Israel is to freeze settlement construction and remove West Bank outposts. Instead, Israel's Housing Ministry has funneled nearly $6.5 million to outposts and illegal construction in the past three years, a government watchdog reported Wednesday.
Sharon has been weighing his options since his Likud Party on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected his proposal to pull out of the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements. Sharon had said the plan would boost Israel's security in the absence of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

When Islam Breaks Down
Theodore Dalrymple



My first contact with Islam was in Afghanistan. I had been through Iran overland to get there, but it was in the days of the Shah's White Revolution, which had given rights to women and had secularized society (with the aid of a little detention, without trial, and torture). In my naive, historicist way, I assumed that secularization was an irreversible process, like the breaking of eggs: that once people had seen the glory of life without compulsory obeisance to the men of God, they would never turn back to them as the sole guides to their lives and politics.

Afghanistan was different, quite clearly a pre-modern society. The vast, barren landscapes in the crystalline air were impossibly romantic, and the people (that is to say the men, for women were not much in evidence) had a wild dignity and nobility. Their mien was aristocratic. Even their hospitality was fierce. They carried more weapons in daily life than the average British commando in wartime. You knew that they would defend you to the death, if necessary--or cut your throat like a chicken's, if necessary. Honor among them was all.

On the whole I was favorably impressed. I thought that they were freer than we. I thought nothing of such matters as the clash of civilizations, and experienced no desire, and felt no duty, to redeem them from their way of life in the name of any of my own civilization's ideals. Impressed by the aesthetics of Afghanistan and unaware of any fundamental opposition or tension between the modern and the pre-modern, I saw no reason why the West and Afghanistan should not rub along pretty well together, each in its own little world, provided only that each respected the other.

I was with a group of students, and our appearance in the middle of a country then seldom visited was almost a national event. At any rate, we put on extracts of Romeo and Juliet in the desert, in which I had a small part, and the crown prince of Afghanistan (then still a kingdom) attended. He arrived in Afghanistan's one modern appurtenance: a silver convertible Mercedes sports car--I was much impressed by that. Little did I think then that lines from the play--those of Juliet's plea to her mother to abrogate an unwanted marriage to Paris, arranged and forced on her by her father, Capulet--would so uncannily capture the predicament of some of my Muslim patients in Britain more than a third of a century after my visit to Afghanistan, and four centuries after they were written:

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
How often have I been consulted by young Muslim women patients, driven to despair by enforced marriages to close relatives (usually first cousins) back "home" in India and Pakistan, who have made such an unavailing appeal to their mothers, followed by an attempt at suicide!

Capulet's attitude to his refractory daughter is precisely that of my Muslim patients' fathers:

Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near, lay hand on heart, advise:
And you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall ever do thee good.
In fact the situation of Muslim girls in my city is even worse than Juliet's. Every Muslim girl in my city has heard of the killing of such as she back in Pakistan, on refusal to marry her first cousin, betrothed to her by her father, all unknown to her, in the earliest years of her childhood. The girl is killed because she has impugned family honor by breaking her father's word, and any halfhearted official inquiry into the death by the Pakistani authorities is easily and cheaply bought off. And even if she is not killed, she is expelled from the household--O sweet my mother, cast me not away!--and regarded by her "community" as virtually a prostitute, fair game for any man who wants her.

This pattern of betrothal causes suffering as intense as any I know of. It has terrible consequences. One father prevented his daughter, highly intelligent and ambitious to be a journalist, from attending school, precisely to ensure her lack of Westernization and economic independence. He then took her, aged 16, to Pakistan for the traditional forced marriage (silence, or a lack of open objection, amounts to consent in these circumstances, according to Islamic law) to a first cousin whom she disliked from the first and who forced his attentions on her. Granted a visa to come to Britain, as if the marriage were a bona fide one--the British authorities having turned a cowardly blind eye to the real nature of such marriages in order to avoid the charge of racial discrimination--he was violent toward her.

She had two children in quick succession, both of whom were so severely handicapped that they would be bedridden for the rest of their short lives and would require nursing 24 hours a day. (For fear of giving offense, the press almost never alludes to the extremely high rate of genetic illnesses among the offspring of consanguineous marriages.) Her husband, deciding that the blame for the illnesses was entirely hers, and not wishing to devote himself to looking after such useless creatures, left her, divorcing her after Islamic custom. Her family ostracized her, having concluded that a woman whose husband had left her must have been to blame and was the next thing to a whore. She threw herself off a cliff, but was saved by a ledge.

I've heard a hundred variations of her emblematic story. Here, for once, are instances of unadulterated female victimhood, yet the silence of the feminists is deafening. Where two pieties--feminism and multiculturalism--come into conflict, the only way of preserving both is an indecent silence.

Certainly such experiences have moderated the historicism I took to Afghanistan--the naive belief that monotheistic religions have but a single, "natural," path of evolution, which they all eventually follow. By the time Christianity was Islam's present age, I might once have thought, it had still undergone no Reformation, the absence of which is sometimes offered as an explanation for Islam's intolerance and rigidity. Give it time, I would have said, and it will evolve, as Christianity has, to a private confession that acknowledges the legal supremacy of the secular state--at which point Islam will become one creed among many.

That Shakespeare's words express the despair that oppressed Muslim girls feel in a British city in the twenty-first century with much greater force, short of poisoning themselves, than that with which they can themselves express it, that Shakespeare evokes so vividly their fathers' sentiments as well (though condemning rather than endorsing them), suggests--does it not?--that such oppressive treatment of women is not historically unique to Islam, and that it is a stage that Muslims will leave behind. Islam will even outgrow its religious intolerance, as Christian Europe did so long ago, after centuries in which the Thirty Years' War, for example, resulted in the death of a third of Germany's population, or when Philip II of Spain averred, "I would rather sacrifice the lives of a hundred thousand people than cease my persecution of heretics."

My historicist optimism has waned. After all, I soon enough learned that the Shah's revolution from above was reversible--at least in the short term, that is to say the term in which we all live, and certainly long enough to ruin the only lives that contemporary Iranians have. Moreover, even if there were no relevant differences between Christianity and Islam as doctrines and civilizations in their ability to accommodate modernity, a vital difference in the historical situations of the two religions also tempers my historicist optimism. Devout Muslims can see (as Luther, Calvin, and others could not) the long-term consequences of the Reformation and its consequent secularism: a marginalization of the Word of God, except as an increasingly distant cultural echo--as the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the once full "Sea of faith," in Matthew Arnold's precisely diagnostic words.

And there is enough truth in the devout Muslim's criticism of the less attractive aspects of Western secular culture to lend plausibility to his call for a return to purity as the answer to the Muslim world's woes. He sees in the West's freedom nothing but promiscuity and license, which is certainly there; but he does not see in freedom, especially freedom of inquiry, a spiritual virtue as well as an ultimate source of strength. This narrow, beleaguered consciousness no doubt accounts for the strand of reactionary revolt in contemporary Islam. The devout Muslim fears, and not without good reason, that to give an inch is sooner or later to concede the whole territory.

This fear must be all the more acute among the large and growing Muslim population in cities like mine. Except for a small, highly educated middle class, who live de facto as if Islam were a private religious confession like any other in the West, the Muslims congregate in neighborhoods that they have made their own, where the life of the Punjab continues amid the architecture of the Industrial Revolution. The halal butcher's corner shop rubs shoulders with the terra-cotta municipal library, built by the Victorian city fathers to improve the cultural level of a largely vanished industrial working class.

The Muslim immigrants to these areas were not seeking a new way of life when they arrived; they expected to continue their old lives, but more prosperously. They neither anticipated, nor wanted, the inevitable cultural tensions of translocation, and they certainly never suspected that in the long run they could not maintain their culture and their religion intact. The older generation is only now realizing that even outward conformity to traditional codes of dress and behavior by the young is no longer a guarantee of inner acceptance (a perception that makes their vigilantism all the more pronounced and desperate). Recently I stood at the taxi stand outside my hospital, beside two young women in full black costume, with only a slit for the eyes. One said to the other, "Give us a light for a fag, love; I'm gasping." Release the social pressure on the girls, and they would abandon their costume in an instant.

Anyone who lives in a city like mine and interests himself in the fate of the world cannot help wondering whether, deeper than this immediate cultural desperation, there is anything intrinsic to Islam--beyond the devout Muslim's instinctive understanding that secularization, once it starts, is like an unstoppable chain reaction--that renders it unable to adapt itself comfortably to the modern world. Is there an essential element that condemns the Dar al-Islam to permanent backwardness with regard to the Dar al-Harb, a backwardness that is felt as a deep humiliation, and is exemplified, though not proved, by the fact that the whole of the Arab world, minus its oil, matters less to the rest of the world economically than the Nokia telephone company of Finland?

I think the answer is yes, and that the problem begins with Islam's failure to make a distinction between church and state. Unlike Christianity, which had to spend its first centuries developing institutions clandestinely and so from the outset clearly had to separate church from state, Islam was from its inception both church and state, one and indivisible, with no possible distinction between temporal and religious authority. Muhammad's power was seamlessly spiritual and secular (although the latter grew ultimately out of the former), and he bequeathed this model to his followers. Since he was, by Islamic definition, the last prophet of God upon earth, his was a political model whose perfection could not be challenged or questioned without the total abandonment of the pretensions of the entire religion.

But his model left Islam with two intractable problems. One was political. Muhammad unfortunately bequeathed no institutional arrangements by which his successors in the role of omnicompetent ruler could be chosen (and, of course, a schism occurred immediately after the Prophet's death, with some--today's Sunnites--following his father-in-law, and some--today's Shi'ites--his son-in-law). Compounding this difficulty, the legitimacy of temporal power could always be challenged by those who, citing Muhammad's spiritual role, claimed greater religious purity or authority; the fanatic in Islam is always at a moral advantage vis-?-vis the moderate. Moreover, Islam--in which the mosque is a meetinghouse, not an institutional church--has no established, anointed ecclesiastical hierarchy to decide such claims authoritatively. With political power constantly liable to challenge from the pious, or the allegedly pious, tyranny becomes the only guarantor of stability, and assassination the only means of reform. Hence the Saudi time bomb: sooner or later, religious revolt will depose a dynasty founded upon its supposed piety but long since corrupted by the ways of the world.

The second problem is intellectual. In the West, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, acting upon the space that had always existed, at least potentially, in Christianity between church and state, liberated individual men to think for themselves, and thus set in motion an unprecedented and still unstoppable material advancement. Islam, with no separate, secular sphere where inquiry could flourish free from the claims of religion, if only for technical purposes, was hopelessly left behind: as, several centuries later, it still is.

The indivisibility of any aspect of life from any other in Islam is a source of strength, but also of fragility and weakness, for individuals as well as for polities. Where all conduct, all custom, has a religious sanction and justification, any change is a threat to the whole system of belief. Certainty that their way of life is the right one thus coexists with fear that the whole edifice--intellectual and political--will come tumbling down if it is tampered with in any way. Intransigence is a defense against doubt and makes living on terms of true equality with others who do not share the creed impossible.

Not coincidentally, the punishment for apostasy in Islam is death: apostates are regarded as far worse than infidels, and punished far more rigorously. In every Islamic society, and indeed among Britain's Muslim immigrants, there are people who take this idea quite literally, as their rage against Salman Rushdie testified.

The Islamic doctrine of apostasy is hardly favorable to free inquiry or frank discussion, to say the least, and surely it explains why no Muslim, or former Muslim, in an Islamic society would dare to suggest that the Qu'ran was not divinely dictated through the mouth of the Prophet but rather was a compilation of a charismatic man's words made many years after his death, and incorporating, with no very great originality, Judaic, Christian, and Zoroastrian elements. In my experience, devout Muslims expect and demand a freedom to criticize, often with perspicacity, the doctrines and customs of others, while demanding an exaggerated degree of respect and freedom from criticism for their own doctrines and customs. I recall, for example, staying with a Pakistani Muslim in East Africa, a very decent and devout man, who nevertheless spent several evenings with me deriding the absurdities of Christianity: the paradoxes of the Trinity, the impossibility of Resurrection, and so forth. Though no Christian myself, had I replied in kind, alluding to the pagan absurdities of the pilgrimage to Mecca, or to the gross, ignorant, and primitive superstitions of the Prophet with regard to jinn, I doubt that our friendship would have lasted long.

The unassailable status of the Qu'ran in Islamic education, thought, and society is ultimately Islam's greatest disadvantage in the modern world. Such unassailability does not debar a society from great artistic achievement or charms of its own: great and marvelous civilizations have flourished without the slightest intellectual freedom. I myself prefer a souk to a supermarket any day, as a more human, if less economically efficient, institution. But until Muslims (or former Muslims, as they would then be) are free in their own countries to denounce the Qu'ran as an inferior hodgepodge of contradictory injunctions, without intellectual unity (whether it is so or not)--until they are free to say with Carlyle that the Qu'ran is "a wearisome confused jumble" with "endless iterations, longwindedness, entanglement"--until they are free to remake and modernize the Qu'ran by creative interpretation, they will have to reconcile themselves to being, if not helots, at least in the rearguard of humanity, as far as power and technical advance are concerned.

A piece of pulp fiction by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in 1898, when followers of the charismatic fundamentalist leader Muhammad al-Mahdi tried to establish a theocracy in Sudan by revolting against Anglo-Egyptian control, makes precisely this point and captures the contradiction at the heart of contemporary Islam. Called The Tragedy of the Korosko, the book is the story of a small tourist party to Upper Egypt, who are kidnapped and held to ransom by some Mahdists, and then rescued by the Egyptian Camel Corps. (I hesitate, as a Francophile, to point out to American readers that there is a French character in the book, who, until he is himself captured by the Mahdists, believes that they are but a figment of the British imagination, to give perfidious Albion a pretext to interfere in Sudanese affairs.) A mullah among the Mahdists who capture the tourists attempts to convert the Europeans and Americans to Islam, deriding as unimportant and insignificant their technically superior civilization: " `As to the [scientific] learning of which you speak . . . ' said the Moolah . . . `I have myself studied at the University of Al Azhar at Cairo, and I know that to which you allude. But the learning of the faithful is not as the learning of the unbeliever, and it is not fitting that we pry too deeply into the ways of Allah. Some stars have tails . . . and some have not; but what does it profit us to know which are which? For God made them all, and they are very safe in His hands. Therefore . . . be not puffed up by the foolish learning of the West, and understand that there is only one wisdom, which consists in following the will of Allah as His chosen prophet has laid it down for us in this book.' "

This is by no means a despicable argument. One of the reasons that we can appreciate the art and literature of the past, and sometimes of the very distant past, is that the fundamental conditions of human existence remain the same, however much we advance in the technical sense: I have myself argued in these pages that human self-understanding, except in purely technical matters, reached its apogee with Shakespeare. In a sense, the mullah is right.

But if we made a fetish of Shakespeare (much richer and more profound than the Qu'ran, in my view), if we made him the sole object of our study and the sole guide of our lives, we would soon enough fall into backwardness and stagnation. And the problem is that so many Muslims want both stagnation and power: they want a return to the perfection of the seventh century and to dominate the twenty-first, as they believe is the birthright of their doctrine, the last testament of God to man. If they were content to exist in a seventh-century backwater, secure in a quietist philosophy, there would be no problem for them or us; their problem, and ours, is that they want the power that free inquiry confers, without either the free inquiry or the philosophy and institutions that guarantee that free inquiry. They are faced with a dilemma: either they abandon their cherished religion, or they remain forever in the rear of human technical advance. Neither alternative is very appealing; and the tension between their desire for power and success in the modern world on the one hand, and their desire not to abandon their religion on the other, is resolvable for some only by exploding themselves as bombs.

People grow angry when faced with an intractable dilemma; they lash out. Whenever I have described in print the cruelties my young Muslim patients endure, I receive angry replies: I am either denounced outright as a liar, or the writer acknowledges that such cruelties take place but are attributable to a local culture, in this case Punjabi, not to Islam, and that I am ignorant not to know it.

But Punjabi Sikhs also arrange marriages: they do not, however, force consanguineous marriages of the kind that take place from Madras to Morocco. Moreover--and not, I believe, coincidentally--Sikh immigrants from the Punjab, of no higher original social status than their Muslim confr?res from the same provinces, integrate far better into the local society once they have immigrated. Precisely because their religion is a more modest one, with fewer universalist pretensions, they find the duality of their new identity more easily navigable. On the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's reign, for example, the Sikh temples were festooned with perfectly genuine protestations of congratulations and loyalty. No such protestations on the part of Muslims would be thinkable.

But the anger of Muslims, their demand that their sensibilities should be accorded a more than normal respect, is a sign not of the strength but of the weakness--or rather, the brittleness--of Islam in the modern world, the desperation its adherents feel that it could so easily fall to pieces. The control that Islam has over its populations in an era of globalization reminds me of the hold that the Ceausescus appeared to have over the Rumanians: an absolute hold, until Ceausescu appeared one day on the balcony and was jeered by the crowd that had lost its fear. The game was over, as far as Ceausescu was concerned, even if there had been no preexisting conspiracy to oust him.

One sign of the increasing weakness of Islam's hold over its nominal adherents in Britain--of which militancy is itself but another sign--is the throng of young Muslim men in prison. They will soon overtake the young men of Jamaican origin in their numbers and in the extent of their criminality. By contrast, young Sikhs and Hindus are almost completely absent from prison, so racism is not the explanation for such Muslim overrepresentation.

Confounding expectations, these prisoners display no interest in Islam whatsoever; they are entirely secularized. True, they still adhere to Muslim marriage customs, but only for the obvious personal advantage of having a domestic slave at home. Many of them also dot the city with their concubines--sluttish white working-class girls or exploitable young Muslims who have fled forced marriages and do not know that their young men are married. This is not religion, but having one's cake and eating it.

The young Muslim men in prison do not pray; they do not demand halal meat. They do not read the Qu'ran. They do not ask to see the visiting imam. They wear no visible signs of piety: their main badge of allegiance is a gold front tooth, which proclaims them members of the city's criminal subculture--a badge (of honor, they think) that they share with young Jamaicans, though their relations with the Jamaicans are otherwise fraught with hostility. The young Muslim men want wives at home to cook and clean for them, concubines elsewhere, and drugs and rock `n' roll. As for Muslim proselytism in the prison--and Muslim literature has been insinuated into nooks and crannies there far more thoroughly than any Christian literature--it is directed mainly at the Jamaican prisoners. It answers their need for an excuse to go straight, while not at the same time surrendering to the morality of a society they believe has wronged them deeply. Indeed, conversion to Islam is their revenge upon that society, for they sense that their newfound religion is fundamentally opposed to it. By conversion, therefore, they kill two birds with one stone.

But Islam has no improving or inhibiting effect upon the behavior of my city's young Muslim men, who, in astonishing numbers, have taken to heroin, a habit almost unknown among their Sikh and Hindu contemporaries. The young Muslims not only take heroin but deal in it, and have adopted all the criminality attendant on the trade.

What I think these young Muslim prisoners demonstrate is that the rigidity of the traditional code by which their parents live, with its universalist pretensions and emphasis on outward conformity to them, is all or nothing; when it dissolves, it dissolves completely and leaves nothing in its place. The young Muslims then have little defense against the egotistical licentiousness they see about them and that they all too understandably take to be the summum bonum of Western life.

Observing this, of course, there are among Muslim youth a tiny minority who reject this absorption into the white lumpenproletariat and turn militant or fundamentalist. It is their perhaps natural, or at least understandable, reaction to the failure of our society, kowtowing to absurd and dishonest multiculturalist pieties, to induct them into the best of Western culture: into that spirit of free inquiry and personal freedom that has so transformed the life chances of every person in the world, whether he knows it or not.

Islam in the modern world is weak and brittle, not strong: that accounts for its so frequent shrillness. The Shah will, sooner or later, triumph over the Ayatollah in Iran, because human nature decrees it, though meanwhile millions of lives will have been ruined and impoverished. The Iranian refugees who have flooded into the West are fleeing Islam, not seeking to extend its dominion, as I know from speaking to many in my city. To be sure, fundamentalist Islam will be very dangerous for some time to come, and all of us, after all, live only in the short term; but ultimately the fate of the Church of England awaits it. Its melancholy, withdrawing roar may well (unlike that of the Church of England) be not just long but bloody, but withdraw it will. The fanatics and the bombers do not represent a resurgence of unreformed, fundamentalist Islam, but its death rattle.


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The Fruits of Appeasement
Victor Davis Hanson



Imagine a different November 4, 1979, in Teheran. Shortly after Iranian terrorists storm the American embassy and take some 90 American hostages, President Jimmy Carter announces that Islamic fundamentalism is not a legitimate response to the excess of the Shah but a new and dangerous fascism that threatens all that liberal society holds dear. And then he issues an ultimatum to Teheran's leaders: Release the captives or face a devastating military response.

When that demand is not met, instead of freezing Iran's assets, stopping the importation of its oil, or seeking support at the UN, Carter orders an immediate blockade of the country, followed by promises to bomb, first, all of its major military assets, and then its main government buildings and residences of its ruling mullocracy. The Ayatollah Khomeini may well have called his bluff; we may well have tragically lost the hostages (151 fewer American lives than the Iranian-backed Hezbollah would take four years later in a single day in Lebanon). And there may well have been the sort of chaos in Teheran that we now witness in Baghdad. But we would have seen it all in 1979--and not in 2001, after almost a quarter-century of continuous Middle East terrorism, culminating in the mass murder of 3,000 Americans and the leveling of the World Trade Center.

The twentieth century should have taught the citizens of liberal democracies the catastrophic consequences of placating tyrants. British and French restraint over the occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the absorption of the Czech Sudetenland, and the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia did not win gratitude but rather Hitler's contempt for their weakness. Fifty million dead, the Holocaust, and the near destruction of European civilization were the wages of "appeasement"--a term that early-1930s liberals proudly embraced as far more enlightened than the old idea of "deterrence" and "military readiness."

So too did Western excuses for the Russians' violation of guarantees of free elections in postwar Eastern Europe, China, and Southeast Asia only embolden the Soviet Union. What eventually contained Stalinism was the Truman Doctrine, NATO, and nuclear deterrence--not the United Nations--and what destroyed its legacy was Ronald Reagan's assertiveness, not Jimmy Carter's accommodation or Richard Nixon's d?tente.

As long ago as the fourth century b.c., Demosthenes warned how complacency and self-delusion among an affluent and free Athenian people allowed a Macedonian thug like Philip II to end some four centuries of Greek liberty--and in a mere 20 years of creeping aggrandizement down the Greek peninsula. Thereafter, these historical lessons should have been clear to citizens of any liberal society: we must neither presume that comfort and security are our birthrights and are guaranteed without constant sacrifice and vigilance, nor expect that peoples outside the purview of bourgeois liberalism share our commitment to reason, tolerance, and enlightened self-interest.

Most important, military deterrence and the willingness to use force against evil in its infancy usually end up, in the terrible arithmetic of war, saving more lives than they cost. All this can be a hard lesson to relearn each generation, especially now that we contend with the sirens of the mall, Oprah, and latte. Our affluence and leisure are as antithetical to the use of force as rural life and relative poverty once were catalysts for muscular action. The age-old lure of appeasement--perhaps they will cease with this latest concession, perhaps we provoked our enemies, perhaps demonstrations of our future good intentions will win their approval--was never more evident than in the recent Spanish elections, when an affluent European electorate, reeling from the horrific terrorist attack of 3/11, swept from power the pro-U.S. center-right government on the grounds that the mass murders were more the fault of the United States for dragging Spain into the effort to remove fascists and implant democracy in Iraq than of the primordial al-Qaidist culprits, who long ago promised the Western and Christian Iberians ruin for the Crusades and the Reconquista.

What went wrong with the West--and with the United States in particular--when not just the classical but especially the recent antecedents to September 11, from the Iranian hostage-taking to the attack on the USS Cole, were so clear? Though Americans in an election year, legitimately concerned about our war dead, may now be divided over the Iraqi occupation, polls nevertheless show a surprising consensus that the many precursors to the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings were acts of war, not police matters. Roll the tape backward from the USS Cole in 2000, through the bombing of the Khobar Towers and the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the destruction of the American embassy and annex in Beirut in 1983, the mass murder of 241 U.S. Marine peacekeepers asleep in their Lebanese barracks that same year, and assorted kidnappings and gruesome murders of American citizens and diplomats (including TWA Flight 800, Pan Am 103, William R. Higgins, Leon Klinghoffer, Robert Dean Stethem, and CIA operative William Francis Buckley), until we arrive at the Iranian hostage-taking of November 1979: that debacle is where we first saw the strange brew of Islamic fascism, autocracy, and Middle East state terrorism--and failed to grasp its menace, condemn it, and go to war against it.

That lapse, worth meditating upon in this 25th anniversary year of Khomeinism, then set the precedent that such aggression against the United States was better adjudicated as a matter of law than settled by war. Criminals were to be understood, not punished; and we, not our enemies, were at fault for our past behavior. Whether Carter's impotence sprang from his deep-seated moral distrust of using American power unilaterally or from real remorse over past American actions in the cold war or even from his innate pessimism about the military capability of the United States mattered little to the hostage takers in Teheran, who for some 444 days humiliated the United States through a variety of public demands for changes in U.S. foreign policy, the return of the exiled Shah, and reparations.

But if we know how we failed to respond in the last three decades, do we yet grasp why we were so afraid to act decisively at these earlier junctures, which might have stopped the chain of events that would lead to the al-Qaida terrorist acts of September 11? Our failure was never due to a lack of the necessary wealth or military resources, but rather to a deeply ingrained assumption that we should not retaliate--a hesitancy al-Qaida perceives and plays upon.

Along that sad succession of provocations, we can look back and see particularly critical turning points that reflected this now-institutionalized state policy of worrying more about what the enemy was going to do to us than we to him, to paraphrase Grant's dictum: not hammering back after the murder of the marines in Lebanon for fear of ending up like the Israelis in a Lebanese quagmire; not going to Baghdad in 1991 because of paranoia that the "coalition" would collapse and we would polarize the Arabs; pulling abruptly out of Somalia once pictures of American bodies dragged through the streets of Mogadishu were broadcast around the world; or turning down offers in 1995 from Sudan to place Usama bin Ladin into our custody, for fear that U.S. diplomats or citizens might be murdered abroad.

Throughout this tragic quarter-century of appeasement, our response usually consisted of a stern lecture by a Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, or Bill Clinton about "never giving in to terrorist blackmail" and "not negotiating with terrorists." Even Ronald Reagan's saber-rattling "You can run but not hide" did not preclude trading arms to the Iranian terrorists or abruptly abandoning Lebanon after the horrific Hezbollah attack.

Sometimes a half-baked failed rescue mission, or a battleship salvo, cruise missile, or air strike followed--but always accompanied by a weeklong debate by conservatives over "exit strategies" and "mission creep," while liberals fretted about "consultations with our allies and the United Nations." And remember: these pathetic military responses were the hawkish actions that earned us the resignation of a furious Cyrus Vance, the abrogation of overflight rights by concerned "allies" such as France, and a national debate about what we did to cause such animosity in the first place.

Our enemies and Middle Eastern "friends" alike sneered at our self-flagellation. In 1991, at great risk, the United States freed Kuwait from Iraq and ended its status as the 19th satrapy of Saddam Hussein--only to watch the restored kingdom ethnically cleanse over a third of a million Palestinians. But after the murder of 3,000 Americans in 2001, Kuwaitis, in a February 2002 Gallup poll (and while they lobbied OPEC to reduce output and jack up prices), revealed an overwhelming distaste for Americans--indeed the highest levels of anti-Americanism in the Arab world. And these ethnic cleansers of Palestinians cited America's purportedly unfair treatment of the Palestinians (recipients of accumulated billions in American aid) as a prime cause of their dislike of us.

In the face of such visceral anti-Americanism, the problem may not be real differences over the West Bank, much less that "we are not getting the message out"; rather, in the decade since 1991 the Middle East saw us as a great power that neither could nor would use its strength to advance its ideas--that lacked even the intellectual confidence to argue for our civilization before the likes of a tenth-century monarchy. The autocratic Arab world neither respects nor fears a democratic United States, because it rightly senses that we often talk in principled terms but rarely are willing to invest the time, blood, and treasure to match such rhetoric with concrete action. That's why it is crucial for us to stay in Iraq to finish the reconstruction and cement the achievement of our three-week victory over Saddam.

It is easy to cite post-Vietnam guilt and shame as the likely culprit for our paralysis. After all, Jimmy Carter came in when memories of capsizing boat people and of American helicopters lifting swarms of panicked diplomats off the roof of the Saigon embassy were fresh. In 1980, he exited in greater shame: his effusive protestations that Soviet communism wasn't something to fear all that much won him the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, while his heralded "human rights" campaign was answered by the Ortegas in Nicaragua and the creation of a murderous theocracy in Iran. Yet perhaps President Carter was not taking the American people anywhere they didn't want to go. After over a decade of prior social unrest and national humiliation in Vietnam, many Americans believed that the United States either could not or should not do much about things beyond its shores.

As time wore on and the nightmare of Vietnam began to fade, fear of the Soviet Union kept us from crushing the terrorists who killed our diplomats and blew up our citizens. These were no idle fears, given the Russians' record of butchering 30 million of their own, stationing 300 divisions on Europe's borders, and pointing 7,000 nukes at the United States. And fear of their malevolence made eminent sense in the volatile Middle East, where the Russians made direct threats to the Israelis in both the 1967 and 1973 wars, when the Syrian, Egyptian, and Iraqi militaries--trained, supplied, and advised by Russians--were on the verge of annihilation. Russian support for Nasser's Pan-Arabism and for Baathism in Iraq and Syria rightly worried cold warriors, who sensed that the Soviets had their geopolitical eyes on Middle East oil and a stranglehold over Persian Gulf commerce.

Indeed, these twin pillars of the old American Middle East policy--worry over oil and fear of communists--reigned for nearly half a century, between 1945 and 1991. Such realism, however understandable, was counterproductive in the long run, since our tacit support for odious anti-communist governments in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and North Africa did not address the failure of such autocracies to provide prosperity and hope for exploding populations of increasingly poor and angry citizens. We kept Russians out of the oil fields and ensured safe exports of petroleum to Europe, Japan, and the United States--but at what proved to be the steep price of allowing awful regimes to deflect popular discontent against us.

Nor was realpolitik always effective. Such illegitimate Arab regimes as the Saudi royal family initiated several oil embargoes, after all. And meanwhile, such a policy did not deter the Soviets from busily selling high-tech weaponry to Libya, Syria, and Iraq, while the KGB helped to train and fund almost every Arab terrorist group. And indeed, immediately after the 1991 Iraqi takeover of Kuwait, U.S. intelligence officers discovered that Soviet-trained Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abu Ibrahim had flocked to Baghdad on the invitation of the Baathist Saddam Hussein: though the Soviet Union did not interrupt Western petroleum commerce, its well-supplied surrogates did their fair share of murdering.

Neither thirst for petroleum nor fear of communists, then, adequately explains our inaction for most of the tumultuous late 1980s and 1990s, when groups like Hezbollah and al-Qaida came on to the world scene. Gorbachev's tottering empire had little inclination to object too strenuously when the United States hit Libya in 1986, recall, and thanks to the growing diversity and fungibility of the global oil supply, we haven't had a full-fledged Arab embargo since 1979.

Instead, the primary cause for our surprising indifference to the events leading up to September 11 lies within ourselves. Westerners always have had a propensity for complacency because of our wealth and freedom; and Americans in particular have enjoyed a comfortable isolation in being separated from the rest of the world by two oceans. Yet during the last four presidential administrations, laxity about danger on the horizon seems to have become more ingrained than in the days when a more robust United States sought to thwart communist intrusion into Arabia, Asia, and Africa.

Americans never viewed terrorist outlaw states with the suspicion they once had toward Soviet communism; they put little pressure on their leaders to crack down on Middle Eastern autocracy and theocracy as a threat to security. At first this indifference was understandable, given the stealthy nature of our enemies and the post-cold war relief that, having toppled the Soviet Union and freed millions in Eastern Europe, we might be at the end of history. Even the bloodcurdling anti-American shouts from the Beirut street did not seem as scary as a procession of intercontinental missiles and tanks on an average May Day parade in Moscow.

Hezbollah, al-Qaida, and the PLO were more like fleas on a sleeping dog: bothersome rather than lethal; to be flicked away occasionally rather than systematically eradicated. Few paid attention to Usama bin Ladin's infamous February 1998 fatwa: "The rule to kill Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is a sacred duty for any Muslim." Those who noticed thought it just impotent craziness, akin to Sartre's fatuous quip during the Vietnam War that he wished for a nuclear strike against the United States to end its imperial aspirations. No one thought that a raving maniac in an Afghan cave could kill more Americans in a single day than the planes of the Japanese imperial fleet off Pearl Harbor.

But still, how did things as odious to liberal sensibilities as Pan-Arabism, Islamic fundamentalism, and Middle Eastern dictatorship--which squashed dissent, mocked religious tolerance, and treated women as chattel--become reinvented into "alternate discourses" deserving a sympathetic pass from the righteous anger of the United States when Americans were murdered overseas? Was it that spokesmen for terrorist regimes mimicked the American Left--in everything from dress, vocabulary, and appearances on the lecture circuit--and so packaged their extremism in a manner palatable to Americans? Why, after all, were Americans patient with remonstrations from University of Virginia alumna Hanan Ashrawi, rather than asking precisely how such a wealthy Christian PLO apparatchik really felt about the Palestinian Authority's endemic corruption, the spendthrift Parisian Mrs. Arafat, the terrorists around Arafat himself, the spate of "honor killings" of women in the West Bank, the censorship of the Palestinian press, suicide murdering by Arafat affiliates, and the lynching of suspects by Palestinian police?

Rather than springing from realpolitik, sloth, or fear of oil cutoffs, much of our appeasement of Middle Eastern terrorists derived from a new sort of anti-Americanism that thrived in the growing therapeutic society of the 1980s and 1990s. Though the abrupt collapse of communism was a dilemma for the Left, it opened as many doors as it shut. To be sure, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, few Marxists could argue for a state-controlled economy or mouth the old romance about a workers' paradise--not with scenes of East German families crammed into smoking clunkers lumbering over potholed roads, like American pioneers of old on their way west. But if the creed of the socialist republics was impossible to take seriously in either economic or political terms, such a collapse of doctrinaire statism did not discredit the gospel of forced egalitarianism and resentment against prosperous capitalists. Far from it.

If Marx receded from economics departments, his spirit reemerged among our intelligentsia in the novel guises of post-structuralism, new historicism, multiculturalism, and all the other dogmas whose fundamental tenet was that white male capitalists had systematically oppressed women, minorities, and Third World people in countless insidious ways. The font of that collective oppression, both at home and abroad, was the rich, corporate, Republican, and white United States.

The fall of the Soviet Union enhanced these newer post-colonial and liberation fields of study by immunizing their promulgators from charges of fellow-traveling or being dupes of Russian expansionism. Communism's demise likewise freed these trendy ideologies from having to offer some wooden, unworkable Marxist alternative to the West; thus they could happily remain entirely critical, sarcastic, and cynical without any obligation to suggest something better, as witness the nihilist signs at recent protest marches proclaiming: "I Love Iraq, Bomb Texas."

From writers like Arundhati Roy and Michel Foucault (who anointed Khomeini "a kind of mystic saint" who would usher in a new "political spirituality" that would "transfigure" the world) and from old standbys like Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre ("to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time"), there filtered down a vague notion that the United States and the West in general were responsible for Third World misery in ways that transcended the dull old class struggle. Endemic racism and the legacy of colonialism, the oppressive multinational corporation and the humiliation and erosion of indigenous culture brought on by globalization and a smug, self-important cultural condescension--all this and more explained poverty and despair, whether in Damascus, Teheran, or Beirut.

There was victim status for everybody, from gender, race, and class at home to colonialism, imperialism, and hegemony abroad. Anyone could play in these "area studies" that cobbled together the barrio, the West Bank, and the "freedom fighter" into some sloppy global union of the oppressed--a far hipper enterprise than rehashing Das Kapital or listening to a six-hour harangue from Fidel.

Of course, pampered Western intellectuals since Diderot have always dreamed up a "noble savage," who lived in harmony with nature precisely because of his distance from the corruption of Western civilization. But now this fuzzy romanticism had an updated, political edge: the bearded killer and wild-eyed savage were not merely better than we because they lived apart in a pre-modern landscape. No: they had a right to strike back and kill modernizing Westerners who had intruded into and disrupted their better world--whether Jews on Temple Mount, women in Westernized dress in Teheran, Christian missionaries in Kabul, capitalist profiteers in Islamabad, whiskey-drinking oilmen in Riyadh, or miniskirted tourists in Cairo.

An Ayatollah Khomeini who turned back the clock on female emancipation in Iran, who murdered non-Muslims, and who refashioned Iranian state policy to hunt down, torture, and kill liberals nevertheless seemed to liberal Western eyes as preferable to the Shah--a Western-supported anti-communist, after all, who was engaged in the messy, often corrupt task of bringing Iran from the tenth to the twentieth century, down the arduous, dangerous path that, as in Taiwan or South Korea, might eventually lead to a consensual, capitalist society like our own.

Yet in the new world of utopian multiculturalism and knee-jerk anti-Americanism, in which a Noam Chomsky could proclaim Khomeini's gulag to be "independent nationalism," reasoned argument was futile. Indeed, how could critical debate arise for those "committed to social change," when no universal standards were to be applied to those outside the West? Thanks to the doctrine of cultural relativism, "oppressed" peoples either could not be judged by our biased and "constructed" values ("false universals," in Edward Said's infamous term) or were seen as more pristine than ourselves, uncorrupted by the evils of Western capitalism.

Who were we to gainsay Khomeini's butchery and oppression? We had no way of understanding the nuances of his new liberationist and "nationalist" Islam. Now back in the hands of indigenous peoples, Iran might offer the world an alternate path, a different "discourse" about how to organize a society that emphasized native values (of some sort) over mere profit.

So at precisely the time of these increasingly frequent terrorist attacks, the silly gospel of multiculturalism insisted that Westerners have neither earned the right to censure others, nor do they possess the intellectual tools to make judgments about the relative value of different cultures. And if the initial wave of multiculturalist relativism among the elites--coupled with the age-old romantic forbearance for Third World roguery--explained tolerance for early unpunished attacks on Americans, its spread to our popular culture only encouraged more.

This nonjudgmentalism--essentially a form of nihilism--deemed everything from Sudanese female circumcision to honor killings on the West Bank merely "different" rather than odious. Anyone who has taught freshmen at a state university can sense the fuzzy thinking of our undergraduates: most come to us prepped in high schools not to make "value judgments" about "other" peoples who are often "victims" of American "oppression." Thus, before female-hating psychopath Mohamed Atta piloted a jet into the World Trade Center, neither Western intellectuals nor their students would have taken him to task for what he said or condemned him as hypocritical for his parasitical existence on Western society. Instead, without logic but with plenty of romance, they would more likely have excused him as a victim of globalization or of the biases of American foreign policy. They would have deconstructed Atta's promotion of anti-Semitic, misogynist, Western-hating thought, as well as his conspiracies with Third World criminals, as anything but a danger and a pathology to be remedied by deportation or incarceration.

It was not for nothing that on November 17, 1979--less than two weeks after the militants stormed the American embassy in Teheran--the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and black hostages, singling them out as part of the brotherhood of those oppressed by the United States and cloaking his ongoing slaughter of Iranian opponents and attacks on United States sovereignty in a self-righteous anti-Americanism. Twenty-five years later, during the anti-war protests of last spring, a group called "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism" sang the same foolish chorus in its call for demonstrations: "Members of the Muslim Community, Antiwar Activists, Latin-American Solidarity Groups and People From All Over the United States Unite to Say: `We Are All Palestinians!' "

The new cult of romantic victimhood became gospel in most Middle East departments in American universities. Except for the courageous Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, and Fouad Ajami, few scholars offered any analysis that might confirm more astute Americans in their vague sense that in the Middle East, political autocracy, statism, tribalism, anti-intellectualism, and gender apartheid accounted for poverty and failure. And if few wished to take on Islamofascism in the 1990s--indeed, Steven Emerson's chilling 1994 documentary Jihad in America set off a storm of protest from U.S. Muslim-rights groups and prompted death threats to the producer--almost no one but Samuel Huntington dared even to broach the taboo subject that there might be elements within doctrinaire Islam itself that could easily lead to intolerance and violence and were therefore at the root of any "clash of civilizations."

Instead, most experts explained why violent fanatics might have some half-legitimate grievance behind their deadly harvest each year of a few Americans in the wrong place at the wrong time. These experts cautioned that, instead of bombing and shooting killers abroad who otherwise would eventually reach us at home, Americans should take care not to disturb Iranian terrorists during Ramadan--rather than to remember that Muslims attacked Israel precisely during that holy period. Instead of condemning Wahhabis for the fascists that they were, we were instead apprised that such holy men of the desert and tent provided a rapidly changing and often Western-corrupted Saudi Arabia with a vital tether to the stability of its romantic nomadic past. Rather than recognizing that Yasser Arafat's Tunisia-based Fatah organization was a crime syndicate, expert opinion persuaded us to empower it as an indigenous liberation movement on the West Bank--only to destroy nearly two decades' worth of steady Palestinian economic improvement.

Neither oil-concerned Republicans nor multicultural Democrats were ready to expose the corrupt American relationship with Saudi Arabia. No country is more culpable than that kingdom in funding extremist madrassas and subsidizing terror, or more antithetical to liberal American values from free speech to religious tolerance. But Saudi propagandists learned from the Palestinians the value of constructing their own victimhood as a long-oppressed colonial people. Call a Saudi fundamentalist mullah a fascist, and you can be sure you'll be tarred as an Islamophobe.

Even when Middle Easterners regularly blew us up, the Clinton administration, unwilling to challenge the new myth of Muslim victimhood, transformed Middle Eastern terrorists bent on destroying America into wayward individual criminals who did not spring from a pathological culture. Thus, Clinton treated the first World Trade Center bombing as only a criminal justice matter--which of course allowed the United States to avoid confronting the issue and taking on the messy and increasingly unpopular business the Bush administration has been engaged in since September 11. Clinton dispatched FBI agents, not soldiers, to Yemen and Saudi Arabia after the attacks on the USS Cole and the Khobar Towers. Yasser Arafat, responsible in the 1970s for the murder of a U.S. diplomat in the Sudan, turned out to be the most frequent foreign visitor to the Clinton Oval Office.

If the Clintonian brand of appeasement reflected both a deep-seated tolerance for Middle Eastern extremism and a reluctance to wake comfortable Americans up to the danger of a looming war, he was not the only one naive about the threat of Islamic fascism. Especially culpable was the Democratic Party at large, whose post-Vietnam foreign policy could not sanction the use of American armed force to protect national interests but only to accomplish purely humanitarian ends as in the interventions in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia.

Indeed, the recent Democratic primaries reveal just how far this disturbing trend has evolved: the foreign-policy positions of John Kerry and Howard Dean on Iraq and the Middle East were far closer to those of extremists like Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich than to current American policy under George W. Bush. Indeed, buffoons or conspiracy theorists like Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Al Franken often turned up on the same stage as would-be presidents. When Moore, while endorsing Wesley Clark, called an American president at a time of war a "deserter," when the mendacious Sharpton lectured his smiling fellow candidates on the Bush administration's "lies" about Iraq, and when Al Gore labeled the president's action in Iraq a "betrayal" of America, the surrender of the mainstream Democrats to the sirens of extremism was complete. Again, past decorum and moderation go out the window when the pretext is saving indigenous peoples from American oppression.

The consensus for appeasement that led to September 11, albeit suppressed for nearly two years by outrage over the murder of 3,000, has reemerged in criticism over the ongoing reconstruction of Iraq and George Bush's prosecution of the War on Terror.

The tired voices that predicted a litany of horrors in October 2001--the impassable peaks of Afghanistan, millions of refugees, endemic starvation, revolution in the Arab street, and violations of Ramadan--now complain, incorrectly, that 150,000 looted art treasures were the cost of guarding the Iraqi oil ministry, that Halliburton pipelines and refineries were the sole reason to remove Saddam Hussein, and that Christian fundamentalists and fifth-columnist neoconservatives have fomented a senseless revenge plot against Muslims and Arabs. Whether they complained before March 2003 that America faced death and ruin against Saddam's Republican Guard, or two months later that in bullying fashion we had walked over a suddenly impotent enemy, or three months later still that, through incompetence, we were taking casualties and failing to get the power back on, leftist critics' only constant was their predictable dislike of America.

Military historians might argue that, given the enormity of our task in Iraq--liberating 26 million from a tyrant and implanting democracy in the region--the tragic loss of more than 500 Americans in a year's war and peace was a remarkable sign of our care and expertise in minimizing deaths. Diplomats might argue that our past efforts at humanitarian reconstruction, with some idealistic commitment to consensual government, have a far better track record in Germany, Japan, Korea, Panama, and Serbia than our strategy of exiting Germany after World War I, of leaving Iraq to Saddam after 1991, of abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban once the Russians were stopped, of skipping out from Haiti or of fleeing Somalia. Realist students of arms control might argue that the recent confessions of Pakistan's nuclear roguery, the surrender of the Libyan arsenal, and the invitation of the UN inspectors into Iran were the dividends of resolute American action in Iraq. Colonel Khadafy surely came clean not because of Jimmy Carter's peace missions, UN resolutions, or EU diplomats.

But don't expect any sober discussion of these contentions from the Left. Their gloom and doom about Iraq arises precisely from the anti-Americanism and romanticization of the Third World that once led to our appeasement and now seeks its return. When John Kerry talks of mysterious prominent Europeans he has met (but whose names he will not divulge) who, he says, pray for his election in hopes of ending George Bush's Iraqi nightmare, perhaps he has in mind people like the Chamberlainesque European Commission president Romano Prodi, who said in the wake of the recent mass murder in Spain: "Clearly, the conflict with the terrorists is not resolved with force alone." Perhaps he has in mind, also, the Spanish electorate, which believes it can find security from al-Qaida terrorism by refuting all its past support for America's role in the Middle East. But of course if the terrorists understand that, in lieu of resolve, they will find such appeasement a mere 48 hours after a terrorist attack, then all previously resolute Western democracies--Italy, Poland, Britain, and the United States--should expect the terrorists to murder their citizens on the election eve in hopes of achieving just such a Spanish-style capitulation.

In contrast, George W. Bush, impervious to such self-deception, has, in a mere two and a half years, reversed the perilous course of a quarter-century. Since September 11, he has removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, begun to challenge the Middle East through support for consensual government, isolated Yasser Arafat, pressured the Europeans on everything from anti-Semitism to their largesse to Hamas, removed American troops from Saudi Arabia, shut down fascistic Islamic "charities," scattered al-Qaida, turned Pakistan from a de facto foe to a scrutinized neutral, rounded up terrorists in the United States, pressured Libya, Iran, and Pakistan to come clean on clandestine nuclear cheating, so far avoided another September 11--and promises that he is not nearly done yet. If the Spanish example presages further terrorist attacks on European democracies at election time, at least Mr. Bush has made it clear that America--alone if need be--will neither appease nor ignore such killers but in fact finish the terrible war that they started.

As Jimmy Carter also proved in November 1979, one man really can make a difference.

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WASHINGTON

>> FRUM NODS...
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp

MAY. 5, 2004: STATE DEPARTMENT LOGIC

Let's see if I have this straight: Ahmed Chalabi has been condemned as an Iranian agent and is therefore to be shunned by all agencies of the US government. But Iran itself is to be courted by the United States, and its terrorism and nuclear development is to be ignored. Sound logical to you?
Yesterday, we read in Newsweek and Salon a government-sourced full-blast attack on Chalabi's connections with the Iranians. But ask yourself this: When was the last time you saw government sources revealing anything untoward about the Iranians themselves?
You may remember that the International Atomic Energy Commission caught the Iranians in a series of lies about their nuclear program last spring and summer. The Iranians themselves finallyy admitted that they had deceived the world for 18 years. It was no longer seriously possible to doubt that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons - or that it had already acquired much of the capability to build them.
In the first shock after the discovery, many expressed fear that the Bush administration would be tempted to act unilaterally to shut down the Iranian nuclear program. Britain, France, and Germany pressed the United States to work through the International Atomic Energy Commission instead - and the US agreed. In November 2003, the IAEA condemned Iran's past violations of IAEA rules and voted a new set of inspection procedures. The IAEA threatened that if Iran continued to violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the case would be referred to the Security Council - which could (theoretically) vote for harsh sanctions against Iran, including (again theoretically) military action.
On Nov. 26, 2003, Colin Powell said that he was "very happy" with the IAEA's actions.
But of course, Iran has paid scant attention to the IAEA. The Iranian nuclear program races ahead. And the IAEA has done nothing. No UN referral; no sanctions.
And those intrepid foes of Iranian imperialism at the State Department? What have they done? In March 2004, Colin Powell agreed with the European allies to drop US demands for Security Council action against Iran. US policy is now one of "engagement" with Iran - even as Iran hosts al Qaeda on its territory and supports terrorism inside Iraq.
US inaction has allowed Iran to assert itself as a contender for paramountcy inside Iraq. The US has accepted Europe's "do-nothing" policy on Iranian nukes. No wonder Ahmed Chalabi joined that phone call to Teheran. Maybe he thought he was doing what America wanted. Unfortunately for him, he misread the policy. America's clients in Iraq are not allowed to truckle to the tyrannical mullahs of Teheran. Only Americans themselves may do that.

08:03 AM


MAY. 4, 2004: THE CHALABI SMEAR

Really, if the CIA and State Department fought this country's enemies with even one-half the ferocity with which they have waged war on Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, the United States would be a vastly safer place. Yesterday, the agencies launched their latest offensive against this leader they so detest: They leaked Mark Hosenball of Newsweek a story claiming that Chalabi has betrayed US interests to the Iranians.
"U.S. intelligence agencies have recently raised concerns that Chalabi has become too close to Iran's theocratic rulers. NEWSWEEK has learned that top Bush administration officials have been briefed on intelligence indicating that Chalabi and some of his top aides have supplied Iran with `sensitive' information on the American occupation in Iraq. U.S. officials say that electronic intercepts of discussions between Iranian leaders indicate that Chalabi and his entourage told Iranian contacts about American political plans in Iraq. There are also indications that Chalabi has provided details of U.S. security operations. According to one U.S. government source, some of the information Chalabi turned over to Iran could `get people killed.' (A Chalabi aide calls the allegations `absolutely false.')"
You have to give credit where credit is due: This is an audacious accusation. Audacious because it demands that the State Department's and CIA's cheering sections in the media perform a cult-like reversal of belief in everything they were saying about Iraq, Iran, and Chalabi himself up until now.
But those of us with memories that extend back beyond the past 24 hours will have some questions for Newsweek and its sources:

ITEM: Up until now we were supposed to believe that the INC produced no useful intelligence - that it dealt only in fantasies and lies. Now suddenly the INC is accused of being in possession of accurate and valuable sensitive information. How did Chalabi go from know-nothing to valuable intelligence asset overnight?

ITEM: A government source says that the security information Chalabi may or may not have provided could "get people killed." Get them killed by whom? Up until now, the CIA and State Department have resolutely refused to acknowledge that Iran might be supporting the insurgency in Iraq. Now they are willing to admit reality - but only in order to use it against what they perceive as the real threat: Chalabi.

ITEM: Chalabi has been caught talking on the phone to the Iranians. But wait - hasn't the State Department been arguing for months that the US should talk to the Iranians about Iraq? In testimony to Congress in October 2003, State number 2 Richard Armitage explicitly disavowed regime change in Iran and called for discussions with Iran on "appropriate" issues. In January 2004, Secretary of State Powell openly called for "dialogue" - and the Bush administration offered to send Elizabeth Dole and a member of the president's own family to deliver earthquake aid to Iran. (The British sent Prince Charles.) Since then, the hinting and suggesting have grown ever more explicit. What, pray, is the difference between the policy Chalabi is pursuing and that which his State Department critics want the US to pursue?

ITEM: Chalabi is now accused of playing a "double game" in Iraqi politics, an offense for which he must forfeit all rights to a role in Iraq's future. This "no double game" rule is a new and impressive standard for judging our allies in the Arab Middle East. Question: Will that same standard apply to those former Republican Guard generals whom the State Department is now so assiduously promoting? Will it apply to the former Baathists that Lakhdar Brahimi wishes to include in the provisional Iraqi government? Will it apply to Lakhdar Brahimi himself? Will it apply to the Saudi royal family? Will it apply to the Iranians? Or is it only Ahmed Chalabi who must swear undeviating loyalty to the US policy-of-the-day in Iraq?

ITEM: Salon magazine last night published a lengthy attack on Chalabi by John Dizard. In it, former Chalabi business partner Marc Zell calls Chalabi a "treacherous, spineless turncoat," for failing to deliver on Chalabi's alleged promises to open Iraq to trade with Israel. I don't know that these promises were ever made - and if made, I wonder whether Chalabi ever suggested that they would rank first on a new Iraqi government's list of priorities. But never mind that: Chalabi has not exercised executive power in Iraq for even a single day. How exactly was it ever possible that he would carry out any promise about anything to anyone?

Ahmed Chalabi no doubt has many faults. I have never been easy in my mind about the collapse of the bank he ran in Jordan back in 1989. (Although the charges that Chalabi himself stole money from the bank are not very convincing either.) But I do know this: Chalabi is one of the very few genuine liberal democrats to be found at the head of any substantial political organization anywhere in the Arab world. He is not consumed by paranoid fantasies, he understands and admires the American system, and he is willing to work with the United States if the United States will work with him. He risked his life through the 1990s to topple Saddam Hussein, which is more than can be said about any of State's or CIA's preferred candidates for power in Iraq. Compared to anybody other possible leader of Iraq - compared to just about every other political leader in the Arab world - the imperfect Ahmed Chalabi is nonetheless a James bleeping Madison.

And maybe that's exactly why he is so very unpopular with so many of the local thugs and tyrants who unfortunately command the attention of America's spies and diplomats.




10:21 AM


------------------------------------------------------------------------
IRAQ


Shiite leaders want Sadr out of Najaf

Shiite leaders gather in Baghdad to make demands of the firebrand cleric and his militia.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/dailyUpdate.html
by Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com
Shiite leaders have had enough of Moqtada al-Sadr's hijacking of Najaf. More than one hundred prominent Iraqi Shiites agreed Tuesday in Baghdad that the fiery anti-coalition cleric must remove his militia from the holy shrines in the cities of Najaf and Kufa, reports The Los Angeles Times.
"It was the clearest such statement by a group of powerful Shiite Muslims and could open the way for a resolution of the standoff in Najaf, where US troops have surrounded the city in an effort to pressure Sadr to disband his Mahdi militia, which has set up illegal checkpoints, taken over police stations and seized civil authority."
Sadr must also relinquish control to the police and defense corps and cease stockpiling weapons in the cities, according to the report.
Joad Al Malki, a member of the political bureau of the Shiite Dawa Party reportedly told the Times that "five representatives traveled to Najaf [Wednesday]" to inform Sadr of the decision.
Sadr has been holed up in Najaf for several weeks, after the US-led coalition issued a warrant for his arrest in connection to a murder of a rival cleric last spring. But, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) waited until early last month to make that move after Sadr's militia began a violent revolt because the CPA had closed Sadr's anti-coalition al-Hawza newspaper.
The New York Times reports that the Shiite leaders also called for "a rapid return to the American-led negotiations on Iraq's political future," which have been stalled by violence throughout central Iraq and in the Sunni triangle city of Fallujah. The leaders also warned US troops again not to go after Sadr in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
The Times reports that the leaders "effectively did what the Americans have urged them to do since Mr. Sadr ... began his attacks in April: they tied Iraq's future, and that of Shiites in particular, to a renunciation of violence and a return to negotiations."
The Washington Post reports that a 21-member committee of Shiite tribal, religious, and political leaders "hopes to broker a deal" for Sadr to leave Najaf. Members of this committee said "any arrangement would likely require US officials to cancel the arrest warrant against Sadr and allow him to be taken into protective custody by a group of respected Shiite clerics in Najaf or to leave the country," according to the Post.
Meanwhile, Knight Ridder Newspapers reports that a group of young men in Najaf has gathered nightly since mid-April to attack members of Sadr's Mahdi army and force them out of the city. "If we capture them and they swear on the holy Koran they will leave Najaf and never come back, we let them go," a 20-year-old furniture maker named Haider told Knight Ridder. "If they resist, they are killed."
So as to prevent a larger conflict, "the grand ayatollahs who guide the Shiites are withholding support from Haidar and his band of vigilantes," says Knight Ridder. Many Shiites in Najaf say only a small number of Iraqi Shiites supports Sadr, according to the news service.
The Associated Press reports that the month-long standoff between Sadr's militia and coalition troops has cost the holy city of Najaf around $1 billion, according to Faisal Mathbob, deputy head of Najaf's Chamber of Commerce. AP also explains why the loss is particularly tough for the city.
It's a major blow to a city that was in the midst of a revival with the fall of Saddam Hussein, who had restricted the freedom of Shiite worship for decades. Pilgrims from Iran and other countries had again flooded in to visit a colorful shrine to Shiite Islam's most revered saint, bringing money and prosperity back to Najaf. ...
Up to 35,000 pilgrims from Iran alone visited Najaf each day. Now, only a few are seen.... With no agriculture or industry to speak of, Najaf depends on the visitors to fill hotels, restaurants, and shops. The crowds are large enough to sustain more than a 1,000 hotels and private guest houses in Najaf.
According to AP, some residents blame Sadr's militia for bringing the conflict with the coalition troops that has kept the pilgrims away from Najaf.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNITED NATIONS


'We Have Other Priorities'
Why won't the U.N. answer questions about its Iraq scandal?

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, May 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

The harder the United Nations tries to keep a lid on Oil for Food, the more the scandal keeps boiling over. This past Sunday Secretary-General Kofi Annan appeared on "Meet the Press," rejecting as "outrageous" allegations that this graft-ridden U.N. relief program for Iraq had helped prop up Saddam Hussein's regime, and denying that the U.N. has made any attempt at a coverup. Asked by host Tim Russert why only a portion of the documentation requested of the U.N. by the U.S. General Accounting Office had been turned over, Mr. Annan protested: "We are open. We are transparent."

That sounded lame enough, coming just after Mr. Russert on national TV had flourished in front of Mr. Annan a letter sent by Mr. Annan's own Secretariat on April 14, advising one of the pivotal Oil for Food contractors, Saybolt International--which oversaw Saddam's oil exports--to keep quiet.

Now investigators for the House International Relations Committee have dug up a second hush letter, this one dated April 2, sent by the U.N. to yet another crucial Oil for Food contractor: Cotecna Inspections. This is the company that for the last five years of the seven-year program held the U.N. contract for the sensitive job of authenticating all goods being shipped into Iraq under Oil for Food--and was recommended last October by Oil for Food's executive director, Benon Sevan, for the work it is still doing in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority. (Cotecna is also the company that for the better part of three years before winning its slot in the Oil for Food program, in December, 1998, employed Mr. Annan's son, Kojo Annan, first on staff and then as a consultant, a potential conflict of interest that the U.N. did not declare.)

Both letters, to Saybolt and Cotecna, are signed on behalf of Mr. Sevan, each by a different member of Mr. Annan's staff. Mr. Sevan was on vacation, pending retirement, when they were drawn up. The letter to Cotecna was a pointed reminder of terms of the U.N. contracts with Cotecna, detailing that all documentation connected with Oil for Food "shall be the property of the United Nations, shall be treated as confidential and shall be delivered only to the United Nations authorized officials on completion of work under this contract."
In the letter to Saybolt, dated 12 days later, the message had become tougher and yet more detailed, telling the company that any requests for information not already public should be relayed to the U.N., including "the reason why it is being sought." The letter to Saybolt also made specific mention that if U.N. internal audit reports are asked for, "we would not agree to their release." These would be the same internal audits that the U.N. Secretariat--which administered the Oil for Food program--did not share with the Security Council and has refused to provide to Congress.

In other words, in the interval between March 19, when Mr. Annan finally conceded in the face of overwhelming evidence that the program might after all need investigating by independent experts, and April 21, when former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker was appointed to head to the investigation, Mr. Annan's office explicitly reminded these two crucial contractors, which worked for the Secretariat's Oil for Food program checking the imports and exports involved in more than $100 billion worth of Saddam's oil sales and relief imports, to keep quiet.

Mr. Annan's reaction when confronted with the Saybolt letter was to explain that "we are protecting all the material for the investigation that's been handed over to the Volcker group," as well as to say he himself had no knowledge of the letter: "This is news to me." Mr. Annan's office has since defended such letter-writing on grounds that "this is standard procedure" and "an institutional response." According to Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, "To protect our name and our documentation, we put in every contract with a supplier that documentation relating to UN business can only be released to the United Nations, unless otherwise authorized."

It's that phrase, "unless otherwise authorized," that needs attention. The U.N. has the authority to open the books if its officials so choose; the main question is whether the boss wants to. A senior congressional staffer notes that "with the stroke of a pen, the U.N. can clear the companies from all confidentiality."

Instead, after years of insisting on the confidentiality of vital details of Saddam's deals, on grounds such as the argument that disclosure would offend the "sensitivities" of some member states, the U.N. last month came up with a new reason. Secrecy must be maintained, or so says the U.N. letter to Saybolt, "so as to avoid impeding the Secretary-General's independent inquiry and to accord due regard to the Organization's privileges and immunities."

It's high time for Congress, which appropriates 22% of the U.N.'s core budget, to ponder precisely why these U.N. privileges and immunities should be allowed to outweigh the rights of both U.S. taxpayers and Congress to know what it was within Oil for Food that some of the participants were so sensitive about.

There's also the question of why Mr. Annan's Secretariat itself is so sensitive. Take, for example, those April letters to Saybolt and Cotecna, signed on behalf of Benon Sevan. On Monday, when only the Saybolt letter had come to light, I phoned Maurice Critchley, the U.N. official who had signed that letter on behalf of Mr. Sevan. He told me that Mr. Sevan had no hand in it: "The letter was not done on any request or instruction on his part." So who, then, initiated Mr. Critchley's signing of the letter over Mr. Sevan's name?
Mr. Critchley declined to answer, and instead directed me to Mr. Annan's office--to which I sent three questions pertaining to the Saybolt letter. The answer was an e-mail from Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, which began with the accusation that "you twist the facts." Mr. Eckhard went on to say, "Frankly, we have other priorities. I will answer one of your questions, the first one." This was a question about who, precisely, at the U.N., had authorized the signing of the Saybolt letter over Mr. Sevan's name. To this, Mr. Eckhard gave the answer quoted above, that it was "an institutional response."

The second question, which Mr. Eckhard did not answer, was whether the U.N. had sent similar letters to other contractors, "For example, has the Secretariat sent a similar letter to Cotecna?" The answer to that is now clear, with the Cotecna letter cited above surfacing via the House International Relations Committee the next day.

The third question was, who is the individual on the U.N. staff now fielding Oil for Food matters and authorized to give definitive answers? That one Mr. Eckhard also did not answer, but Mr. Critchley did: "The Secretary-General."

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.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNfit for Iraq
The United Nations can't escape the Oil-for-Food scandal.

By John O'Sullivan

Not for the first time, the shrewdest analyst of international affairs turns out to be the great comic novelist, P. G. Wodehouse, writing on this occasion about the United Nations. The plot may be bleaker than that of a "Jeeves and Bertie Wooster" novel, but the banana-peel factor is about the same.
Consider: In recent weeks the pressure has been inexorably building in favor of a much stronger and more "central" role for the U.N. in Iraq. The partisans of "multilateralism" in the U.S. State Department, the British Foreign Office, France, Germany, the Democratic party, and the New York Times editorial page had all been arguing that the U.S. would inevitably fail in Iraq without the "legitimacy" bestowed by U.N. involvement. Nor would an Iraqi government handpicked by the U.S. have any better hopes of success. Only one handpicked by the U.N. -- and by its representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, the former Algerian foreign minister -- would enjoy the respect of Iraqis and of the world.
The Bush administration, buffeted by its setbacks in Iraq and apparently hoping that U.N. support would encourage nations like France and Germany to commit troops, capitulated to this pressure. The U.N. was invited in, and Brahimi began calling the shots. He warned strongly against sending the U.S. Marines into Fallujah. (They were withdrawn to the sidelines.) And he let it be known that the new government would be very different from the governing council that the U.S. had recruited -- and that had taken great political risks for the past year to restore some sort of decent Iraqi rule after fifty years of savage oppression.
At no point, however, was it suggested that the U.N. would provide either troops or money to restore public services and order in the country. The division of labor was clear: The U.N. would provide "legitimacy," and the U.S. would provide everything else. In return they would share political power between themselves -- and with whatever Iraqi government emerged from Brahimi's conversations.
Nice work if you can get it. In the words of the Immortal Wodehouse, however, "Meanwhile, unnoticed in the background, fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing glove." (I quote from memory, but that is the gist of it.)
For several years, rumors had been circulating that the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program in Iraq -- ballyhooed as the largest aid program in the world -- was seriously mired in corruption. Reuters news agency, watchdog groups such as the Coalition for International Justice, and the Wall Street Journal had all drawn attention to the increasingly blatant corruption of the program involving (according to the CIJ) not merely "informal on-the-sly deals," but even "formal government-to-government arrangements." But the reaction of the U.N. to these charges had been to deny any wrongdoing, to claim that Oil-for-Food was the most audited U.N. program ever, and to tighten the secrecy surrounding it. And largely because of the U.N.'s saintly reputation, the world moved on to other things.
But the fall of Saddam meant that Iraqi records were suddenly open to inspection. Officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority were asked to investigate any irregularities. Hence, two weeks ago, the dam burst -- and revelations of extraordinary corruption poured forth at exactly the moment when the U.N. was poised to take control of Iraq.
The Claudia Rosett, whose reporting (including in NRO) has done much to bring the scandal to light, gives the clearest and most comprehensive account of its spreading tentacles in the current issue of Commentary magazine. To summarize it briefly here, however, a program that was meant to underpin sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq by moderating its effects on innocent Iraqis with humanitarian aid became a joint venture by Saddam, senior U.N. officials, and public figures in Security Council member states such as France and Russia to divert many billions in oil revenues into their various pockets; to bribe governments, companies, and individuals in Saddam's behalf; to establish a network of corrupt cronies beholden to Saddam around the world; to build up Saddam's machinery of war and oppression in Iraq; and to do little or nothing for the ordinary Iraqis who were the poster children for the entire enterprise.
The Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada, whose investigative reporting has also driven the revelations, found a list in the Iraqi oil ministry of 270 people in 50 countries who allegedly received oil "vouchers" worth millions from Saddam Hussein -- including the former French interior minister, the present Indonesian president, a number of Russian oil companies, the Russian state, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the family name, Sevan, of the U.N. director in charge of the Oil-for-Food program. In all likelihood, Oil-for-Food is the biggest financial and political scandal in world history -- nothing less.
U.N. officials at a very high level were apparently complicit in this vast fraud. Among them was Benon Sevan, the program's director and a long-time U.N. official, reported directly responsible to the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. U.N. officials -- whose approval was required for certain expenditures -- okayed such purchases as Mercedes Benz touring sedans and the rebuilding of Saddam's Interior Ministry.
Some will -- and should -- go to prison. Kofi Annan should at least resign since he presided, knowingly or not, over this vast robbery. Needless to say, the entire scandal casts a dark backward light on the U.N.'s convolutions in the run-up to the Iraq invasion -- France, Russia, the U.N. bureaucracy, and the "peace movement" all had an undeclared interest in the survival of their co-conspirator, Saddam Hussein, at the very moment when they were seeking in the Security Council to save him from the consequences of his defiance of U.N. resolutions.
We should not be altogether surprised at the corruption revealed here. Multi-national organizations like the U.N. and the European Union are regularly plagued by financial scandals because they bring together three incentives for dishonesty: large sums of money sloshing around, the absence of the financial accountability built into the political arrangements of established nation-states, and a belief in their own sanctity and importance that enables them to overlook any sins they may commit. Similar scandals, admittedly on a smaller scale, flourish in almost all places where the U.N. rules. Maybe some attention will now be paid to them.
What is more worrying is what the Oil-for-Food scandal tells us about the political attitudes of both the U.N. bureaucracy and the political elites of the European continent. None of them was seriously hostile to Saddam Hussein or his brutal kleptocratic state -- they struck attitudes in public that their private actions belied. None of them was even slightly concerned about the Iraqi people, despite their crocodile tears about the impact of sanctions -- they colluded in denying promised humanitarian aid to those in need. None of them wanted to see U.N. resolutions enforced despite their sanctimonious rhetoric about the U.N. being the fount of legitimacy. All of them were mainly concerned with obstructing the Anglo-Americans in their campaign to enforce those resolutions and oust Saddam.
Now that these facts are known, the power of the U.N. to bestow legitimacy anywhere, let alone in an Iraq that is the main victim of the Oil-for-Food scandal, has evaporated into thin air. It has precious little legitimacy to bestow on itself.
If the Bush administration, because it is hoping to hand the problem of Iraq over to someone else, now grants real power to the U.N. there, it will be a betrayal of the Iraqis it intervened to liberate. And the American people -- to borrow another insight from Wodehouse -- if not actually disgruntled, will be very far from being gruntled.

-- John O'Sullivan is editor-in-chief of The National Interest. This piece first appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and is reprinted with permission. O'Sullivan can be reached through Benador Associates
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAKISTAN

Pakistan authorities uncover hijack plot
ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistani authorities have uncovered a plot by a small terror cell to hijack a plane en route to the United Arab Emirates and possibly blow it up, the prime minister said Wednesday.
Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali told The Associated Press in an interview that authorities believe there was a group of about four to six people who wanted to hijack a plane. Intelligence indicated they wanted to blow it up, he said.
Jamali had no details on how close the plotters came to carrying out the attack.
Details of the plot came a day after Pakistan said it was beefing up security at 35 airports nationwide. Airports remained open and flights were not disrupted, although security was raised to its highest level, Jamali said.
"Naturally when one gets some hint about (a plot) or one gets a feeler or is informed directly or indirectly, I think this high alert is a must," he said.
The United Arab Emirates is the main financial hub of the Arab world. Dubai also is a regional transit hub and a destination for several flights most days from the Pakistani cities of Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore.
Pakistan International Airlines, Emirates airlines and Gulf Air all fly to the Emirates from Pakistan.
In March, the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai briefly shut their doors after receiving a "specific threat," though there was no indication it was connected to the recent Pakistani alert.
The United States has had friendly relations with the UAE since 1971, and the UAE military has provided humanitarian assistance in Iraq.
Jamali did not say whether the plot involved Pakistanis or foreign terrorists.
"Hijackers have no nationality," he said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Rauf Chaudhry told AP that a Pakistani intelligence agency had issued the warning, but no arrests had been made. He also would not reveal whether the plotters were believed to be linked to al-Qaeda.

Pakistan has been beset by a string of terror attacks since President Gen. Pervez Musharraf threw his support behind the U.S. war on terror following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Musharraf survived two suicide attacks in December that he blamed on al-Qaeda. Dozens of people have been killed in attacks on foreigners and minority Christians.

A bus bombing killed three Chinese engineers working on a major port project in the remote southwest Monday.

In March, a bomb was found and defused outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi.


Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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PAKISTAN
The Politics Of A Retreat
The military regime is currently caught in the dilemma of protecting the surviving remnants of its own creation, the Taliban, and the need to project the image of a responsible state internationally.

KANCHAN LAKSHMAN

Ever since President Musharraf announced a turn-around on his country's support to the Taliban and Al Qaeda on September 19, 2001, Pakistan has been treading a thin line between placating the domestic Islamist extremist constituency and maintaining the alliance with the United States. Since the volte face, Pakistan has arrested more than 500 Al Qaeda/Taliban operatives, handing a majority of them over to US custody. Last week, however, saw the military regime adopt a strategy of amnesty, not an uncommon approach across many theatres of anti-state violence in South Asia.

Five tribesmen accused of sheltering Al Qaeda terrorists surrendered to the Pakistan army at a Jirga (tribal council) on April 24, 2004. The five men, led by Nek Mohammed, from the Zalikhel tribe turned themselves in before the Jirga and reportedly pledged loyalty to Pakistan in return for clemency. "We give amnesty to these people in return for their pledge of brotherhood and loyalty," said Peshawar Corps Commander Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain after the wanted men joined him in the ceremony that occurred at a Madrassa at Shakai, South Waziristan, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) region.

The military regime has reportedly agreed to halt its operations against Nek Mohammed's tribal combatants, set free most of the 163 suspected Al Qaeda supporters who were captured during the March 2004 operations, and provide a grant of Rupees 90.1 million for development in Waziristan. In return, Nek Mohammed and his clique promised to refrain from attacks on Pakistani forces and the U.S. troops in adjacent Afghanistan. Among others, the unwritten agreement also specifies that: local tribesmen will not provide protection to 'foreign terrorists' (Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks among others) in the FATA; the tribesmen will surrender their heavy arms to local authorities; tribesmen are to ensure registration of all foreigners who would then be given amnesty and residence by the state.

As a result, the tribal combatants, designated as 'most wanted' only a month ago, were seen embracing the military regime's representatives after a deal reportedly brokered by leaders of the Islamist grouping, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). Startled by the bonhomie expressed at the surrender ceremony, a Western diplomat in Islamabad said, "How can you go and fight these people last month and embrace them this month?"

The 30-something Nek Mohammed, who was a 'commander' at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, and his tribal combatants had, in March, led a fierce resistance to an army-led offensive on their hideouts in the remote South Waziristan area, where senior Al Qaeda leaders are thought to have taken refuge. At least 145 people, including 46 troops, were killed during these operations. Some Western diplomats have claimed that Nek not only harboured, but also supplied arms and men to Central Asian Al Qaeda-linked terrorists for cross-border attacks on aid workers, troops and government targets in Afghanistan over the past 12 to 18 months. "He is, indirectly or directly, responsible for the deaths of up to 400 people in Afghanistan," an unnamed Western diplomat based in Pakistan told AFP.

Since the March operations, the state had been threatening military action against the tribal fighters and had also postponed deadlines for threatened military action on two occasions. That Nek Mohammed, reportedly a popular figure in South Waziristan, was a crucial actor is evident from the fact that a wide spectrum of powers within the Pakistani state was involved in the negotiations.


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SYRIA


A cold Ba'ath
By Guy Maayan
"The Face of Syria: Society, Government and State" by Eyal Zisser. The Red Line Series, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 346 pages, NIS 88.
It will soon be four years since Bashar Assad became president of Syria. In the Israeli media, Assad is often depicted as an obsessive Web surfer and Sony Playstation buff, clumsy and uncharismatic. Israelis like to compare him with his late father, commenting on the son's inferior skills and claiming that he is held captive by the old guard of the Ba'ath Party leadership. Many commentators believe that Syria's military forces and oppressive security mechanisms are all that keeps the Assad dynasty and the Alawi regime in power, allowing an ethnic group that accounts for only 13 percent of the population to remain in control of the country.
Viewing the Syrian leader and his enforcement mechanisms, however oppressive they might be, as the totality of Syria's being is problematic. At best, this is a fraction of the bigger picture - and not necessarily the most important fraction. It is often showcased to further a political agenda, whether of right-wingers opposed to a political settlement with Syria, or left-wingers entranced by Assad's aggressive rule. Anyone expecting these kinds of claims from Eyal Zisser will soon discover him to be a serious scientist who shies away from cliches. His previous book, "Syria under Assad: At a Crossroads," concluded five years ago with some unanswered questions about the internal mechanisms that have granted legitimacy to the current regime. The new work sets out to examine these questions.
Israeli academics wishing to write about Syria should know they are facing an uphill battle. First, they will encounter objective problems, such as the physical inaccessibility of our northern neighbor and a dismal lack of archival sources. A second, equally oppressive obstacle - for better or worse - is the giant shadow cast by Patrick Seale, a British journalist who had close ties with the late Hafez Assad. Seale's writing on Syria is based on sources that Israeli scholars will never get to see, even if they are someday permitted to eat hummus on the banks of Abana and Pharpar.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the Israeli author approaching this daunting task will have to deal with symbols and images that have inscribed Syria in the Israeli consciousness as the most extremist, uncompromising and belligerent country in today's Middle East, a country that will stop at nothing to get what it wants. The Syrian tank serving as a monument at Kibbutz Deganya; the story of Israeli POW Uri Ilan, who committed suicide in a Syrian jail; the case of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who was caught by the Syrians and hanged; and the struggle for control of water sources - all these were fixed by the agents of our national memory as the image of Syria long before the battle of Tel Elfahar, the 1973 war and the emergence of Hezbollah. Some will even say that the subject is impossible to tackle. Zisser, however, rises to the challenge.
"The Face of Syria" is a rare (for Israel) retrospective account of an Arab country's society and government. Zisser's discussion focuses on internal processes and leaves as background Syria's foreign relations, and especially its charged relationship with Israel. In choosing this strategy, he is trying to shake off the provincialism of the "old" Israeli scholarship, which held that the Arab world's internal processes needed to be seen through the lens of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The result is compelling, if, sadly, less than perfect. Zisser is among those who rightly refuse to see the modern Middle East as created solely by European imperialism. He points to certain primal elements embedded in the Syrian identity, primarily the sense of belonging to the region between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean. This sense of regional kinship, though it does not fully reflect the country's actual territory, has been an important facet of Syrian nationalism since the days of the French Mandate. Hafez Assad, for his own reasons, cautiously promoted this unique identity as part of the pan-Arabic identity to which both the Ba'ath Party and he personally were committed.
A slow machine
Francis Bacon once compared the state to a huge machine that moves slowly, and this definition is largely true of Syria in recent decades. Clearly, the country's greatest achievement has been a static stabilization based on a delicate balance of its various social forces, like the balance that was maintained (or, more accurately, was supposed to be maintained) by the regimes preceding the Ba'ath's 1963 rise to power. Zisser shows how the Syrian territorial state managed to win legitimacy even before Assad senior became president, despite the country's religious and ethnic complexity. He also follows its slow construction of a political center.
Zisser points to the process by which ethnic and religious minorities came increasingly to identify with the Syrian state, to join the republic's various frameworks of action, and in a sense to blur their own ethnic identity. The primary victims of this process were the urban Sunni Muslims, who lost their hold on the government in the 1960s. Still, representatives of this group - which accounts for some 60 percent of the population - continue to hold key government positions. Examples include Vice President Abd al-Halim Khaddam, Foreign Minister Farouk Shara and Defense Minister Mustafa Talas, all of whom have many proteges within the bloated Syrian administration.
The strengthening of the political center in Damascus brought prosperity to the city's inhabitants, the majority of whom are also Sunni. They were grateful to Hafez Assad and did not take part in the Islamic revolt (1976-82), which occurred mostly in the north of the country. Zisser, however, is careful not to idealize Syria's inter-ethnic relations, stressing the extreme delicacy of the socio-political balance. Last March's riots show that the internal tensions are still there, even if they have been temporarily kicked to the sidelines of Bashar Assad's playing field.
It seems to me that recent developments could also be placed in a different, more comparative perspective. Paradoxically, the revolutionary Ba'ath regime is gradually adopting the conservative Ottoman model, in which the central government serves as arbitrator between sub-forces within a clear framework of status quo. In Syria this framework is rigid, as are the means used to protect it. Frequently, the central government responds to offenses against the status quo by harshly suppressing those who challenge it.
Syria's transformation into a distinct status-quo state has greatly decreased internal pressures. This change created - though with much difficulty - a consensus around the ruling oligarchy (the so-called "jama'a") and allowed for the smooth transition of power from Hafez Assad to his son.
Ba'ath pragmatism
As Zisser says, Syria is far from being a democracy, nor is it close to developing Western institutions of government, and it needs to be viewed as inseparable from the development of other Arab regimes. However, the Syrian status quo would best be examined vis-a-vis the revival of Ottoman order in the region, and especially in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. Another factor that must be taken into account is the central role played by oligarchic structures, based in part on family or ethnic affiliation, in economics and politics. In some of the empire's regions, which became republics or democracies (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Greece, Israel, and Egypt as well to some degree), the process has also been characterized by the rise of family dynasties of political leaders and by the proliferation of patron-client systems, familiar to us from the internal workings of our own political parties.
Zisser's descriptions are diligent and meticulous. His chapter on the relationship between the state and the army is the best part of the book. It was actually Assad senior - the former head of the air force, who used the army to seize the presidency - who understood that he had to minimize the army's political involvement in order to keep his country stable. Zisser shows how, in the first decades of Syria's independence, the army began to play a key role in politics, due to the weakness of the political center; he also traces the military's gradual dismissal and return to the barracks as part of the creation of the status quo.
Nevertheless, the author is sometimes tempted to repeat his own previously published claims; this is especially evident in the chapter on relations between state and religion. Yet he makes some fascinating comments about the pragmatism of the Ba'ath regime, which, despite its commitment to secularism, conducts a dialogue with the country's Islamic elements. Moreover, following the brutal 1982 massacre in the city of Hamat (and in many ways as a result of it), there has been a shift in the government's attitude toward Islamic groups. Here, too, we see a return to a pre-Ba'ath pattern: the Islamic groups, for their part, accept the existence of the regime as a fait accompli, while the government acts to strengthen its own Muslim image.
It is unfortunate that two major topics - economy and culture - are not subjected in the book to a thorough analysis, despite their importance to the development of the new Syria. The country's economy is mentioned offhandedly, and its literary, philosophical and artistic activity are not included in the "face of Syria." One also cannot shake the impression that the book was written from a local-historicist perspective, lacking exhaustive comparison to other countries in the region or to parallel global developments.
The book also suffers from a large number of editorial and factual errors, as well as spelling mistakes. The separatist regime was not in power from 1958 to 1961 (page 39); these, of course, were the days of the union with Egypt. You need not be a Francophile to realize that the Syrian flag, and not the French one, is "comprised of two red and black stripes on a white background, with two green stars in between" (page 109). There are many of these embarrassing errors, indicating some sloppiness in the editing stage.
Yet the book's great virtue lies in the fine links it establishes between long-term historical processes and present-day developments in Syria. The book serves as a platform for the extensive knowledge Zisser has accumulated through his study of Syria and in the now-extinct journal Middle East Contemporary Survey. In this context, there is symbolic value to the editorial error that caused the book's back-cover blurb also to appear on page 346. One of the most aggravating features of university libraries is that frequently used books are often re-bound in thick, opaque cardboard, making it impossible to read their back covers. The editor's error will spare book lovers this annoyance, as "The Face of Syria" is sure to command a place on library shelves for many years to come.

Guy Maayan is scientific editor of the Hebrew translation of "What Went Wrong" by Bernard Lewis, forthcoming from Dvir Publishing House.


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ISRAEL

State Comptroller's report finds Housing Ministry sent $6.5 million for illegal West Bank construction

By Ziv Maor and Gideon Alon
The Housing and Construction Ministry has funneled nearly $6.5 million to illegal settlement construction in the West Bank in the past three years, more than half of it to outposts Israel pledged to remove, according to the annual State Comptroller's Report, released yesterday.
State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg wrote in the second part of his annual report that the Housing Ministry has funneled money to settlement construction that had not received cabinet or Defense Ministry approval - as required by law - and in cases where land ownership was still under dispute. Of the $6.5 million given to illegal West Bank construction, about $4 million went to the outposts, the report said.
The money was sent even as a branch of the Israel Defense Forces was "investing resources to track down and demolish illegal construction" in settlements and outposts, Goldberg wrote.
From January 2000 to June 2003, the Rural Building Administration's Jerusalem district office approved 77 contracts for construction projects in 33 West Bank areas, 18 of them unauthorized outposts, the report said. The administration is considered an arm of the Housing Ministry that enables it to carry out irregular activities, particularly in the territories.
The contracts were for housing units, security paths, approach roads, open public spaces, electricity hook-ups, water supplies and public buildings.
The comptroller hints that there was no due diligence and transparency in the geographical distribution of the ministry's budgets. From the budget it is not clear what monies were sent to the territories.
Minister Effi Eitam said he has decided, in the wake of the report, to set up a system of inspection over the transfer of the budgets. Ministry officials said the report deals with activities between January 2000 and June 2003, and that there had been four ministers during this period.
Eitam said he was determined to ensure the budgets were appropriated according to law, "so no damage would be caused to the settlement enterprise."
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a freeze last month on government funding for settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza after reviewing Goldberg's initial findings. Mazuz lifted the freeze after approving a monitoring system to prevent funding of illegal projects, the Justice Ministry said yesterday.
Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now welcomed the comptroller's report. "This confirms everything we've been saying for eight years," he said. "We are going to request a police inquiry, and we are filing an immediate police complaint against the housing minister."
Numerous reactions came from Knesset members as well. Labor MK Eitan Cabel called on the prime minister to fire Eitam, saying he was behaving as though the ministry was his personal estate. Eti Livni (Shinui) asked Mazuz to examine the possibility of opening an investigation into the way the ministry distributed public funds.
Meretz MK Haim Oron said the report showed clearly that there was a separate entity alongside Israel - the Yesha state that has no laws and no regulations. He said the government was implicated in the illegal activities of the settlers.
Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz asked that Eitam be dismissed and the ministry be run instead by an appointed committee. Ilan Leibowitz (Shinui) said that the secret that had been known for years was now officially revealed by the state comptroller - squandering of millions in public funds on the settlements, without any supervision or planning.

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State drops charge that probe into PM was hindered by leak
By Zvi Harel
The state has decided to slightly amend the indictment against suspended prosecutor Liora Glatt-Berkowitz, it was revealed yesterday. Glatt-Berkowitz is on trial for giving details to Haaretz correspondent Baruch Kra about the investigation into Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the case of money loaned to the Sharon family by British/South African businessman Cyril Kern.
The state has decided to withdraw its allegations that the prosecutor's leak had disrupted the investigation against Sharon in the Kern affair. This is, however, merely a cosmetic change as it does not affect the charges in the indictment.
The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court yesterday rejected a request by Glatt-Berkowitz to reveal who the source was who told investigators that she had spoken to a journalist about the case.
On December 25, 2003, Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi issued a gag order on releasing any details concerning the source, known as "Eagle."
In the request to the court, Glatt-Berkowitz's lawyers argued that "Eagle" is actually a journalist who revealed their client's name to police and Shin Bet security services investigators for money.
The attorneys claimed that there was a "give and take" relationship between this source and the investigating body, which is an intolerable situation. The request argued that Glatt-Berkowitz only handed over the information to Kra, without getting anything in return.
The court has not yet reached a decision on Glatt-Berkowitz's demand to call former attorney general Elyakim Rubinstein and State Prosecutor Edna Arbel as witnesses in order to prove she has been discriminated against, compared with other public servants accused of leaking information.
The prosecution has charged her on two counts: revealing information she received in her professional capacity; and fraud and breach of trust.
Her lawyers contend that Glatt-Berkowitz has been discriminated against because the article under which she is being tried has never before been enforced. They say this trial is being held because of ulterior motives, adding this is the only case of its kind since the establishment of the state.
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Arik beat Sharon

By Israel Harel

"All the options are open; it is not too late" goes the popular song that Army Radio dedicated to boost Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's morale, and in effect also its own. "Our mood will improve tomorrow," continues the song. From the broadcasts of this station and others, it was clear that the broadcasters and commentators were mourning the defeat no less than Sharon and Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The failure of the man to whose cause the media had enlisted, and particularly the electronic media, was also their failure, and the media are not willing to come to terms with this. Onward, they are now urging Sharon - ordering him is more like it - go back to the uprooting and thumb your nose at the referendum.
That was one of the hidden, though resolute, messages voiced by the media after the defeat: Please, Sharon, deliver the goods for which we made a type of plea bargain with you, in order to realize the ambition on which we have focused all our energies: the withdrawal and the uprooting of settlements. We built your image as a courageous statesman, the only one who can break the vicious cycle. Now you must fulfill your part of the bargain, and we don't care how.
Even though he is already suffering blows from those demanding the payment of the debt, Sharon is incapable - despite the fact that he and those hitting him continue to pretend that "only Arik can" - of uprooting the Likud from its main ideological positions. Were it not for those basic positions, the settlers, even if they were to triple and quadruple their efforts to convince Likud members, would not have been able to sway them and defeat the leader of their party. The landslide proved that Sharon, despite the many years he has spent in the company of his party faithful and the settlers, remains a foreign element, both mentally and ideologically, among those two groups. This is also evident in his sharp veering to the left.
If he could understand the code that enables them, and particularly the settlers, to overcome the terrible events they are going through, such as the murder on Sunday of Tali Hatuel and her daughters, and to cleave with even greater strength to their life's work, their homes and their faith, it is reasonable to assume that he would not have concocted the uprooting plan.
The conciliation gestures of Uzi Landau and Effie Eitam, who now prefer a lame duck to a succession battle, are deceptive: Sharon's fate as the leader of the national camp was sealed - the Likud members simply ratified it, and by an overwhelming majority - the moment that "Arik" the uninhibited adventurer overtook "Sharon" the seasoned politician, and ran to announce to Yoel Marcus of Haaretz that he was about to uproot settlements in the Gaza Strip.
From meetings between visitors from Yesha (the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza) and Likud members (the homes of some 50 percent of the party's members were visited), it became clear - and was proven by the results - that most of them consider ideology more important than solidarity with their leader. More than a few of them also feel that he transgressed, both ideologically and personally.
It also turned out that the heavy barrage by the media to convince Likud members in favor of disengagement only strengthened, rather than weakened, their ideological positions against it. Just as some 4,000 mortar shells and dozens of Qassam rockets have only strengthened us, said one resident of Gush Katif, so too has the media assistance to Sharon.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that another media dictate also had an effect: If Likud members do not approve the disengagement plan, stated the ultimatum, "we will not forget and will not forgive." Even the threats that the American guarantees would be cancelled, that the stock exchange would tumble and that the terror would escalate did their jobs against Sharon.
The opponents of the uprooting had another secret weapon: Olmert, Omri Sharon and their ilk. In Ashdod, for example, the settlers were told not to waste their breath because, "this is Omri's territory." The result - some 60 percent voted against the uprooting. A. from Holon told her visitors that Sharon and Olmert, who went to the elections with a platform promising that the Likud would prevent the uprooting of settlements, were now implementing the platform of former Labor party leader Amram Mitzna. It was Sharon and Olmert, and not the settlers, who had instigated a hostile takeover of the Likud, A. asserted.
According to the referendum it is A., and not those who are licking Sharon's boots, who represents the firm faithful core, whose members are never floating voters, of the Likud. It is thanks to that core that Sharon's new commitments to go ahead with his plan are empty promises.

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Sharon's challenge



In the wake of the overwhelming rejection of his Gaza-West Bank disengagement proposal by Likud voters, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not giving up. The Israeli leader vows to forge ahead with a modified version of his plan to unilaterally withdraw from some of the settlements he had proposed to leave in the referendum. As Mr. Sharon moves forward with this politically courageous step, he will deserve and most likely receive the strong support of President Bush. The two leaders are likely to discuss the matter when Mr. Sharon travels to Washington several weeks from now.
We remain convinced that the strategic rationale behind Mr. Sharon's approach is sound. There are just 7,300 Israeli settlers living in Gaza today, where they are surrounded by more than 1.3 million hostile Palestinians. There is no realistic chance that Israeli settlements will be able to remain in Gaza if Israelis and Palestinians reach a peace agreement. The resources that Israel spends to protect the outlying Gaza and West Bank settlements Mr. Sharon has proposed to evacuate could be better spent on winning the war against the terrorist organizations operating out of Gaza and the West Bank.

As he prepares to meet with Mr. Bush, the Israeli leader faces a difficult challenge: crafting a new disengagement plan in which Israel withdraws from a smaller number of settlements (thus mollifying some on his right) without alienating Washington by limiting the scope of an Israeli pullback. When Mr. Sharon visited Mr. Bush at the White House last month, he won U.S. support for his positions that Israel would be able to retain some West Bank settlements in a peace agreement and that the Palestinians would not be granted the "right of return" to Israel. Mr. Sharon counts his excellent relationship with Mr. Bush among his foremost achievements as prime minister. He does not want to run the risk of jeopardizing it by holding on to settlements that serve no vital security purpose.
An unnamed State Department official quoted yesterday by The Washington Post complained that the United States would "get hammered" following the referendum defeat and would have to show that "we weren't played by Sharon." But Secretary of State Colin Powell later praised Mr. Sharon, noting that his push for the settlement pullout was unprecedented for an Israeli prime minister.
The prime minister is actually in a stronger political position than imagined vis-a-vis his critics among the settlers. For one thing, public opinion polls suggest that close to two-thirds of the Israeli electorate as a whole favor his disengagement plan. But even among Likud voters, Mr. Sharon retains a surprising degree of support. In the referendum proposal defeated Sunday, some 59,000 Likud Party members voted against Mr. Sharon. But, by way of comparison, 1 million Israelis voted for Likud in the last election. According to a poll published yesterday in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, 55 percent of Likud voters -- roughly 550,000 people -- favor the prime minister's disengagement plan.
In short, Mr. Sharon's disengagement concept remains very much alive. Mr. Bush should continue to support the Israeli leader as he attempts to win a popular mandate for his forthcoming plan at home.


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Mergers & Acquisitions
Hezbollah tries to fill Hamas's power vacuum.

By Aaron Mannes
Israel's elimination of the Hamas leadership -- most recently Sheikh Yassin and Rantissi, but also several mid-level leaders -- has created a power vacuum in Hamas, allowing Hezbollah, and its sponsors Syria and Iran, to move in. With the removal of Saddam, Syria and Iran are making a play to become the dominant powers in the region. To do so they need to do two things: kick the U.S. out of Iraq, and neutralize the region's strongest military power: Israel. Hamas has key assets to contribute to this Syrian-Iranian gambit.
Hamas's utility against Israel is apparent. With its network of schools and hospitals and its history of successful terror attacks, Hamas has street credibility not just among the Palestinians, but also throughout the Middle East. For the last several years Hamas has been split between the leadership in Gaza and the leadership in Damascus. The Damascus leadership, which disburses Iranian money within the organization, has grown closer to its patrons. The Gaza leadership hates Israel just as much, but tries to preserve its independence. As the effective Gaza leaders are eliminated the Damascus leadership has a free hand to run Hamas in accord with Iranian-Syrian goals.
Hezbollah has been providing technical and financial support to the Palestinian factions, and building its own network in the West Bank, Gaza, and among the Israeli Arabs since the late 1990s. According to the Israeli daily Maariv, with Arafat sidelined and his organization in disarray, most of the funding for the Arafat-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades comes from Hezbollah. The minor Palestinian factions are already tied into the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad receives all of its funding from Iran. The secular "fronts" are based in Damascus and rely on Syrian support. By pulling Hamas into the fold, Hezbollah becomes the real power behind Palestinian violence.
With Hezbollah pulling the strings, Israel will face a coordinated campaign along three fronts. In addition to terror attacks, the Katyusha rockets threatening Israel's north could be augmented by artillery and rocket attacks from Gaza and the West Bank capable of reaching Israel's population centers and commercial airspace -- effectively encircling Israel.
Hamas's assets will also be useful to Hezbollah and its patrons in Iraq, where they seek to undermine the American endeavor and create a weak Iraq dependent on Iran. Hamas has already opened offices in southern Iraq to foment anti-American activities. Gaza and the West Bank could be fertile recruiting grounds for jihadists wishing to fight the United States in Iraq.
Hamas has links to radical Sunni groups throughout the Middle East and could build relations between them and Shiite Hezbollah. Jordan -- a key U.S. ally bordering Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia -- could be target number one. With a majority Palestinian population, Jordan is particularly vulnerable to Palestinian unrest, and Hamas has close ties to Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood and particularly the Islamic Action Front. Indeed, Jordan recently thwarted a massive terror attack. But another incident, in Kosovo -- where a Jordanian policeman serving with the U.N. contingent shot and killed two U.S. policemen -- is a warning that, even within the security forces that prop up Jordan's monarchy, there is unhappiness with the regime's pro-Western tilt. If Jordan fell into the Syrian-Iranian camp it would become a base for attacks on Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
Finally, Hamas could augment Hezbollah's already formidable ability to launch terror attacks around the world. Hezbollah has already unleashed terror on Europe, the Middle East, and even Latin America -- and attempted to do so in Asia. Hamas has an international fundraising network (particularly in the United States, where Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzuk lived for nearly 20 years) that can also be used to provide logistical support for terrorist operations and recruitment. The April 30, 2003, attack on a Tel-Aviv bar by two British citizens of Pakistani descent who were recruited into Hamas is a harbinger of this possibility. In another ominous sign, in November 2003, Israel arrested a Canadian citizen of Palestinian birth for training and plotting terror attacks in North America. This ability to recruit Westerners is an important asset in conducting international terror, which Hezbollah and its sponsors have already used effectively around the world.
Hamas personnel, resources, and "brand name" fit neatly into the regional and global plans of Hezbollah and its sponsors. To head off this threat, the U.S. should not merely support Israeli action against Hamas. The U.S. should be actively coordinating with Israel to neutralize and destroy Hamas, particularly by pressuring sponsors Iran and Syria. In the Middle East one often hears the old saying: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Surely, then, the enemy of my friend is my enemy. And Hamas's enmity is not reserved for Israel alone.

-- Aaron Mannes is the author of TerrorBlog. This piece is adapted from his article in the April 2004 edition of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/mannes200405050929.asp


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US BUSINESS & ECONOMY

CVS chairman: Legalize prescription drug imports
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Breaking with others in his industry, the chief executive of CVS/pharmacy called Wednesday for temporarily legalizing imports of prescription drugs.
"While many in our industry believe that importation is a fundamentally flawed concept and oppose it without exception, I have come to a slightly different view," Thomas Ryan, CVS chairman and chief executive officer, said in prepared testimony for a government task force on drug importation.
Ryan is the first executive of a large drug store chain to support importing drugs from countries where prices are controlled by governments so that people can fill prescriptions more cheaply than they can at U.S. pharmacies. Ryan said such a move would be a recognition of reality.
"Millions of Americans already have opted to import drugs because they can't afford not to. We owe it to them to face this issue head on and not look the other way," Ryan said.
The government panel is considering whether and how drugs could be safely imported from Canada and elsewhere.
The Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, have opposed legalizing drug imports, citing safety concerns.
Ryan said, however, that he believed importing prescription drugs can be done safely by using established distributors of pharmaceuticals in this country. He suggested a two-year trial run while the government seeks a long-term solution to soaring U.S. drug prices.
Three governors also called on the federal government to put in place in quickly a means of safely allowing importation.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, whose agency has led the opposition to imported drugs, on Tuesday became the first senior Bush administration official to say that legalizing drug imports appears inevitable.
Thompson said imports would save consumers money and that he would urge President Bush not to stand in the way of legislation in Congress to make them legal.


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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Tied & Tested
China and the U.S. are linked . . . a good thing.

By Larry Kudlow
Columnist Tom Friedman of the New York Times wrote that "When Chinese authorities told banks last week to cut back their wild lending, commodity prices and stock markets tumbled all over the world." The always clever Friedman then conjured up a prayer that concluded, "May China's leaders live to 120, and may they enjoy 9 percent GDP growth every year of their lives. Thank you, Father. Amen."
While it's good to see Friedman appealing to a higher power, his prayer has already been answered over the past ten years. Since China's 1994 currency stabilization reform, which firmly linked the yuan to the dollar, real economic growth in the country has averaged 8.9 percent per year -- with no recessions. Call this the post-Tiananmen Square modern era of Chinese growth.
Most important to the continuing health of China's rapidly emerging economy have been pro-growth measures to reduce tariffs, market-liberalization steps to reform and modernize the Chinese economy, agriculture reforms going back to the late 1970s, and, in particular, the currency reform to stabilize the yuan -- which has been crucial to attracting deep-pocketed international investors. These measures set the stage for the decade-long durable economic boom which shows absolutely no signs of stalling.
China has become one of the world's primary growth engines. Almost single-handedly China has pulled Japan into an export-led recovery, ending a fifteen-year Japanese downturn. In fact, China has anchored an economic revival throughout the Asian-Pacific rim. Its huge industrial demand has contributed mightily to a revival of the U.S. commodity and manufacturing sectors and has had a boom-triggering impact on world shipping.
In short, the global economy needs China.
In recent weeks China has taken a few modest steps to slow its allegedly overheated economy. It raised bank-reserve requirements, clamped down on cement, steel, and aluminum projects to curb excess development, and implemented some land-use rules to slow industrial growth.
Amidst the current growth wave, government-reported Chinese inflation has picked up. In mid-2002 China was deflating at a 1.3 percent pace, but recent consumer-price-index readings have hovered around 3 percent. The corporate-goods index, a proxy for wholesale prices, was deflating at a 4 percent clip in 2002. Now it's rising at a 6? percent rate.
Look familiar?
In effect, China's price trends mirror and magnify U.S. price trends. This is because the yuan is tied to the dollar. So it is really the U.S. Federal Reserve calling the tune for Chinese money.
As the Fed reflated its way out of deflation in recent years by lowering interest rates and expanding the money supply, China's economy benefited enormously (as did emerging country economies worldwide). And as China's economy is not nearly as diverse, flexible, or developed as America's, price swings up and down tend to be more exaggerated than those in the U.S.
Still, there is no inflation crisis occurring in either country.
The Greenspan Fed undoubtedly overshot liquidity additions to the U.S. economy in fighting deflation in 2000-02. Some of this spilled over to China. Yet while core inflation (excluding food and energy) is creeping up in the U.S., it is only 1.4 percent over the past twelve months -- nothing to panic over. Still, it is noteworthy that the overall Consumer Price Index did rise 5.1 percent annually in this year's first quarter.
Here are some other telling parallels: As U.S. Treasury bond rates have increased recently from 3.6 percent to 4.5 percent, China's government bond yield has turned up from 4 to 5 percent. In recent weeks the U.S. dollar has reversed a two-year decline and appreciated by roughly 6.5 percent. This means the dollar-linked Chinese yuan has also appreciated in lockstep with the greenback.
Currency appreciation amounts to a de facto tightening of monetary policy in both countries. As currency values rise, increased consumer and business purchasing power will slow price increases. In response to this restraint, U.S. dollar-denominated commodity prices -- such as gold, copper, steel scrap, and wheat -- have corrected sharply lower with stock markets also losing some of their steam of late. But these are overreactions to a very mild dose of monetary restraint in both China and the U.S.
Today's Federal Open Market Committee meeting will lay the rhetorical groundwork for an overdue increase in the federal funds policy rate. Most market mavens expect a rate hike in June or August. Really, the central bank should act today. Global stock, bond, currency, and commodity markets have already built in about a 75-basis-point Fed move. Why wait? The sooner the Fed acts, the less action it will have to take later on.
That said, Federal Reserve policy will remain relatively accommodative for quite some time. The boom in the U.S. and China will not end. Instead, with a bit of stimulus removal -- actually nothing more than a lightening up on the monetary accelerator -- rising inflation expectations can be stopped dead in their tracks. This would prolong bull-market prosperity cycles in both countries. Once again, Mr. Tom Friedman's prayer would be answered.

-- Larry Kudlow, NRO's Economics Editor, is CEO of Kudlow & Co. and host with Jim Cramer of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer.
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RUSSIA


US and Russia nukes: still on cold war, hair-trigger alert
A Clinton-era plan to enhance US-Russia early warnings systems languishes under bureaucracy.
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW - It promised to be a quiet evening at the Soviet nuclear early warning center when Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's seat on Sept. 26, 1983.
But within minutes, Colonel Petrov was locked in perhaps the most dangerous drama of the cold war. An alarm sounded, warning screens blinked. A computer map on the wall showed the hostile launch of a US nuclear warhead.
"Every second counted.... My legs were unsteady, my hands were trembling, my cozy armchair became a hot frying pan," says the former officer. It only got worse. Within five minutes the computer registered five more launches; the alarm flashed: "Missile Attack."
The decision that Petrov made in those pressure-cooked minutes - that the computer was in error, and the elaborate early warning system that he helped build was wrong - may have prevented a nuclear holocaust.
Twenty years later, there is growing concern that a similar nuclear miscue could happen again. The lone superpower and its former rival still aim thousands of missiles on hair-trigger alert at each other's major cities. As the US rushes to deploy a missile shield this summer designed to intercept North Korean warheads, Clinton-era plans that would improve both US and deteriorating Russian detection systems are stalled.
At presidential summits in both 1998 and 2000, the US and Russia announced plans for a joint, real-time warning system in Moscow. The blueprint, drawing on American's sophisticated satellite network and Russia's wide radar net, promised to keep better tabs on the superpower arsenals as well as on terrorist threats.
"I wish I could say there is no chance of it [today]," Petrov says, in a matchbox kitchen with a yellowing star chart. "But when we deal with space - when we [play] God - who knows what will be the next surprise?"
Dreams of joint efforts ground to a halt long ago. Meanwhile, neglect has left Russia's system in disrepair.
"The fact is, the Russians are flying blind," says Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "There are huge portions of their periphery that are unmonitored because their satellites are down, and they've lost a number of [Soviet-era] radar sites."
The result is a growing concern about false readings that could show a hostile nuclear launch, and provoke real retaliation. Such fears have been augmented by a string of Russian military accidents, from failed test missile launches to a sunken nuclear submarine.
After a secret year-long investigation into the 1983 incident, Petrov says the false readings that shocked him and his team were attributed to a rare but predictable reflection off the earth. The system was fooled again in 1995, when Russians briefly thought that a scientific launch from Norway was a nuclear-tipped US missile heading their way. President Boris Yeltsin reportedly brought out the launch suitcase called the "nuclear football" - perhaps the closest it's ever come to being used in Soviet or Russian history - before coming to believe there was no need to respond.
"There are examples of weather satellite launches, the full moon rising, flocks of geese - all these horror stories in history," says Mr. Wolfsthal. Part of the solution was meant to be a joint warning center built in Moscow. It was to have been completed years ago.
When President Bill Clinton and Mr. Yeltsin first announced plans to build the center in 1998, it was heralded as a breakthrough in preventing a "false warning" leading to accidental war. When Russia's new President Vladimir Putin signed the deal in 2000 with Mr. Clinton, the White House touted it as a "milestone in ensuring strategic stability."
Expert advice backed up that view, with compelling findings in the mid-1990s that combining the US and Russian systems would significantly boost results.
"We went through a whole simulation of different missiles fired by different countries from the Mideast to Europe at different targets at different trajectories," says Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington who oversaw the detailed research with Russian scientists.
"We looked at detections of the US system operating alone, and the Russian one alone, and found the combined performance would be 20 to 70 percent better," says Mr. Blair, a former Minuteman launch officer and early proponent of the joint warning center.
With seven Russian radars stretched from the Baltics to Azerbaijan - which can pick-up Middle East launches - and the US satellites, "you just have a lot more assets focusing on the threat," adds Blair. "We could work together and have a much better ability to detect third country attacks."
US and Russian leaders had another reason to be optimistic. Russian missile officers used a US command center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for months at the end of 1999, to familiarize themselves with the US early-warning system - and to be on hand during the Millenium New Year - to ensure direct contact with Moscow in case any Y2K computer "bug" affected the Russian system.
"It was incredibly useful, and built a lot of trust between ... early-warning groups on both sides," says Carnegie's Wolfsthal. "But in the end, they went away, and we're left without real-time sharing."
The joint project, first envisioned for completion in mid-2001, has foundered on everyday issues of what Russian taxes should be paid for imported US equipment, and legal concerns about liability.
"It's a lack of political will on both sides," says Vladimir Dvorkin, a former major general in Russia's nuclear forces, and a top strategist until 2001. Russia's early warning is "less trustworthy" than the American one, he says, though its readings "will never serve as the only guide [to launch]."
Even more important, General Dvorkin says, is "joint analysis of threats coming from unstable regions with authoritarian regimes."
The mundane points stalling the project are surprising security experts. "If you're a lawyer at the State Department, [liability and taxes] may be very important issues," says Wolfsthal. "But if you are concerned about the geostrategic survival of the human species, they are minuscule in their relevance."
Experts on both sides are planning to issue a wake-up call, however. A group has planned to begin a year-long modeling exercise that will examine the risks of inaction, and the need for the joint center.
"We want to show what can happen without this center," says Pavel Zolotarev, a former Strategic Forces major general. "If such a center were already open here, these threats would probably not lead to dangerous situations. We'll get these results in a year, but who knows when we will be able to convince the leadership?"
Over the past decade, the US has spent roughly $7 billion funding nuclear-threat-reduction programs to control "loose nukes" and to secure weapons-grade nuclear material and scientific expertise that might be easy targets for terrorists. The $1 billion total spent per year on all threat reduction amounts to less than one-third of one percent of US defense spending.
Taking the thousands of warheads off hair-trigger alert, experts say, would also help lower risks. Experts estimate that there is a world total of 30,000 assembled nuclear weapons and enough bomb-grade material to create nearly a quarter million more.
Some Russian experts argue that, since they have no intention of ever "launching on warning," Moscow is deliberately letting its early-warning system deteriorate.
"Certainly if you look at what they do to maintain their satellite constellation, it's pathetic," says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard's Belfer Center. There is virtually no coverage of areas where US submarines could launch missiles - long considered the first phase of any attack on Soviet forces.
"I can't imagine a Russian president awakened in the middle of the night with a blip on the radar screen, saying 'Yes, I'm going to launch the missiles on that basis,' knowing what he has to know about the state of their early-warning system," says Mr. Bunn.
* Second in an occasional series on US-Russian strategic issues. "Old weapons, new terror worries," ran April 15, 2004.
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>> TROUBLE WITH ISLAM 1

France tries to soften local style of Islam

Officials there have deported two allegedly radical clerics, leading a Europe-wide crackdown.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
PARIS - As European governments crack down on radical imams as part of their battle against Islamic terrorism, they have laid bare a central problem for millions of their Muslim citizens: a lack of homegrown religious leaders to guide their integration into Western societies.
Overwhelmingly foreign, and sometimes speaking only Arabic, Europe's imams often have little understanding of their host countries, and their teachings run counter to modern European values and gender roles, say Muslim leaders and government officials. But there seems little chance of any change soon, they add.
"There is an abyss between the imams' vision of the world and that of young Muslims born here," says Dounia Bouzar, a member of the French Council for the Muslim Religion, a body established last year to lead the Muslim community.
France has taken the lead in a Europe-wide crackdown on radical clerics. French officials have deported two allegedly fundamentalist imams in recent weeks, and are threatening to expel three more. Italy expelled a Senegalese imam last November, and the British government is seeking to deport the Egyptian born radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, accusing him of supporting al Qaeda.
"Under the cover of religion, individuals present on our soil have been using extremist language and issuing calls for violence," French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Saturday. "These favor the installation of terrorist movements. It is necessary therefore to oppose this together and by all available means."
Since the Madrid bombing in March, European authorities are paying new attention to the possibility that fundamentalist preachers are sheltering and supporting jihadist bombers.
French authorities announced with great fanfare two weeks ago that they were deporting Abdelkader Bouziane, an Algerian imam, after he defended wife-beating and stoning adulterous women in a magazine interview. They expelled him before he had a chance to appeal the ruling, which a court later overturned.
Officials told reporters that Mr. Bouziane had ties to terrorist groups, and that the police were keeping a close eye on about 30 mosques whose preachers were suspected of fundamentalist leanings.
The hasty expulsion drew criticism. "You cannot fight an antidemocratic movement by using its own methods," complained opposition Socialist Party spokesman Malik Boutih on French radio Tuesday.
Some Muslim leaders fear the government has made political use of the affair. "They are dramatizing it so as to show that all imams are foreign," complains Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the influential Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF). "They are preparing the ground to set up a government institute to train imams, and we are against such government interference."
Ninety percent from abroad
An estimated 90 percent of imams in France are indeed foreign citizens, mostly from North Africa. Some "have not evolved in French society," says Mr. Breze, whose group is considered close to the Muslim Brotherhood. "Some adapt fast, but lots do not."
Dalil Boubaker, the head of Paris's Grand Mosque, is harsher. "There are 1,500 places of Islamic worship in France," he says. "Five hundred of them have proper imams. The other thousand are clowns."
Who chooses the imams?
While the Algerian government (which funds the Grand Mosque) sends 80 imams to France, and the Moroccan government sends dozens more, most prayer leaders are chosen by local groups that run their own mosques, often in the run-down, big-city suburbs where most of France's five million Muslims live.
Very few of them are paid for their services. Most live on welfare, supplemented by donations from the faithful.
The imams of the 250 mosques affiliated with the UOIF must meet certain criteria, says Breze.
"Our preachers must speak French,they must have been here for many years if they are not French citizens, and their sermons must strengthen social peace," he insists. "We don't want imams who rouse their congregations against their country or a government."
Authorizing imams
Breze would like to see the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) - set up last year at the urging of the government to provide the authorities with a representative Islamic body they could deal with - set similar conditions in drawing up a list of approved imams.
Dr. Boubaker, head of the CFCM, proposed such a scheme in a meeting Monday with Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin. "We must distinguish between real imams and subversives who call themselves imams," he says. "Imams in France should absolutely stop talking politics."
The CFCM, riven by internal divisions between different branches of Islam, would probably not able to draw up a credible list of "authorized" imams, however, and some members doubt it should try. "It might look like police-style management," worries Ms. Bouzar. "A lot of Muslims already think the government is trying to control them through the council, and this could revive the anxieties."
Some Muslim leaders look to the training of French-born young men as imams as the solution, hoping that they would be more moderate and nonpolitical, and better attuned to the realities of life in a secular Western nation.
The UOIF runs a small college in the French countryside that turns out about 10 new imams a year, but officials acknowledge that this is nowhere near enough to meet the demand. The problem is not only to find enough young Frenchmen attracted by the life of an imam; equally difficult is the question of financing a training institute.
In Muslim countries, governments generally subsidize such institutions. In secular France, with its strict separation of church and state, such an idea is anathema. "This is precisely the CFCM's mission and task. The ball is in their court," says Interior Ministry spokeswoman Veronique Guillermo. "The French state will have nothing to do with how a religion organizes itself."
But the Muslim community in France does not have the resources to fund four-year imam training courses, Muslim leaders say, and they are reluctant to turn to traditional donors, such as wealthy patrons in Gulf countries, for fear of the influence that would give them.
"The question of money is key," says Bouzar. "But the whole imam situation is a reflection of the state of relations between French society and Islam. Islam used to be seen as a foreigner's religion. Today we have a generation which wants to be Muslim and French. Before we can decide what we want from our imams we have to reflect on what it means to be a Muslim in a secular society, and we have a long way to go in that reflection."

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>> TROUBLE WITH ISLAM 2
Outside Encouragement
Sharia rules Nigeria -- with the help of foreign Islamists.

By Paul Marshall

It is a pretty good rule of thumb that where you find Muslim extremism, Islamist terrorism, and women being sentenced to death by stoning, there you will find Saudi funds and Saudi-trained personnel. One exception to this rule has been Nigeria, but now evidence of Wahabbi mischief is surfacing there as well.
Since the governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Ahmed Sani, introduced a draconian version of sharia in 1999, 11 of Nigeria's 36 states have followed suit. Five women have been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, though no punishment has yet been carried out. Thieves have had their hands amputated by court order. One man had his eye removed after accidentally blinding a friend (he could have escaped this by paying 60 camels, but the injured party wasn't interested in the camels).
Under these sharia dictates, women are harshly subjugated. In northern Nigeria, they have been forbidden to rent houses and barred from riding motorbikes or traveling in the same vehicles as men. Taxi drivers have been caned for carrying female passengers. Zamfara requires all high-school girls to wear a hijab and bars them from wearing skirts and other "Western" forms of dress. State officials have advocated public flogging of those violating an "Islamic" dress code. Prostitution charges have been leveled at women merely for the crime of being unmarried after the age of 13. Judges in Bauchi State have told women to get married immediately or be sent to prison. One judge ordered four of them to pick out husbands from among the men in the court. Women are at a particular disadvantage in these criminal prosecutions since their testimony usually counts for only half that of a man.
Non-Muslims, usually Christians, have become second-class citizens. Their taxes pay for Islamic preachers, while hundreds of churches have been closed by government order. Last week, Sani announced that all "unauthorized" places of worship in Zamfara State would be demolished. Those who exercise their right under the Nigerian constitution to change their religion from Islam are threatened with death, a punishment for apostasy under sharia law. The Catholic and Anglican churches have had to set up protected centers for converts.
This spread of radical Islam has also led to riots, mob attacks, and vigilantes, producing the largest death toll in Nigeria since the civil war over Biafra in the 1960s. Over 10,000 people have died in the last four years in sharia-related violence -- perhaps over 1,000 in the central states this year alone.
Recent months have seen the emergence of more organized militias. In early January, in Yobe State, there was an uprising by a group calling itself the "Taliban," led by a "Mullah Omar," and demanding an Islamic state. It took several hundred troops two weeks to put it down.
Foreign groups have been aiding the institutionalization of Islamic law. Saudi, Sudanese, Syrian, and Palestinian representatives appeared with Governor Sani in the days before he announced his plans for sharia. The Jigawa State government has sent Islamic judges for training in Malaysia and Sudan. The government of Katsina State has sent a delegation to Sudan to study its laws. Other states have been offered assistance from some these same countries as well as from Iran and Libya.
In January, the Saudi religious and cultural attach? in Nigeria, Sheik Abdul-Aziz, said that his government had been monitoring the implementation of sharia in Nigeria and noted the results "with delight."
There is also evidence of infiltration by foreign Islamic radicals. According to some reports, extremists from neighboring Chad were involved in the July 2001 violence in Bauchi State. In November 2001, Nigerian police arrested six Pakistani preachers, accusing them of inciting religious violence in Ogun state. The police have announced that scores of Pakistanis have been arrested in different parts of the country for allegedly fomenting religious trouble since 9/11. Church spokesmen in Plateau State said last month that local Muslim extremists have brought in thousands of mercenaries from Niger and Chad to invade Christian towns and villages.
However, despite repeated rumors, there has until this year been little evidence of organized foreign support for violence and domestic terrorism. Now such evidence is appearing. On February 3, the Nigerian government announced that an unnamed Iranian diplomat was arrested on January 23 in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, after he was found taking photographs of Churches, a presidential villa, the defense headquarters, and the Israeli, British, and American embassies.
The usually reliable news service Compass Direct reports that one of January's "Taliban" raiders, Muslim cleric Alhaji Sharu, confessed to police that he was a middleman between Nigerian extremists and the Al-Muntada Al-Islami Trust, a Saudi funded "charity" headquartered in Britain. Sharu said that the Trust's money had been used to propagate a Wahabist version of Islam in Nigeria and fund religious violence.
Subsequent investigation by Nigeria's police led to "the discovery of financial transactions running into millions of dollars" between Sharu and the Trust's local head, a Sudanese businessman named Muhiddeen Abdullahi. Authorities arrested Abdullahi on February 20, accusing him and the Trust of financing attacks on Christians, including the January Taliban uprising.
When authorities released Abdullahi 10 days after his arrest, more than 5,000 Qadiriyya Sufi Muslims, the largest tradition within Nigerian Islam, mounted a protest march. Chanting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great"), demanded that Wahabbis be banned from the country. Their spokesman, Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara, told journalists, "As a matter of urgency, the state government should close the office of Al-Muntada Al-Islami because of its activities which have resulted in religious unrest in Nigeria."
If Nigeria's moderate Muslims can call for the rejection of Saudi interference, there is nothing stopping the Nigerian government from doing the same, and little stopping the U.S. government from encouraging it to do so.

-- Paul Marshall is senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. He is author of Islam at the Crossroads and God and the Constitution: Christianity and American Politics.

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IRAQ 2...

Loose Canons
Unacceptable and Un-American
By Jed Babbin
Published 5/5/2004 12:07:25 AM
That's what Big Dog called the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and, as usual, he was dead right. Unfortunately, those words seem to describe more than the outrageous and illegal actions of a few soldiers and civilians there. There is a sense of disarray about Iraq this week, and those who want us to fail there are doing everything they can to magnify it. The Marines had the city of Falluja cordoned off for almost a month, and -- having paid for the real estate with blood -- they were ordered to pull back. We had one former Saddamite general put in charge of a small new Iraqi force going into the city to restore order and drive out the insurgents. But after a couple of days it was clear that this general -- Jasim Muhammed Saleh - was performing up to the standards of Hans Blix.
Saleh was chosen on the recommendation of some members of the Iraqi Governing Council. But we later discovered a small problem. Gen. Saleh had a role in crushing the Shia revolt America invited and then abandoned in 1991. Somehow, Gen. Saleh -- garbed in his old uniform and surrounded by red-bereted cohorts -- wasn't able to locate any of the foreign insurgents and dead-ender Baathists who have made Falluja a battleground that has claimed too many American lives. Exit Saleh, stage left.
Now we have another former Saddam general, Muhammed Latif, who is at the head of the 900-man Iraqi "force" in Falluja. The IGC and Ambassador Bremer have apparently done a better job of vetting this guy. Gen. Latif -- who spent seven years in jail for resisting Saddam's orders -- seems a slightly better bet than Saleh. But only slightly, because it's not clear that he can command any loyalty from the few troops at his disposal, or cooperation from the locals.
WE'RE FACED WITH one of the central dilemmas of this war: How do you instill a sense of freedom and democracy among a population that is -- at least partly -- tolerant of, if not sympathetic to, barbarians who murdered and mutilated four Americans who fell into their hands? As one Defense Department source told me, we have a 21st century military trying to restore order among a 12th century population without turning everything into a smoking pile of rubble. Every instinct tells me that we should have ordered all the women, children, and elderly out of Falluja quickly then systematically destroyed the pockets of insurgents that our scout-sniper teams were locating. A 500-pound precision-guided bomb does the job in a manner that won't need to be repeated, at least in regard to those within a half a block. We were doing that when a halt was imposed. Now we have chosen to test this "Iraqification" option. By doing so, we are pretending that we have obtained the results we should have in the past year, and haven't.
The Iraqis are unready. Thirteen months after the fall of Saddam's regime -- hell, six months after his capture -- Iraq is not ready for a new government, and a new government is not ready for Iraq. There's plenty of blame to go around, but that's for another day. (Or not. One wise man told me soon after L. Paul Bremer was appointed proconsul over Iraq: "If you want anything to be accomplished, never hire someone whose first name is 'ambassador.'") The issue now is how to push Iraq along. Face facts: June 30 will be a symbolic turnover, not a substantive one. American troops will be there for many years to come. Paul Bremer will leave on June 30, and John Negroponte - until recently, our ambassador to Kofi and the Kupcakes -- will take over in what may seem a lesser role. But he has his work cut out for him, as do the soldiers who will remain.
This Churchillian situation (Sir Winston once said that you can always count on Americans to do the right thing, but only after they try everything else) can't be fixed quickly. As we are discovering, you can't make up for lost time when you're nation-building. Lost time is just lost. The President tried to make up for it by making his most puzzling pronouncement to date: that the U.N.'s representative -- the anti-American Algerian, Lakhdar Brahimi -- will choose the new Iraqi government. Those of you who know what the acronym FUBAR stands for can derive my prediction for the U.N.'s success. We will waste another year at this, and then realize that we don't need more ambassadors and diplomats.
WE -- AND THAT MEANS Uncle Sam, and our real allies -- need to establish several things before Iraq can be stable enough to govern itself. First, it needs security. Which means we need to protect it from external threats coming from Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and get the Iraqis to the point where they are capable of dealing with the internal mess themselves. Second, it needs a functioning legislature and courts, which means it needs something like the Afghan "loya jirgha," an assembly of local leaders who choose the new government and can pass laws and establish courts. ASAP. Third, it needs to provide evidence of the functioning government including the security, but also services, schools, and hospitals. The $18 billion in construction money should be spent now to employ restive Iraqis and help get their economy going. That is more than enough for our new representative to Iraq, John Negroponte, to deal with after June 30. The prisoner abuse matter makes everything worse. It has energized every opponent we have and makes our continued presence in Iraq more difficult, though not less essential.
One general has been suspended, six soldiers are facing courts-martial, and a number of others, including a military intelligence colonel, will probably be prosecuted. The military justice system is, in truth, better than its civilian counterpart. There are at least six investigations ongoing, and there will be trials. They can't happen fast enough, be public enough, or impose sentences severe enough. Those few -- those miserable few -- have dishonored the service of tens of thousands of devoted, brave soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines and made their jobs even more dangerous. Think of the next American soldier captured by the insurgents. His -- or her -- fate will be horrible, and the insurgents will say it is payback for what happened at Abu Ghraib.
The Blixiecrats in Congress and our pals in the Arab press are in full cry. Teddy and Carl Levin are harrumphing because they weren't told about the investigation before it was leaked to the press. They are trying to make things worse by saying that the problem is much more widespread than any facts indicate. But the seriousness of these incidents is not to be underestimated. At this writing, there are new allegations that at least two prisoners were murdered, and there may also have been abuses in Afghan jails.
The military justice system is cranking along, and it will meet out justice to the perps. Those not under military jurisdiction will have to face Iraqi justice. At least three civilians are implicated, and one of them may have participated in one of the murders. They should be held in Iraqi jails, and tried in Iraqi or Afghani courts. Until then, they should remain in the Abu Ghraib jail or the Afghan equivalent. As prisoners, not as jailers. They are certain to be treated better than were the prisoners they are accused of abusing.
[Nota Bene: On Tuesday, the junior senator from Massachusetts was said, by his Vietnam-era Navy boss, to have been a "loose cannon" while in the war zone. Said junior senator is in no way connected to this column, the proper spelling of its banner, or its author. Except as to be hoisted on its petard.]


TAS Contributing Editor Jed Babbin is the author of the forthcoming book, Inside the Asylum: How the U.N. and Old Europe are Worse than You Think.

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L'?ditorial du Monde
Torture en Irak
LE MONDE | 03.05.04 | 12h49
Les annales et corrig?s du baccalaur?at depuis 1995.
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Le Monde ?DITORIAL
LES ACCUSATIONS de torture contre des prisonniers irakiens ne pouvaient tomber plus mal pour la coalition am?ricano-britannique, ? l'issue du mois le plus sanglant du conflit depuis la fin - officielle - de la guerre. Les t?moignages et les photographies d'actes brutaux et d?gradants commis par des militaires am?ricains sur des d?tenus ont fait le tour du monde, et leur impact dans la rue arabe ne saurait ?tre minimis?. M?me si un doute subsiste sur l'authenticit? des clich?s impliquant des Britanniques.
Il ne s'agit pas de jeter la pierre ? la seule coalition. Les opposants irakiens ne sont pas en reste avec leurs attentats aveugles. Et la torture est, h?las, un sous-produit condamnable mais habituel des situations de conflit et de r?pression. Aucun pays n'en a ?t? exempt, la France incluse, pour ceux qui n'ont pas oubli? les heures noires de la guerre d'Alg?rie.
Il n'en demeure pas moins que ces actes inadmissibles ont eu lieu dans le cadre d'une exacerbation des relations entre Am?ricains et Irakiens depuis la "lib?ration" de leur pays. Et qu'ils s'inscrivent en faux contre cette id?e de l'administration Bush qu'elle n'a pas ? ?tre li?e par des conventions internationales encombrantes.
Depuis son arriv?e en Irak, l'arm?e am?ricaine a eu la main lourde et a, pour le moins, manqu? de doigt? dans sa guerre psychologique. En m?me temps, le Pentagone avait gravement sous-estim? les effectifs n?cessaires pour y ramener la paix. Il n'en reste pas moins que m?me une r?action rapide de Washington ? l'encontre des coupables risque d'?tre insuffisante, tant l'hostilit? des Irakiens, chiites comme sunnites, est g?n?rale.
Au moins aussi grave est la d?gradation du prestige du pr?sident George W. Bush, que cette affaire implique : une administration de donneurs de le?ons se retrouve prise ? son propre pi?ge. Et, comme le remarque le Washington Post, "les politiciens et les chefs militaires am?ricains doivent en tirer une le?on importante et implacable : les r?gles de droit comptent, m?me quand il s'agit des pires ennemis de l'Am?rique".
Comment, par exemple, justifier que l'interrogatoire de prisonniers, de guerre ou autres, puisse ?tre "sous-trait?" ? des "consultants" civils, mercenaires recrut?s aupr?s d'officines sp?cialis?es ? Il est crucial, pour l'image comme pour l'efficacit? de la coalition, qu'elle respecte les conventions de Gen?ve. Sur le terrain comme dans cette zone de non-droit qu'est la base de Guantanamo.
Il n'est pas certain que cela suffise ? redresser la situation sur le terrain. Il y va, malgr? tout, de l'honneur des Etats-Unis, ancien leader du "monde libre" et unique superpuissance, de faire en sorte que les coupables soient ch?ti?s, que ces atrocit?s ne se reproduisent plus et que le droit de la guerre pr?vale.
Sinon, comment convaincre Irakiens et musulmans - si cela est encore possible - de la bonne foi de Washington ? Et comment persuader d'autres pays - europ?ens en particulier - de participer sous commandement am?ricain au processus de paix en Irak ?

* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 04.05.04
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A Bagdad, d'autres t?moignages ?voquent des tortures "bien pires"
LE MONDE | 03.05.04 | 13h21 * MIS A JOUR LE 03.05.04 | 15h58
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Bagdad de notre envoy?e sp?ciale
C'est presque avec soulagement que beaucoup de Bagdadis ont accueilli la publication des photos de prisonniers tortur?s dans la prison d'Abou Ghraib. "Tous les Irakiens le savaient, maintenant, l'Occident sera oblig? de le savoir aussi", dit Omar, un ancien militaire sunnite de la capitale. Durant deux jours, les t?l?visions satellitaires arabes, Al-Jazira en t?te, - les plus regard?es en Irak - ont ouvert par ces images leurs bulletins d'information, largement consacr?s aux r?actions officielles qu'elles ont provoqu?es.
Al-Jazira n'a pas manqu? de montrer celle d'un des membres du Conseil int?rimaire de gouvernement (CIG, install? par les Am?ricains), celle du chef kurde Talabani. Apr?s avoir d?nonc?, un peu formellement, ces "actes indignes", il a pr?cis? que "pour les Irakiens, qui ont connu bien pire sous Saddam -Hussein-, cela n'est pas tr?s important". Chacun, en Irak, en est bien conscient, mais cette phrase prononc?e ? l'?cran - qui plus est, avec le sourire - a provoqu? un grave malaise pour les uns, la fureur pour des autres, partisans de la "r?sistance" en Irak.
L'?pisode a mis ? nu le dangereux foss? qui s'est ?largi, depuis "l'insurrection d'avril" des sunnites arabes et des partisans chiites de Moqtada Sadr, entre ces derniers et les Kurdes, seul grand groupe rest? en bloc alli? des Am?ricains en Irak.
TORTURE SYST?MATIQUE
Certains commentaires rapport?s de la rue ? Bagdad sont d?sabus?s : "Quoi attendre d'autres des Am?ricains ?" "C'est ?a leur civilisation !" Les "?lites" plus ou moins pro-am?ricaines expliquent, elles, que si les r?actions en Irak ne sont pas plus violentes, "c'est parce que tout le monde sait aussi que les m?dias arabes, et Al-Jazira en particulier, se sont bien gard?s de d?noncer, en leur temps, les tortures autrement plus terribles pratiqu?es dans les prisons de Saddam", comme le dit un professeur d'Universit? chiite. Autre type de r?action, celui de sunnites de la province d'Al-Anbar, surtout, qui s'indignent du fait que la d?nonciation de ces s?vices pratiqu?s dans la vaste prison d'Abou Ghraib masque des tortures "bien pires" pratiqu?es dans les nombreux centres de tri et d'interrogatoires pr?liminaires.
De nombreux t?moignages concordent, depuis au moins sept mois, pour dire que les d?tenus sont syst?matiquement maltrait?s, frapp?s ou tortur?s, r?ellement ou par simulacre, dans ces centres o? ils sont gard?s de deux ? dix jours avant d'?tre dirig?s sur Abou Ghraib ou d'autres prisons.
"Le pire, c'est ? Baghdadi", un centre de d?tention situ? entre Ramadi et Hit, plus ? l'ouest, entend-on souvent. "Beaucoup y sont morts et des corps tortur?s ont ?t? rendus aux familles, ou jet?s sur les routes", assure ainsi un membre du Parti islamique - sunnite "mod?r?" - de Fallouja. Il se souvient du nom d'un seul Irakien ainsi martyris? - Nafe'Khalaf Ghadban -, mais chacun autour de lui opine ? ses dires.
Cheikh Jalal, 60 ans, une des autorit?s religieuses les plus respect?es de Fallouja, a ?t? rel?ch? jeudi 28 avril - dans le cadre des accords pass?s avec ses insurg?s - de la prison d'Abou Ghraib, o? il fut d?tenu sept mois. Ce "soufi", qui pr?che aussi fermement la l?gitimit? de la r?sistance que la n?cessit? du pardon, dit que lui n'a jamais ?t? frapp?, contrairement ? son jeune fils : "On lui a cass? des chaises sur le dos, il a ?t? rel?ch? au bout de dix jours, mais il souffre encore de ces coups."
Il dit aussi que beaucoup de ses compagnons de d?tention ont ?t? "brutalement frapp?s, humili?s, ramen?s nus des interrogatoires" ? leur tente de d?tention, o? ils avaient "tout le temps faim et soif, alors que les d?tenus criminels mangeaient comme dans un palais". Interrog? pour savoir s'il "est vrai que les Am?ricains arrachent les ongles ?", il r?pond qu'il ne le pense pas - "c'est sous Saddam qu'ils faisaient ?a". Il n'a pas vu lui-m?me les femmes "que les Am?ricains arr?tent quand ils ne trouvent pas leurs maris". Mais il est s?r qu'il s'en trouve, ? Abou Ghreib, "dans les pires cellules, souterraines et sans lumi?re".
Sophie Shihab

* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 04.05.04

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Interrogators pressured to make inmates talk

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller arrived in Baghdad in September with one urgent mission: Improve the intelligence gathered from Iraqi detainees in 16 Army-run prisons, including Saddam Hussein's favorite, Abu Ghraib.
Saddam was still on the run, and commanders desperately needed information on him and on a growing insurgency that was killing American troops daily. The recommendation was to "Gitmo-ize" interrogations, or bring them more in line with practices at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Gen. Miller, who ran the Guantanamo Bay compound for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, advocated centralizing military intelligence interrogations at Abu Ghraib. Cellblocks 1A and 1B, which served as the prison's maximum-security wing, became home to a relatively modest number of insurgents thought to hold a wealth of facts on the enemy.
"He wanted all the interrogation teams in one location," said Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve military police officer (MP) who served as warden for all 16 prisons as commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade. "They were putting a lot of pressure on the interrogation teams to get more information.
"The problem was he had 800 MPs to guard 600 prisoners [in Guantanamo]. We had 130 MPs for about 8,000 detainees," Gen. Karpinski told The Washington Times yesterday.
Gen. Miller now runs the Army's Iraq prison system.
What followed in those two cell blocks was three months of abusing prisoners by MP guards and interrogation teams.
Whether the abuse produced the coveted intelligence information is not clear. But publicized graphic photographs of Iraqis forced to form naked pyramids or simulate sex acts has enraged the Arab world and President Bush and have sparked at least six formal investigations.
Army officials say at this point, the abuse seems to have been limited to those two cellblocks that held captured Iraqi insurgents and to incidents at another camp.
Six MPs face criminal charges. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who heads Combined Task Force 7 (CJTF-7) in Baghdad and is up for a fourth star, has reprimanded six officers at the prison and admonished a seventh.
Gen. Karpinski thinks the scandal is rooted in the pressure that Gen. Sanchez's command exerted on the interrogation teams after he accepted Gen. Miller's recommendation.
"The combat divisions were being more vigorous going out on raids," she said. "They wanted to get actionable intelligence."
To Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who completed an investigative report in March, the scandal can be traced, in part, to training and resources.
"I find that the 800th MP Brigade was not adequately trained for a mission that included operating a prison or penal institution at Abu Ghraib prison complex," he said in a secret report obtained yesterday by The Washington Times. "I also find ... that the 800th MP Brigade as a whole was understrength for the mission for which it was tasked."
Gen. Karpinski said she would have stopped the abuse had she known about it. For what the Army considers command failures, she has received a written admonishment. She said she remains in command of the 800th MP Brigade, which demobilized as scheduled with members returning to their hometowns.
"She has not been suspended, reprimanded or relieved of her command," said Neal A. Puckett, her civilian attorney and a former Marine Corps judge advocate.
The one-star general ran a two-tiered prisoner system. The Army housed criminals and some insurgents in 15 detention centers around the California-size country. Gen. Karpinski said the system holds few, if any, classic prisoners of war -- that is, Iraqi soldiers captured during the war to topple Saddam. Virtually all of those individuals have been released.
The system also does not house the infamous 55-member "deck of cards" -- the most senior Ba'athists, including Saddam. The coalition detains those prisoners in undisclosed lockups.
Abu Ghraib became the hub for what are called "security detainees" -- those involved in attacking coalition forces. The 7,000 to 8,000 population is a mix of Ba'ath Party loyalists, former intelligence security officers and criminals who joined an anticoalition cell.
Some are accused of killing American troops.
Of that population, those thought to hold special information on Saddam loyalists and their whereabouts were moved to cellblocks 1A and 1B.
"They wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff," said Gen. Karpinski, who saw CJTF-7 switch control of Abu Ghraib on Nov. 19 from her MPs to a military intelligence commander.
CJTF-7's push for "actionable intelligence" meant units such as the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit and the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad were pushing their mobile-intelligence units to vacuum up more Iraqis and bring them to Abu Ghraib. From October to December, the time span when the abuse occurred, the two cellbocks held nearly 200 prisoners.
Interrogations occurred each day. Detainees were questioned by three-member interrogation teams made up of an Army 205th Military Intelligence Brigade officer, a civilian linguist on contract and another agency representative normally from either the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency or the Army criminal investigative command.
The interrogators have been given some leeway to pressure prisoners, such as depriving them of sleep and light.
But the abuse depicted in the photos violates Army regulations, the rules of engagement for Iraq and the Geneva Conventions.
In general, the conventions state that prisoners of war must be treated humanely and not subjected to torture or scientific experiments. They cannot be threatened if they do not talk and cannot be put on public display.
Gen. Karpinski said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) frequently visited Abu Ghraib, including the high-value men in cellblocks 1A and 1B. She said she was aware of only one complaint: a Red Cross team found an Iraqi naked in an isolation cell. He told them that he had refused to talk and that the staff made him wear women's underwear.
Gen. Karpinski said when the complaint was reported to a senior Army military intelligence commander, he commented, "We have to stop allowing them to order from the Victoria's Secret catalog."
Amanda Williamson, the ICRC spokeswoman in Washington, said the group visits Abu Ghraib every five or six weeks.
Mrs. Williamson said it is ICRC policy not to comment on its observations to the press.
She also said, "There are apparently a number of different categories of people detained in Iraq. Some are POWs, and there are some detained in other categories. Nonetheless, the Geneva Conventions clearly prohibit mistreatment."
Army investigators now have scores of investigations under way. Gen. Taguba's report highlights a pattern of abuse and some shocking statements from Army noncommissioned officers, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Times.
*"[Spc.] Sabrina D. Harman, 372nd MP Company, stated in her sworn statement regarding the incident where a detainee was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis, that her job was to keep detainees awake."
*Another MP, Sgt. Javal Davis, said military intelligence officers told him, "Loosen this guy up for us. Make sure he has a bad night. Make sure he gets the treatment." After some detainees began talking, an officer told him, "Good job. They're breaking down real fast. They answered every question."
*"The Iraqi guards at Abu Ghraib demonstrated questionable work ethics and loyalties and are a potentially dangerous contingent within the [prison]. These guards have furnished the Iraqi criminal inmates with contraband, weapons, and information. Additionally, they have facilitated the escape of a least one detainee."

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SPIEGEL ONLINE - 05. Mai 2004, 15:59
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,298455,00.html
Zimbardo zu Misshandlungen

"Krieg verwandelt Menschen in brutale Folterer"
Von Christian St?cker
F?r den renommierten US-Psychologen Philip Zimbardo sind die Misshandlungen irakischer Gefangener durch amerikanische Soldaten kein Zufall. Die Situation im Irak bringe die Soldaten regelrecht dazu, Gr?ueltaten zu ver?ben. Verantwortlich daf?r sei die US-Regierung.
AP / The New Yorker
Misshandelte Gefangene: "Fass des Krieges mit Essig gef?llt"
"Wir d?rfen den Politikern und dem Pentagon nicht erlauben, die Ernsthaftigkeit der Vorf?lle mit der ?blichen, auf Pers?nlichkeitsstrukturen abzielenden Analyse beiseite zu schieben", schreibt Philip Zimbardo in einem Brief an die Mitglieder der "Society of Personality and Social Psychology". Die Erkl?rung, es gebe ein paar faule ?pfel in einem ansonsten guten Fass, sei nicht akzeptabel, hei?t es in dem Schreiben, das SPIEGEL ONLINE vorliegt.
George Bush habe gesagt, die Ereignisse sollten kein schlechtes Licht auf das an sich gute amerikanische Volk oder das Milit?r werfen. "Falsch", so Zimbardo, "die situationsbezogene Analyse sagt uns, dass das Fass des Krieges mit Essig gef?llt ist, der gute Gurken in saure Gurken verwandelt, und das immer tun wird. Er verwandelt die Mehrzahl guter Menschen, M?nner wie Frauen, in ?belt?ter."
Wesentliche Faktoren dabei seien Anonymit?t und Verlust der Individualit?t, Entmenschlichung, Geheimhaltung, Diffusion von Verantwortung, soziale Vorbilder, starke Machtgef?lle, Frustration, Rachegef?hle, Autorit?tsh?rigkeit und mangelnde ?berwachung, die ein Gef?hl des "laissez-faire" erzeuge.
Stanford University
Psychologie-Papst Zimbardo: "Soldaten in brutale Qu?ler verwandelt"
Philip Zimbardo ist nicht irgendwer. Der Sozialpsychologe war Pr?sident der m?chtigen American Psychological Association (APA), seine Publikationen, unter anderem ?ber Machtmissbrauch und Unterdr?ckung, geh?ren weltweit zum Pflichtstoff, sein Einf?hrungsbuch f?r Psychologiestudenten ist auch an deutschen Universit?ten Standardlekt?re.
Zimbardos Analyse der Misshandlungen im Bagdader Gef?ngnis basiert auf seinen eigenen Forschungen. In seinem "Stanford Prison Experiment" erfuhr der Forscher 1971 am eigenen Leib, was eine Situation, in der Macht und Unterwerfung willk?rlich verteilt werden, mit ganz normalen Menschen anstellen kann. In der Studie waren 24 Freiwillige entweder zu Gef?ngnisw?rtern oder zu Gefangenen erkl?rt worden. Die Gefangenen wurden von Anfang an gedem?tigt, mussten Krankenhausnachthemden und Ketten an den F??en tragen, wurden nur noch mit Nummern statt mit ihren Namen angesprochen.
Stanford-Gef?ngnis-Experiment: Das B?se im Menschen geweckt
Da es f?r die W?rter keine expliziten Regeln gab, entwickelten sie verschiedene Unterdr?ckungsmethoden, mit denen die Gefangenen gef?gig gemacht wurden. So wurden zur Bestrafung Liegest?tzen angeordnet, den Eingesperrten wurden Decken und Matratzen weggenommen, es gab eine lichtlose Einzelhaft-Zelle.
Im Laufe des Experiments wurden die Unterdr?ckungsma?nahmen immer extremer: Als sich die W?rter nachts unbeobachtet f?hlten, zwangen sie die Gefangenen sogar, sich auszuziehen und miteinander sexuelle Akte zu simulieren - so wie die US-Soldaten im Irak. Das Experiment, das eigentlich zwei Wochen dauern sollte, wurde schlie?lich nach sechs Tagen abgebrochen, weil die Situation vollst?ndig au?er Kontrolle geraten war. Das "Stanford Prison Experiment" bildete vor einigen Jahren auch die Grundlage f?r den deutschen Kinoerfolg "Das Experiment" mit Moritz Bleibtreu.
Zimbardo hat Mechanismen von Unterdr?ckung und Folter auch an anderen Orten untersucht, etwa bei den Todesschwadronen der brasilianischen Milit?rjunta. Aus den Ergebnissen schlie?t er, dass Personen, die in derartige Situationen gebracht werden, mehr oder minder zwangsl?ufig agressiv-unterdr?ckerische Verhaltensweisen entwickeln - auch wenn sie an und f?r sich keine grausamen oder b?sartigen Menschen sind.
"Die allgegenw?rtige Ursache ist das ?bel des Krieges", schreibt der Psychologe, "die vorgeschobene Geschichte von der 'Nationalen Sicherheit' und den ?bertriebenen ?ngsten vor dem Terrorismus, die durch zehn 'glaubw?rdige' Terrorwarnungen erzeugt worden sind. Sie verwandeln unsere Nation in eine Kultur der Opfer und unsere Soldaten in brutale Qu?ler anderer Menschen."
Zimbardo ist ?berzeugt, dass die Wunschvorstellung, die USA k?nnten den Irak demokratisieren, eine reine Utopie ist. "Das wird nicht passieren. Dieser aggressive, ?berfl?ssige Krieg ist die H?lle auf Erden, er wird langandauernde Konsequenzen in der Heimat und im Ausland haben."

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

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>> AHEM...

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 05. Mai 2004, 12:49
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,298425,00.html
Geheimdienste

Saddams mobile Dattellabors

Von Sebastian Knauer

Bei der Suche nach Massenvernichtungswaffen haben die US-Ermittler eine weitere Fehleinsch?tzung abgegeben. SPIEGEL ONLINE liegen die Original-Unterlagen der tats?chlich aufgefundenen mobilen Chemielabors aus Deutschland vor. Allerdings waren sie ungeeignet f?r die Herstellung von biologischen und chemischen Waffen.
AFP
US-Au?enminister Powell vor dem Uno-Sicherheitsrat (Februar 2003): "Beweis f?r die Aufr?stung mit C-Waffen"
Ende April vergangenen Jahres entdeckten US-Milit?rs im Irak einen betagten, sandfarbenen Lastwagen auf dem ein "mobiles chemisches Labor" montiert ist. Auf der Webseite der CIA wurde in einem Bericht vom Mai vergangenen Jahres das dreiachsige Fahrzeug und seine Einbauten mit Bildmaterial dokumentiert. Zu erkennen sind ein handels?blicher K?hlschrank, eine kastenf?rmige Laborzentrifuge sowie eine Abzugshaube.
SPIEGEL ONLINE liegen die Original-Konstruktionspl?ne der Laborwagen vor. Nach dem begleitenden Text und CIA-Einsch?tzung handele es sich um ein chemisches Labor, dass m?glicherweise andere "mobile Produktionsanlagen f?r Biowaffen" im Irak "unterst?tzen" solle.
Konstruktionsplan des mobilen Labors
?hnliche mobile Produktionsanlagen f?r Kampfstoffe waren von US-Au?enminister Colin Powell vor dem Weltsicherheitsrat als Beweis f?r die B- und C-Waffenaufr?stung des Irak pr?sentiert worden. Die Informationen dazu hatte zuvor eine Quelle des deutschen Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND) namens "Curveball" (benannt nach dem Trickwurf im Baseball) geliefert.
BND h?lt an den Informationen fest
AP/ US Army
Mobiles Labor im Irak (Archiv): Keine Beweise f?r die Produktion von B- und C-Waffen
W?hrend Powell inzwischen von den angeblichen Biowaffenlabors auf gro?en Sechsachsern abr?ckte, glauben die BND-Experten weiterhin keinem Schwindler aufgesessen zu sein. "Wir halten die Angaben weiterhin f?r glaubhaft", sagt eine BND-Sprecherin. Der Informant ist Chemiker und lebe derzeit in Deutschland. Trotz intensiver Suche durch US-Milit?rs und Uno-Waffenkontrolleure sind die so genannten rollenden Biowaffenfabriken jedoch im Nachkriegs-Irak nirgendwo gefunden worden.
Aufgetaucht sind dagegen die Uralt-Lastwagen "made in Germany". Insgesamt acht Magirus-Deutz-Lastwagen, ausger?stet mit Chemielabors durch die Kaufbeurer Fahrzeugfirma Rhein Bayern, waren in den achtziger Jahren mit offizieller Genehmigung der Bundesregierung via Bremerhaven in den Irak exportiert worden.
REUTERS
Powell-Beweis: Das angeblich rollende Chemielabor
Der damalige Rhein-Bayern-Chef Anton Eyerele, 81, sp?ter wegen des Versto?es gegen das Kriegswaffen Kontrollgesetz zu einer hohen Haftstrafe verurteilt, hatte stets beteuert, dass es sich bei den Lieferungen in den Irak um "zivile Laborwagen" handele. Nach den Giftgasangriffen von Saddam Husseins Truppen auf die kurdische Zivilbev?lkerung 1988 hatte die G?ttinger Gesellschaft f?r bedrohte V?lker Recherchen zu den Mobillabors durchgef?hrt ?ber die damals der "Stern" unter dem Titel "Ich mache nur meine Gesch?fte" berichtete.
Die Ausr?stung dieser Spezialwagen f?r Wasser-, Boden- oder Nahrungsmittelproben kam von der Firma "Karl Kolb GmbH & Co KG Scientific Technical Supplies", die weltweit auch Universit?ten und Industrieunternehmen mit Laborausr?stungen beliefert.
"Simple Standardlabors f?r Agrochemie"
In den irakischen Labors fehlte nach den Konstruktionszeichnungen jedoch selbst ein handels?blicher Gas-Chromatograf, mit dem biologische oder chemische Kampfstoffe untersucht werden k?nnten. "Das waren simple Standardlabors f?r die Agrochemie", sagt heute ein Kolb-Manager gegen?ber SPIEGEL ONLINE. Die Ger?tschaften w?ren beispielsweise gut geeignet gewesen, um auch Untersuchungen in Dattelplantagen durchzuf?hren.
Beim Bundesnachrichtendienst wird die Verwirrung um die "mobilen Labors", die m?glicherweise den Informanten zu seinen farbenfrohen Erz?hlungen anregten, k?hl kommentiert: "Das sind verschiedene Baustellen."

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>> MEETING? WHAT MEETING?

Experts See U.S. Policy on Iraq in Crisis
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=1869887
?
from Morning Edition, Tuesday , May 04, 2004
Rising U.S. casualties, confusion about U.S. efforts to end violence in places such as Fallujah, and allegations of Iraqi prisoner abuse have many questioning the viability of U.S. policy on Iraq. Many blame the lack of a clear chain of command for the chaos. Some analysts say U.S. goals for Iraq are no longer attainable. Hear NPR's Mike Shuster.


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Senior fighters escape Fallujah


By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


U.S. military commanders think senior foreign fighters in Fallujah have escaped during the Marines's monthlong siege that has produced an inconsistent allied war policy.
Meanwhile, in southern Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition continues to come under deadly attacks from black-clad militiamen loyal to radical cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr.

Despite vowing to "capture or kill" the renegade sheik, the United States has refrained from using force against him or to launch an all-out assault on his Mahdi's Army. The United States fears such an attack would inflame the passions of Shi'ites in battles that also are likely to result in the deaths of civilians.
A military source said if international terrorist Abu Musaab Zarqawi was ever in Fallujah, as was suspected, he was able to escape. The source said although the Marines blocked roads leading out of the town of 300,000 residents, the cordoning was not "airtight." He said the assessment that senior fighters have left Fallujah is based on intelligence reports.
"The problem is they don't know where they have gone," the source said.
The assessment comes as the United States is sending conflicting signals about how it plans to quell the violence in Fallujah, a troublesome hot spot ever since the coalition ousted Saddam Hussein 13 months ago.
The mixed message has allowed insurgents to claim victory and has forced commanders to deny they are pulling out of the frontier town.
The confusion comes at a particularly bad time. The Bush administration is trying to contain damage from the release of photos of American service members abusing Iraqi prisoners images that reinforce the militant Arab view that the occupation force oppresses Muslims.
U.S. commanders have estimated that there are about 2,000 hard-core insurgents in Fallujah, including several hundred foreign fighters. A Pentagon official says there are probably "several thousand" foreign fighters in Iraq, many of whom entered through Syria's long desert border.
The U.S. mission around Fallujah has been marked by inconsistencies since early April, when the ambush and mutilation of four American contractors there spurred the Marines to begin an offensive to clear the town of militants.
"They are testing the water in every possible alternative to resolve this without further loss of American blood and treasure," said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis. "The Marine commanders are faced with a Hobson's choice, and they are desperately trying to find an alternative to continued sieges, bombardment and patrols that are being shot up."
The Marines had launched a full-bore operation to kill or capture the insurgents, only to see political pressure from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council force Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq, to stop the mission.
What followed was a tenuous cease-fire, during which the Marines attacked insurgents who came into the open or attempted to position themselves for attacks. It was during this stage that the military thinks some senior foreign fighters escaped.
The Sunni tribal chiefs, the council and Marine commanders then worked out a deal under which a new Iraqi brigade would be established to police Fallujah's mean streets. As the new brigade entered the southern sector, the Marines vacated, stirring a series of press reports that the Marines were withdrawing. Some Iraqis celebrated the "defeat."
The perception prompted Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to issue a heated denial.
"First of all, let's make sure we understand the Marines have not pulled back," Gen. Myers said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "They have not pulled back at all. Now, what we are trying to do is what we are trying to do throughout Iraq, is get Iraqis to help deal with this issue."
There also was confusion about who would run the new brigade. A former Iraqi Republican Guard general, Jassim Mohammed Saleh, arrived on the scene last week. Some military officials privately said Mr. Saleh would take command. But on Sunday, after the U.S. military command had investigated his background, a new name emerged: Maj. Gen. Mohammed Latif.
"There's another general we're looking at," Gen. Myers said. "My guess is it will not be General Saleh. He will not be their leader. It's not a reversal. As I say, the reporting on this has been very, very bad and way ahead of the pack."
The Associated Press reported from Fallujah that Gen. Latif had been imprisoned under Saddam's rule.
"He is very well thought of, very well-respected by the Iraqi general officers," said Lt. Gen. James Conway, the top Marine in Iraq. "You can just see the body language between them."
The AP said reports surfaced that Mr. Saleh was involved in crushing a Kurdish uprising after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
In Najaf, south of Baghdad, Sheik al-Sadr's militia fired about 20 mortar rounds at a U.S. base. The Americans responded, destroying a building that was the source of the fire and killing about 20 Iraqis.
On Saturday, Sheik al-Sadr's army attacked a convoy, killing two American soldiers.

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. . . U.N. fantasy


By Bruce Fein


As was said of Napoleon's assassination of the Duc d'Enghein, President George W. Bush's inanely conducted effort to summon a secular democratic Iraq into being is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.
His latest follies unwittingly aid the enemy. The president should publicly confess his monumental miscalculations over post-Saddam Iraq, arrange for an orderly withdrawal of America's military presence, and accept the inescapable Iraqi convulsions that will follow as less horrific than would be additional aimless American casualties. As the Vietnam war taught, victory is hopeless without a discernable and plausible North Star to inform military operations.

President Bush signaled weakness to the enemy by yielding appointment authority for an interim Iraqi government on June 30 to United Nations special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. Ahmed Chalabi, who had been the marquee choice of the Defense Department to extract an Iraqi democracy from Saddam's dictatorship, disappeared from the power grid faster than the Cheshire cat. Mr. Bush had earlier sneered at the United Nations for its irrelevancy and effeteness. The U.N. had opposed Operation Enduring Freedom, and had endlessly indulged Saddam's repeated violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The president's turn to an impotent and derided United Nations at the eleventh hour as violence and American deaths escalate in Iraq carries all the earmarks of desperation.
Mr. Brahimi's selection also strengthens the enemy's recruitment claim that President Bush's Iraqi democracy banner is counterfeit. The special envoy no more represents the people of Iraq than a name plucked from the New York City telephone directory. His legitimacy is universally disputed. Muhammed Bahr Uloum, a prominent Shi'ite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, has rejected Mr. Brahimi's intercession, and warned Iraqis would fight against any new government picked by the United Nations. As reported in The Washington Post, Mr. Uloum amplified: "We are not under age in need of a guardian. Iraqis are not a herd of 27 million people to be directed by Brahimi and the coalition. Iraqis will take to the streets if Brahimi insists on his view." Would Americans feel or react differently if Mr. Brahimi appointed the next president of the United States?
The special envoy's plan for naming a new government is no more legitimate than his nondemocratic selection, which provides additional fuel to the enemy. Mr. Brahimi will unilaterally appoint 25 Cabinet officers, the prime minister, a ceremonial president, and two vice presidents. His appointees will be technocrats. They will neither command popular followings nor hold political ambitions for future electoral office, an aspiration which might rivet them to popular sentiments. In other words, Mr. Brahimi's plan perversely aims to ensure the new government will not represent the Iraqi people. It will be even less democratic than President Bush's 25-member Iraqi Governing Council. And as the IGC has aroused popular ridicule, Mr. Brahimi's technocrat appointees will likewise be scorned by the Iraqi people.
President Bush's crippling limits on the sovereignty of the new appointed government makes the entire impending exercise an insulting hoax. It will be disabled from either enacting new laws, or repealing decrees issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority, or controlling military operations of the United States. Indeed, its sole purpose is to baby-sit Iraq for six or seven months.
During that period, President Bush hopes an electoral code will be promulgated; political campaigns will be conducted; peaceful, free and fair elections will be held for the first time in 4,000 years, and, the Iraqi people will accept the results as legitimate. The number of people in Iraq who believe that blather can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.
The enemy has been further fortified by the commander in chief's wretched military decisions in the past weeks. Victory in Iraq requires the killing, wounding and capturing of enemy combatants period, with no commas, semi-colons or question marks. To negotiate war tactics with the enemy demoralizes troops and endows enemy leaders with popular glory and fame.
Yet President Bush permitted the enemy to negotiate a cease-fire in Fallujah to avoid casualties, tacitly conceding the United States can be forced by threats of violence into fighting by Queensbury rules. The commander in chief also replaced Marines at the front lines with Iraqi forces with dubious resolve and loyalty. The enemy, Fallujah's civilians and the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi soldiers alike, predictably celebrated their tactical defeat of America and invited imitation throughout Iraq.
In Najaf, a second edition of Fallujah is unfolding. President Bush has permitted enemy cleric Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr to negotiate a standoff with his illegal Mahdi Army. The cleric champions violence against United States troops, and has been charged with murder of a fellow religious figure. According to the newly meek commander in chief, Najaf and Sheik al-Sadr must be treated gently because widespread violence has been threatened. President Bush's meekness has transformed terrorist Sheik al-Sadr from a marginal figure to a lion.
Finally, President Bush relaxed the bar to appointing former Ba'athists and leaders of Saddam's military coincident with the alarming climb in United States casualties and spread of violence. Thus, Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, who served in Saddam's notorious Republican Guard, has been provisionally appointed to lead the Iraqi forces in Fallujah.
The timing of the president's relaxation reinforces the appearance of American despair and fading resolution. The enemy has been emboldened, and a wavering civilian population lost to extremists.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group.


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Looking for the exit


By Arnaud de Borchgrave


If it wasn't a quagmire, it was certainly quagmiry. And the first prominent retired general to break ranks with President Bush's Iraq war policy was a Republican who once headed the National Security Agency and also served as a deputy national security adviser. Gen. William E. Odom, a fluent Russian speaker who teaches at Georgetown and Yale universities, told the Wall Street Journal's John Harwood staying the course in Iraq is untenable.
It was hard to disagree with Gen. Odom's description of Mr. Bush's vision of reordering the Middle East by building a democracy in Iraq as a pipedream. His prescription: Remove U.S. forces "from that shattered country as rapidly as possible."

Gen. Odom says bluntly, "we have failed," and "the issue is how high a price we're going to pay -- less by getting out sooner, or more by getting out later."
At best, Iraq will emerge from the current geopolitical earthquake as "a highly illiberal democracy, inspired by Islamic culture, extremely hostile to the West and probably quite willing to fund terrorist organizations," Gen. Odom explained. If that wasn't enough to erode support for the war, he added, "The ability of Islamist militants to use Iraq as a beachhead for attacks against American interests elsewhere may increase."
Gen. Odom, heads of the pro-Republican Hudson Institute, also calls the sum achievement of U.S. occupation of Iraq "the radicalization of Saudi Arabia and probably Egypt, too. And the longer we stay in Iraq, the more isolated America will become."
The retired four-star's proposed solution is for the U.N. and the European allies to take charge of political and security arrangements. This formal request from the U.S., says Gen. Odom, should be accompanied by a unilateral declaration that U.S. forces are leaving even if no one else agrees to come in.
The Journal's John Hardwood in his Capital Journal column asks which sounds more credible -- Gen. Odom's gloomy forecast or Mr. Bush's prediction of success? He does say which way he leans. But a company-size bevy of retired U.S. generals and admirals were in constant touch this week with a volunteer drafter putting the final touches to a "tough condemnation" of Bush administration Middle Eastern policy.
The Council of Foreign Relations organized a conference call-in for its members with Gen. Odom. A score of former U.S. ambassadors who had served in the Middle East were also discussing how to join their voices to Britain's 52 former ambassadors, high commissioners and governors who wrote to Tony Blair to accuse him of scuttling peace efforts between Israel and Palestinians. The British diplomats also took Mr. Blair to task for policies "doomed to failure" in Iraq.
One British co-signer was Paul Bergne, who until recently was the prime minister's personal envoy to Afghanistan.
It was the first time in living memory so many former envoys to the Middle East had acted as a group to denounce the government's foreign policy. They said they spoke for many serving diplomats, as well.
The retired U.S. ambassadors were as one in warning President Bush that discarding the Middle East road map to peace and substituting a plan that leaves Palestinians no hope for a viable state is tantamount to declaring war on moderation -- and jeopardizing U.S. interests all over the region.
Total alignment with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's anti-Palestinian strategy has turned even moderate Muslims against the United States. Egypt's President Mubarak said hatred of the U.S. had never reached such depths.
When Mr. Bush suddenly dropped longstanding U.S. opposition to Jewish settlements on the West Bank, rooted as they were in U.N. resolutions, Israeli settlers could not believe their luck. Mr. Sharon conceded Gaza, where 7,500 Jewish settlers had no future among 1.3 million Palestinians, but in return obtained U.S. blessings for permanent Israeli habitation in large swaths of what was to be a Palestinian state. Even illegal hilltop settlements concluded they were now safe from removal and immediately began erecting permanent structures to replace mobile homes. Israel spends $600 million a year on settlements. And Sharon's Likud stalwarts hung tough on Gaza, voting, in a non-binding resolution, to keep 7,500 Jews in 26 settlements living among 1.3 million Palestinians.
No sooner had the White House's red light flashed green than the once surreptitious, crawling annexation of the West Bank resumed in the open. Jewish West Bank settlers were jubilant while Palestinians were adrift in the Slough of Despond.
With the Right of Return for Palestinians also off the table, and no viable state of their own on the West Bank, extremist organizations will have no problem recruiting more jihadis (holy warriors) and merging terrorist operations with the underground resistance in Iraq.
Arab opinion has been inflamed to the point where Palestine and Iraq are now two fronts in the war against what Charles de Gaulle used to call "the Anglo-Saxons." Osama bin Laden is probably thinking he's some kind of strategic genius.
In Iraq, quite apart from Fallujah and Najaf, the U.S. occupation, according to the latest Gallup polls, has turned most of the population against America. In Baghdad, only 13 percent now believe the invasion and regime change it accomplished were morally justifiable. Only one-third of Iraqis believe the occupation is doing more good than harm and a majority favor an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal while conceding this could put them in greater danger. Gen. Odom presumably has his finger on the same pulse.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.



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U.N. BIGS 'SEAL' THE OIL DEALS
By NILES LATHEM

BENON SEVAN - "UN SWELL" PICTURE...
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/23691.htm
Letter warned contractors.


May 4, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The United Nations yesterday threw up a stone wall in the oil-for-food scandal, insisting that contracts between the world body and private companies should not be turned over to investigators.
In a defiant move that has infuriated probers, Secretary-General Kofi Annan threw his support behind a letter from former oil-for-food head Benon Sevan to officials of a Dutch company that inspected Iraqi oil shipments. The letter directed the company not to hand over documents to congressional committees and other "governmental authorities."
Sevan's shocking April 14 letter sternly reminded the company, Saybolt International, that details of its contract with the United Nations are confidential "and we would not agree to their release."
The letter was especially eye-opening because it came from Sevan, who is under investigation for accepting sweetheart oil contracts from Saddam Hussein and who supposedly was on vacation, pending retirement, when it was written.
Annan appeared taken by surprise when he was confronted with the letter on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday and said he did not see why Sevan "was involved in sending a message like this."
But yesterday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Annan, told The Post that the letter was written by another official on Sevan's stationery and that the official was following advice of U.N. lawyers.
"The letter follows standard U.N. legal procedure," which mandates that companies cannot give documents about contracts with the United Nations to outside governmental agencies without the approval of the United Nations, Dujarric added.
The Annan spokesman said other companies participating in the $100 billion humanitarian-aid program received similar letters and that all documents will be reviewed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, who is investigating charges of corruption within the program.
"This is disturbing," said a congressional investigator.
"U.N. officials are talking about transparency in this investigation and yet they appear to be thwarting efforts to get the relevant documents. What does that say?" the investigator added.
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WHAT TO DO IN IRAQ?:
W'S CARELESS TALK ...


May 4, 2004 -- OH? Who?
Appearing Friday in the Rose Garden with Canada's prime minister, President Bush was answering a reporter's question about Canada's role in Iraq when suddenly he swerved into this extraneous thought:
"There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily - are a different color than white can self-govern."
What does such careless talk say about the mind of this administration? Note that the clearly implied antecedent of the pronoun "ours" is "Americans." So the president seemed to be saying that white is, and brown is not, the color of Americans' skin. He doesn't mean that. But that is the sort of swamp one wanders into when trying to deflect doubts about policy by caricaturing and discrediting the doubters.
Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, later said the president only meant that "there are some in the world that think that some people . . . can't live in freedom." The president meant that "some Middle Eastern countries - that the people in those Middle Eastern countries cannot be free."
Perhaps that, which is problematic enough, is what the president meant. But what he suggested was: Some persons - perhaps many persons; no names being named, the smear remained tantalizingly vague - doubt his nation-building project because they are racists.
That is one way to respond to questions about the wisdom of thinking America can transform the entire Middle East by constructing a liberal democracy in Iraq. But if any Americans want to be governed by politicians who short-circuit complex discussions by recklessly imputing racism to those who differ with them, such Americans do not usually turn to the Republican choice in our two-party system.
This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit." (Tony Blair)
Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.
The issue is the second half of Moynihan's formulation - our ability to wield political power to produce the requisite cultural change in a place like Iraq. Time was, this question would have separated conservatives from liberals. Nowadays it separates conservatives from neoconservatives.
Condoleezza Rice, a political scientist, believes there is scholarly evidence that democratic institutions do not merely spring from a hospitable culture, they can also help create such a culture. She is correct; they can. They did so in the young American republic. But it would be reassuring to see more evidence that the administration is being empirical, believing that this can happen in some places, as opposed to ideological, believing that it must happen everywhere it is tried.
Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice.
In "On Liberty" (1859), John Stuart Mill said "it is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say" that the doctrine of limited, democratic government "is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties." One hundred forty-five years later it obviously is necessary to say that. People who think Mill was mistaken, or that it is a mistake to doubt Iraqi faculties today, should say why.
Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be." That is the core of conservatism.
Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo" about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.
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WHAT TO DO IN IRAQ?:
... AND THE REAL ROAD AHEAD

By AMIR TAHERI


May 4, 2004 -- WHAT to do about Iraq? I was bombarded with this question during a recent visit to the United States.
The question is based on two assumptions. First, that Iraq is about to plunge into one of the nightmare scenarios discussed by self-styled experts on TV. Second, that there is some kind of magic wand that one could wave to transform Iraq into a paradise of freedom and prosperity.
Both assumptions are false.
The nightmares are often peddled by those who had opposed the liberation because they didn't wish to see a U.S.-led coalition bring down a Third World dictator. The doomsayers' initial prediction was that, deprived of its oppressor, Iraq would plunge into civil war. That has not happened, so they now warn of chaos, and predict a nationwide insurrection against the Coalition.
But is Iraq really plunging into chaos? Anyone in contact with Iraqi realities would know that the answer is: No.
Yes, a variety of terrorist, insurgent and ordinary criminals are active in the country. Parts of Baghdad remain unsafe. Some roads, especially in the desert area bordering Jordan and Syria, are prone to attacks by bandits. And, as in many other parts of the world where criminal gangs operate, there is also some hostage-taking. But most of Iraq's 18,000 villages and 200-plus towns and cities remain as safe, if not safer, than those in some other Arab countries.
The Coalition faces a problem in Fallujah. But Fallujah accounts for no more than 4 percent of Iraq's Sunni Arab community. Other major Sunni cities - Mosul, Ramadi, even Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown - remain calm.
Fallujah has become a problem for specific reasons. It is at the heart of a region that has been the center of Sunni military elites since the creation of Iraq in 1921. It is also the capital of several Sunni Arab tribes with branches in other nations, including Syria and Jordan. And Saddam invested heavily there, especially by building housing for army, police and secret service personnel working in Baghdad. Ba'athist military and their families account for some 30 percent of the city's population. It is the Iraqi city that most resents Saddam's fall and the end of its privileges.
Yet even in Fallujah there is no evidence that a majority of the people regret liberation or want Saddam back. There are perhaps 2,000 insurgents, including dozens of non-Iraqi fighters, in the city. The fact that more than half of the city's inhabitants have left their homes shows that, though they may wish the occupation to end, they don't wish to side with the insurgents.
Those who claim that Iraq is in chaos also point to Najaf, where Muqtada al-Sadr, a 30-year-old Shiite cleric, is hiding in a number of holy shrines and mosques along with his so-called Army of the Mahdi. But talk to anyone in Najaf and you'll soon know that the overwhelming majority of the city's population wants Sadr to get the hell out. (After more than two weeks of contacts with Iraqi Shiite leaders and opinion-makers at various levels, this writer has not found anyone who supports Sadr and his shenanigans.)
Sadr is abusing the old Shiite practice of "bast," which consists of taking sanctuary in a holy shrine. But Najaf is a city of 500,000 people, while Sadr's followers number 3,000 at most.
And Sadr's quarrel with the Coalition is personal rather than principled. He resents not being given a share in the Governing Council, and is unhappy that he and 18 close associates are wanted for murder. His strategy is a typical desperado's: He hopes to force the Coalition out of Iraq, provoke chaos and, if not secure a chunk of power for himself, avoid prosecution for murder.
The Coalition would do well not to force its way into either Fallujah or Najaf. In each, it faces a group of armed men holding larger civilian populations hostage. In Fallujah, the insurgent Ba'athists are using Saddam's typical tactic of using human shields. In Najaf, Sadr and his gang use the Shiite shrines for the same purpose.
There is no nationwide insurrection in Iraq. Nor is Iraq suffering from a general breakdown in law and order. To be sure, it is no bed of roses. But the violence and insecurity are within the remit of normal in a post-liberation situation, and remain manageable.
As things stand, the Coalition does not need more troops. In fact, it should speed up withdrawals from the dozen or so cities and towns where its troops are deployed for policing, a task for which they are neither trained nor equipped. Disbanding the Iraqi army and national police was a major mistake. But that is spilt milk. What's now needed is a fast-track program to train and deploy more units of the new army and police.
What of the pundits' second assumption - that some magic wand could turn that country into an Arab Switzerland overnight? There is, of course, no such magic wand. And Iraq, while capable of moving towards pluralism, will need years to develop a stable democratic system.
When President Bush announced the start of the war to liberate Iraq, he promised to stay the course until the Iraqi people built a new democratic system. Implicit in that offer was that the Iraqis should play their part in what is by far the greatest challenge they have faced since their state was created eight decades ago.
The people of Iraq have kept their end of the bargain. They did not fight on Saddam's side, allowing the Coalition to achieve victory with remarkable ease. Since then, they've continued to do what is required of them - not only by isolating insurgents and terrorists, but also by beginning to rebuild their shattered country. As a string of recent polls, complemented by personal and anecdotal information, indicates, the overwhelming majority are still prepared to work with the Coalition to achieve their dream of a new political system based on human rights and pluralism.
The real question is: Will the Coalition keep its end of the bargain? Or will U.S. and British leaders, for reasons of domestic politics, lose their nerve, throw Iraq to the United Nations or some other ineffectual custodian and sacrifice the strategic goal of a democratic Middle East to tactical electoral considerations?
What to do in Iraq? The answer is simple: Don't lose your nerve!
Yes, Iraq can become another Vietnam - not because of anything that's happening there, but because America and its allies, for reasons of domestic politics, might panic and transform victory into defeat.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com
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Saudi Arabia says attackers were family
May 5, 2004

Jeddah: Saudi Arabia said yesterday that four men who killed an Australian and four other Westerners in a suspected al-Qaeda attack on a Saudi energy site were two brothers and their uncles.
One reportedly had links to a Saudi dissident group in London.
Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz has said he believes Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was behind Saturday's attack in the oil and petrochemical town of Yanbu.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the shootings, which killed 57-year-old Australian Anthony Mason, two Americans and two Britons.
The gunmen dragged the corpse of one American through the streets of the Red Sea town before being shot dead by police.
Two Saudi security personnel were also killed.
Violence in the Middle East and concerns over potential disruptions to petroleum supplies have helped push oil prices to their highest levels for 13 years.
US light crude rose more than 80 cents a barrel on Monday after the killings at Yanbu, which heightened fears that militants might target oil infrastructure in the world's top crude exporter.
The interior ministry named the attackers as brothers Sami and Samir al-Ansari and their uncles Ayman and Mustafa, all Saudis.
It identified Mustafa as a suspected militant wanted by Saudi authorities who had entered the country illegally after working with well-known Saudi dissident figures abroad.
"He last left the country in 1994 to join Saad al-Fagih and Mohamed al-Mas'ari to work with them in their suspicious committee," it said. "He recently entered the country illegally, crossing the borders in order to carry out vile plans."
Fagih and Mas'ari, two British-based Saudi opposition figures promoting democratic reform in the conservative kingdom, set up the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) in 1993.
"This is a desperate and hopeless attempt by the Saudi government to find some link (between us and terrorists), after trying many times and failing," Fagih told Reuters by telephone.
"The Saudi government has to decide if it is accusing us, Israel or al-Qaeda, and then those accusations can be taken seriously," he said in reference to initial comments by Crown Prince Abdullah blaming "Zionist hands" for the attack.
He said someone called Mustafa al-Ansari had frequented the CDLR in 1996, but he did not know if that man was the attacker.
On Monday, the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia praised the kingdom's crackdown on al-Qaeda militants but re-issued a warning to the 35,000 Americans in the Gulf state to leave.
"They are making great progress. That is shown in the way they are working through the most wanted (militant) list," James Oberwetter said. "However, there is a still long way to go."
Fifty people were killed in the Saudi capital Riyadh last year in a string of suicide bombings blamed on al-Qaeda. Security forces have killed or arrested eight on a list of 26 top militants since December.
Swiss-based company ABB Lummus, targeted in Saturday's attack, said it was evacuating all 90 foreign staff from Yanbu and a project it was carrying out for a Saudi petrochemical firm would be delayed.

Reuters
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E-Notes
Saddam Circus Is Coming to Town: the Strange Story of Jacques Verges
by Michael Radu

April 14, 2004

Michael Radu, Ph.D., is co-chairman of FPRI's Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security. This essay is adapted from a version that originally appeared on frontpagemagazine.com.

French celebrity lawyer Jacques Verges has announced that "at the request of the family" he has agreed to serve as defense counsel for Saddam Hussein at his upcoming trial for genocide and similar charges. The trial, which is to begin sometime this year, has been greatly anticipated ever since Saddam was captured in December, and now Verges' involvement ensures that it has all the potential of becoming an international ideological and political three-ring circus. Issues such as officials' personal responsibility for their government's acts, genocide, terrorism, and the right to a fair trial will all come under scrutiny, as seen from Verges' trademark Stalinist "anti-imperialism" viewpoint.

For those who believe that communism, and even more so Stalinism, are long dead, Verges is a living fossil, his ideology a Jurassic Park of twentieth-century criminal thought. Verges' life (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Verges) is as fascinating in its contradictions as it is revealing of a trend in the European-- especially French-- intellectual environment, whereby "justice" becomes a matter of ideology, fashion, and politics rather than of morality and law. It is only in such an environment that a lawyer who lost most of his cases (before France abolished capital punishment in 1981, Verges was nicknamed "Monsieur guillotine," given the fate of many of his clients) became famous. His books, such as On Judicial Strategy (1981), The Beauty of Crime (1988), I Defend Barbie (1988) and I Have More Memories than If I Were One Thousand Years Old (1999), have been published by the most prestigious editors, and he has been taken seriously in his relentless assaults against the co
ncepts of law, justice, and Western democracy.

Jacques Verges and his twin brother, Paul, were born in 1925 in Thailand, where their father, Raymond, was serving as a French diplomat. Raymond was a native of the French island department of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, whose inhabitants are mostly of mixed race (Asian, European, African); Jacques' mother was Vietnamese. Based on his lineage, Jacques has perennially claimed to be a victim of racism, notwithstanding that the careers of his father and brother contradict that claim. In 1937, Raymond Verges founded the Reunion Communist Party (PCR), the local branch of the metropolitan organization. Paul, jailed as a young man for the murder of one of his father's political opponents, became a deputy and, in 1996, senator in the French parliament, to which he was reelected in 2001. He remains president of the Regional Council of Reunion and head of the PCR, the island's second largest party.

Jacques himself joined the Communist Party as a teenager, supported Charles de Gaulle during World War II (but only once Stalin had entered the war), and afterwards studied law at the Sorbonne. By 1949 he was president of the AEC (Association of Colonial Students), a communist front. There he met a fellow colonial student from then French Indochina, Saloth Sar, who became a friend for life. Saloth Sar went on to become better known as Pol Pot. Verges' connection with the Khmer Rouge continued: his disappearance from the public eye between 1970 and 1978 has been attributed by some to his joining the Khmer Rouge, and in February 2004 Verges offered to defend Pol Pot's associate and Sorbonne classmate Khieu Samphan in his upcoming trial for genocide before a UN-aided tribunal in Cambodia.

Between 1950 and 1954 Verges was in Prague, then the center of Soviet global propaganda and ideological training, as leader of one of Moscow's youth front organizations. During that period he had the privilege of meeting Joseph Stalin himself.

Upon return to France, radicalized by the Algerian war, Verges left the Communist Party and began his road to fame as a defense lawyer for Algerian terrorists. The most famous of those, and the case that won him plaudits from cultural icons of the Left such as Jean-Paul Sartre, was that of Djamila Bouhired, implicated in an Algiers cafe bombing that resulted in numerous fatalities. Ms. Bouhired was sentenced to death, but the combination of a leftist media campaign and a weak socialist government led to her release. She subsequently married Verges.

At a time when France was at war, Verges openly supported and defended terrorists and their French accomplices-- that is, traitors. He was jailed for this for two months in 1960 and temporarily disbarred.

Verges effortlessly shifted his loyalty from to Stalin to political evil in general-- he once admitted a "passionate interest in evil." Commingled in his brilliant mind were the worst of Nazism, Stalinist communism and, lately, Muslim totalitarianism. One of his French critics theorizes that his mixed-race background led to an extreme need for recognition, megalomania, and personal adventure, so that "behind an image of international lawyer of the first rank is hidden a mercenary of law" (Bernard Violet, Le Parisien, Mar. 27, 2004).

That, and an obsessive hatred for Israel, best explain his personal and professional associations and his choice of clients. The latter have included Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1987; Marxist turned Islamist terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1994; Algerian terrorists linked to petty thief and Islamist terrorist Khaled Kelkal, who was killed by the police in 1995; former Marxist philosopher (and another convert to Islam) Roger Garaudy, who was convicted of Holocaust denial and fined in 1996; Slobodan Milosevic, in 2002; and now, logically enough, Saddam.

What do these clients have in common, both among themselves and with their lawyer? The same characteristics as former Nazi and now Islamist sympathizer Francois Genoud, another Verges associate. As owner of the Arab Commercial Bank in Switzerland, Genoud was the apparent financier of the Barbie case, as well as some of Genoud's Palestinian terrorism cases. These men are the ideologues and defenders, practitioners, or would-be practitioners of mass murder or genocide. Their ideology is totalitarian at its core, thus explaining the effortless movement from Marxism or Nazism to Islamism or support for it. They also share a common trait of twentieth-century European totalitarianists and present- day Islamists: hatred of Jews and Israel.

It is this background that gives away Verges' likely tactics at Saddam's trial and explain his taking up the case. This is no humanitarian response to a desperate "family request"-- indeed, Verges had volunteered to represent Saddam within days of Saddam's capture. The celebrated lawyer is on a lifelong campaign against Western values and freedoms, and the fate of his clients is not a major concern to him. They are merely cannon-fodder for him to use toward his greater goal.

As a defender of Palestinian terrorist hijackers of El Al planes in 1969, Verges claimed that the terrorists' acts were political, not criminal, and the fault of Israeli aggression. Representing Milosevic, Verges claimed that the International Court trying the Serb leader was inherently illegitimate and biased because it received outside donations from individuals such as George Soros (whom he called "not exactly a Mother Theresa") and nations such as the United States and Saudi Arabia. He threatened to call for testimony from Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder, and Jacques Chirac, "because in Dayton they recognized Mr. Milosevic as a respectable and valid interlocutor." Expect the same in a Baghdad court--after all, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did talk to Saddam in the 1980s, and the West helped him against Iran at the time.

Verges' personal and views of the justice system in general and of morality are similarly peculiar. Thus, in The Beauty of Crime he writes: "The judges are like chefs-- they do not like to be observed when they cook," and "The world of justice is a closed, cruel world. . . . Its doors are quilted to stifle the cries, its cathedral windows to block the view" "between the dogs [prosecution] and the wolf [defendants] I'll always be on the side of the wolf-- especially when it is wounded." More relevant, and revealing, accusations in the name of society are uses of the banality of the time, while the defense must escape "the trapped terrain of consensus" to set itself "beyond good and evil, to give crime a new sense and the criminal a face. What sets them apart is the beauty." (See Denis Touret, "Un mercenaire du droit, Me Verges defend Saddam Hussein," March 2004).

In Legal Apartheid, Verges writes that the old notions of honor demonstrated at Thermopylae, Waterloo, and Stalingrad, were ended with Hitler, whose adversaries could only be subhuman. Referring to Kosovo, he says that NATO follows on Hitler's steps in its contempt, charged with fear and hatred, for those [i.e. Milosevic's Serbs] who would contest its hegemony. More radical still, for Verges "racism is simply replaced by the ideology of human rights in the exclusive version of Gens. Powell and Clark, butchers of the peoples of Vietnam, Iraq, and Serbia. . . . 'Human rights' is the pretext for the murder of civilians in the Balkans, the starving of Iraqi children, and poppy cultivation in Afghanistan." (Touret, "Un Mercenaire du droit")

In many ways Verges has been a path breaker for radical lawyers everywhere. His approach to the defense of terrorists has been followed by lawyers in the United States and Germany, especially. He blurred the lines between defense, representation, and ideological comradeship with the accused, and sought to transform legal cases against individuals into global tribunals against "the system"--to put the court, the judges, and democracy on the stand. He has already made clear that he will try to bring world leaders to testify in Baghdad and found enablers in the media speculating that such tactics "could be a huge embarrassment for the United States, France, and other countries." ("World leaders should take stand in Saddam trial: lawyer," AFP, Dec. 20, 2003)

That would, of course, depend on the Iraqi judges and the rules to be decided in Baghdad. If Western human rights groups and defense lawyers succeed in making the Saddam trial an international affair, they will offer Verges another platform for his anti-Western psychopathic obsessions and Saddam the opportunity for revenge against Washington and London and, perhaps, a chance to save his skin. If, however, common sense and morality set the rules, Verges will not only lose the case--that is to be expected-- but, given his age, also lose his last chance to promote the counter-values of totalitarianism of which he is the premier living representative.

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Radical Islam in the Maghreb

by Carlos Echeverr?a Jes?s
Carlos Echeverr?a Jes?s is professor of International Relations at Open University in Madrid, professor on Mediterranean security at the Escuela Superior de las Fuerzas Armada, lecturer at the NATO Defence College in Rome on North Africa and Mediterranean issues, and an analyst on Islamist terrorism at the Centre for Analysis and Prospective of the Guardia Civil in Madrid.

The Maghreb (from the Arabic word for "West") region is made up fives states:
Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. Their main common characteristics are the Arabic language, Islam, and historical ties with the Arab world, subsaharan Africa, and Mediterranean Europe. They are also all members of the Arab League and of the Islamic Conference Organization (OIC). Radical Islam and terrorism have spread throughout the region and acquired a high level of militancy. All the states suffer from potential or real Islamist opposition. Radical Islamists believe that the Maghrebi regimes, which have traditionally collaborated with the Christians and the Jews, must be subverted. They gained strength from the bitterness engendered by the 1991 Gulf War; the Bosnian, Chechen, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts beginning later in the decade; and, more recently, the U.S.-led coalition's defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan and overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
Algeria's experience after it permitted multiparty elections in 1989, which brought Islamists into power, caused fear in other Maghreb countries and in the West that their democratization could lead to similar takeovers or internal strife. Since 1989, more than 120,000 civilians, military and police personnel, and radical Islamists have been killed in Algeria. Though the circumstances of the Algerian crisis have been uniquely Algerian, the problem is not. Radical Islam in the Maghreb has long been a problem in the region. While no government in North Africa is likely to be overthrown by radical Islamists in the coming years, all will have to deal with the challenges to their rule from moderate Islamist political components and, in a number of countries, also from Islamist terrorists. The region not only faces direct terrorist threats, but also poses a problem to the rest of the world, due to Al Qaeda and the other transnational terrorism groups who have origins there. Secret
ary of State Colin Powell's November 2003 visit to Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia reflects the importance of the region to the United States. In the 1990s, moderate Islamists in Algeria and Morocco, the two countries that initially tolerated the movement, focused on penetrating the civil society and occupying the maximum ground in social sectors. They now publish newspapers and have a significant presence in Moroccan universities. In Algeria, natural disasters such as the 2001 floods in Algiers' Bab-el-Oued borough and the 2003 earthquake in the great Algiers region, together with widespread unemployment or
ECHEVERR?A
| Orbis 2
underemployment produced by economic restructuring, have been exploited by both the legal and illegal Islamist groups to gain support. But unlike the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example, the Islamist groups in Algeria and Morocco have not yet been able to use their presence and activism in trade associations to gain control of those groups.
Algeria
The development of a radical Islamist movement has been a major feature of Algerian political life since the mid-1970s, especially after the death of President Houari Boumedi?ne, the Republic's first president, in December 1978.1 Boumedi?ne had adopted a policy of Arabization that included phasing out the French language. French professors were replaced by Arabic speakers from Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, many of them members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The troubles began in 1985, when the Mouvement islamique alg?rien (MIA), founded to protest the single-party socialist regime, began attacking police stations. Escalating tensions amid declining oil prices culminated in the Semoule revolt in October 1988. More than 500 people were killed in the streets of Algiers in that revolt, and the government was finally forced to undertake reforms. In 1989 it legalized political parties, including the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), and over the next two years the Islamists were able to impose their will in many parts of the country, targeting symbols of Western "corruption" such as satellite TV dishes that brought in European channels, alcohol, and women who didn't wear the hiyab (the Islam veil). FIS victories in the June 1990 municipal elections and in the first round of the parliamentary elections held in December 1991 generated fears of an impending Islamist dictatorship and led to a preemptive interruption of the electoral process
in January 1992. The next year saw an increase in the violence that had begun in 1991 with the FIS's rhetoric in support of Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, the growing presence of Algerian "Afghans"--Algerian volunteer fighters returning from the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan--and the November 1991 massacre of border guards at Guemmar, on the border between Algeria and Tunisia.2
Until mid-1993, victims of MIA, Islamic Salvation Army-AIS (the FIS's armed wing), and Islamic Armed Group (GIA) violence were mostly policemen, soldiers, and terrorists. Later that year the violence expanded to claim both foreign and Algerian civilians. In September 1993, the bodies of seven foreigners were found in various locations around the country.3 Dozens of judges, doctors, intellectuals, and journalists were also murdered that year. In October 1993 Islamists vowed to kill any foreigner remaining in Algeria after December 1; more than 4,000 foreigners left in November 1993. As writer Tahar Djaout, assassinated some years
1 Hugh Roberts, "Radical Islamism and the Dilemma of Algerian Nationalism: The Embattled
Arians of Algiers" Third World Quarterly, April 1988, p. 556.
2 Mohamed Issami, Le FIS et le terrorisme. Au coeur de l'enfer Algiers, Le Matin ?ditions, 2001, pp.
255-73.
3 Lara Marlowe, "Algeria: Macabre Arithmetic," Time, Dec. 13, 1993.
Maghreb
3
later by the GIA, put it, "two visions of society separated by ten centuries" were at war. The GIA, which released its first communiqu? in late 1993, believes that the best government is a universal caliphate based on the model of the four Rashidin, successors of the Prophet.
The government's main priorities in these years were combating terrorism and cleansing the mosques so that it could become the sole purveyor of the Islamic religion. In 1995, its sustained pressure on the terrorist groups' supply lines made it increasingly difficult for them to procure weaponry. At the time, the army was launching major offensives aimed at confining the terrorist groups and generally putting them on the defensive. The movement's operations seemed to indicate that it was gaining organizational efficiency, and its terrorist attacks in France in 1995 suggested it was seeking public-relations successes to compensate for defeats within Algeria and to increase its credibility with outside supporters. Rivalries within the movement increased that year, with the AIS and GIA fragmented by the army's pressures and internal strife. In January 1996 the GIA, which wanted to oust the government militarily, declared war on the AIS, which did not rule out finding a political
solution to the crisis.
In 1996, there were 14 armed Islamist groups acting in Algeria, six of whom enjoyed some kind of organized support in Europe. Each group had its own arms depots and militants, and all of them were trying to "inherit" the European support networks. The AIS, led by the Emir Madani Merzag, a veteran of Qaddafi's Islamic Legion, enjoyed the support of clandestine networks in France. The GIA, led then by the new emir Antar Zouabri, comprised 600-650 armed men and enjoyed thesupport of intellectuals and religious leaders such as Abu Qutada and Abu Hamza in Northern Europe, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. Completing the picture of Algerian radical Islam are marginal groups such as the GIA led by Emir Kada Benchiha, composed of Algerian Afghans and Bosnians, and the GIA led by Emir Mohamed Mossab, both of which rejected Zouabri's leadership. (The Mossab GIA's Italian support network, the Djamel Lounici's group, was dismantled by Italian police early in 1996.).
Between 1995 and 1999 the Algerian government applied an antiterrorist strategy based on three pillars: a military offensive by the army, security forces, and the intelligence services; a political offensive; and a more subtle propaganda war. Military Offensive. Military and civilian assets working together proved highly efficient in arming village guards and other paramilitary units for self defense. Over the course of 1995 the authorities distributed weapons among villagers in the countryside, and in small towns the people were guarded against Islamist activists by self-defense groups who called themselves Patriots (which were legalized in January 1997). By the beginning of 1996 the army had significantly increased the percentage of territory it controlled and turned the tide against the rebels. The AIS and GIA came to depend less on classic guerrilla warfare and more on a strategy of destabilization, including using explosives for bomb attacks on crowded markets. Booby-tr
apped cars, assassinations, and roadblocks were proof that the terrorists could no longer launch major military attacks. They were taking the battle away
ECHEVERR?A
| Orbis 4
from the mountains and plains and into the cities and the desert areas of southern Algeria, where the country's vital hydrocarbon wealth is located. The extension of violence to the south, following a GIA threat to oil workers when the government signed contracts with foreign oil companies BP, Total, Repsol, and Arco, was a significant new security development. In February 1996, the international Arabic-language press published the GIA's threat to kill any employees of Algerian companies such as Sonatrach and Naftal or any of their foreign partners who did not abandon their work immediately, as well as army reservists who left their home areas. In September 1996, GIA's Emir Zouabri pronounced a death sentence on anyone who participated in the privatization of state enterprises or worked in the hydrocarbons sector, on the grounds that the revenue from foreign oil companies was bolstering the regime. The increase in civilian casualties entailed by the new terrorist strategy fu
eled divisions within the ranks of the Islamist movement that helped the army negotiate a cease-fire with the AIS.
Political Offensive. After President Liamine Zeroual, the former Defense Minister who had been appointed president by the High Council of State in 1994, decided to hold elections in November 1995, the Algerian establishment agreed to a clear division of labor. While the president's main task was to campaign for the elections, the army and security services would intensify their operations to ensure maximum security for them. Moderate Islamist candidates steered a careful path between their Islamist identity and respect for the constitution and electoral laws, which forbid parties based on religion and the use of mosques for political activities. Zeroual won the election, in which 75 percent of the Algerian electorate reportedly participated, with a comfortable majority of 61 percent, and even the FIS accepted the results. A clemency law was passed that allowed members of armed groups to give themselves up to the security forces.
Given the election results, Washington concluded that Algeria's regime had won the war against Islamists, a conclusion that belied the Clinton administration's earlier prediction that the Algerian regime would be toppled by a bloody insurrection. The visit of high-level U.S. officials to Algiers in the first quarter of 1996 signaled new U.S. cooperation. In December 1996, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service detained Anwar Haddam, head of the banned FISparliamentary mission abroad, in Washington pending deportation hearings.4 Counterterrorism. Meanwhile, on the border with Niger, which was thought to be a potential source of weapons for the terrorist groups, the government arranged for the Agadez and Tahoua areas to be policed by joint patrols made up of the Army, the Gendarmerie, the Tassara vigilante committees, the Popular Front for the Liberation of the North, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and the Front for the Liberation of Tamoust. Other former rebel organ
izations were invited to join the patrols, which seemed likely to help restore authority over the northern regions.
4 Haddam was freed in 2000 and remains in the United States; he faces a death sentence in
Algeria.
Maghreb
5 The Algerian-Malian border has also been important in counterterrorism strategies. In the mid-1990s Algeria played an important role as mediator in Bamako's struggle with Twareg and Arab rebels in the north of the country. But the situation remained tense and unstable in the west, around the Moroccan border, where disparate armed groups appeared to be coordinating their activities and seemingly finding routes to safe haven in Morocco. Political Institutions. In 1997 the government completed forming all the various elected institutions required under its new constitution. In a November 1996 referendum considered to be the cornerstone of true democracy in Algeria, Algerians had voted to amend the constitution to concentrate power in the presidency and to prevent political parties from exploiting religion. In June 1997 Algerians went to the polls for the first parliamentary elections in six years and elected the first multi-party government. In municipal and provincial polls
held in October 1997, the National Democratic Union, a government-sponsored party, won over half of the vote; the former ruling party, the National Liberation Front-FLN, came in second, with one-fifth of the vote. The elections were the final part of an institutional process aimed at increasing the regime's legitimacy and consolidating its powers. It provided roles for moderate Islamist parties, including leadership of several ministries. As an additional concession, it reenacted the law generalizing the use of the Arabic language, which had been frozen in 1996. The law called for completing the process of generalizing the use of Arabic by July 1998. The election campaigns provoked an increase in both GIA massacres of civilians and in disputes among the former FIS's leadership. The side led by Rabah K?bir and the exiled leadership favored making the FIS respectable and seeking its legalization. In parallel, the AIS negotiated a cease-fire that opened the door to its reinserti
on in the political arena. The cease-fire was implemented after Abdelaziz Bouteflika became president in 1999. Meanwhile, brutal GIA attacks on vulnerable settlements alienated its potential supporters and led to the formation in 1998 of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which owed its existence directly to Osama bin Laden. Led by Hassan Hattab, the GSPC is active in the forests and mountains of Kabylia, which provide a refuge for terrorist cells despite the profusion of self-defense groups there. The group specializes in attacks against the armed forces and security services. In 2003, it was involved in the kidnapping of 32 Western tourists in the south of Algeria.
Propaganda War. In February 1996, the Interior Ministry issued a strongly worded warning to the Algerian press not to publish reports of security-related matters deriving from non-official sources. A few days later, the Ministry revived at the offices of Algeria's newspapers the censorship committees first established in 1994. The government also took control of the flow of security-related information to the Arabic media abroad. But it faced an additional problem: out of the 10,000 mosques in the country, 2,600 were not under the control of an employee of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which was trying to find practical means of clarifying the role of imams and provincial religious affairs directors in teaching Islam. In
January 1997, Minister of Religious Affairs Ahmed Merani pointed out that his
ECHEVERR?A
| Orbis 6
Ministry was doing its best to protect mosques from corruption and keep them solely places of worship, not venues for politicking. Radical Islamist attacks against popular Islam also remained a threat. An October 1996 attack on a Tijania Sufi mosque at Kardan underlined the growing dichotomy between the radical Islamists' quest for extreme Islamic orthodoxy and more traditional, local forms of belief and worship.
When he was elected president in 1999 (in an uncontested election), President Bouteflika inherited a flagging peace process. He paid special attention not only to the fight against terrorism but also to national reconciliation, through the Civilian Concord Law that had been approved by referendum. In 2000, more than 6,000 members of the AIS and other groups returned to their homes, the president asserts. In February 2000, at Marrakesh, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen announced that Washington planned to expand and enhance its contacts with Algeria. Washington has supported normalization of Algeria's relations, including Algeria's adherence to NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue and enhanced U.S.-Algerian cooperation on security and defense matters, which began even before the 9/11 attacks.5
Libya
During the 1990s, Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi staged a fierce campaign against radical Islamists in Libya, especially the armed groups in the eastern part of the country, which has witnessed clashes between these groups and government security forces. In June 1996 eight Libyan policemen were killed in an attack carried out by Islamists in Darnah, in the east. In 1996-97 Libya negotiated with several Gulf capitals and Sudan for extradition of Libyan Islamists trained in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.6 Some 70 out of 300 Arab veterans of that war residing in Sudan were Libyans, and Tripoli believed that there was a connection between these Libyan "Afghans" and the Sudanese government. At the same time, Qaddafi continued to support some radical Islamist groups abroad through Dawaa al-Islamiya, which was an active Libyan instrument for external propaganda. The regime has curtailed this practice with the normalization of its international relations in recent
years, and in 1994 Qaddafi promised President Zeroual to cease providing support for Algerian Islamists. This pledge came after Libya had been accused of helping those groups cross into Algeria through the Libyan desert after receiving training in camps in Sudan. In September 1995 Egypt claimed to have evidence of the existence in neighboring Sudan of twenty camps for training terrorists to operate in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, and Libya. The next year, Algerian Islamists claimed that hundreds of FIS activists who had taken refuge in Libya had disappeared in mysterious circumstances after Algiers and Tripoli signed a security cooperation agreement. In 1998, there were reports of armed confrontations between Islamists and security forces in Benghazi, in the core of eastern Libya, and the Libyan
5 "Boutef Rides his Luck" Africa Confidential, Feb. 18, 2000.
6 Ray Takeyh, "Qadhafi and the Challenge of Militant Islam," Washington Quarterly, Summer 1998.
Maghreb
7
government released through Interpol the first international alert against Osama bin Laden. Since 9/11, Libya has played an active role in the international war on terror, through its full participation at the Ministerial Conference of Interior Ministers of the Western Mediterranean, as an observer in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership's Barcelona Process, at the UN, and in bilateral cooperation with former enemies such as the UK and the United States. After the U.S.-led war on Iraq, it also agreed to dismantle its WMD.
Morocco
In the early 1990s, its European proponents claimed that the Kingdom of Morocco was on a new liberal path, politically and economically, that deserved Europe's support to stem the tide of radical Islam in the Maghreb. Rabat often pointed to the danger of Islamism in Algeria or Egypt as a way of demonstrating the advantages of its own regime. King Hassan's decision to send 1,200 troops to join the forces of the anti-Saddam coalition on the Saudi-Kuwait border in the 1991 Gulf War, even if they were not be used for the liberation of Kuwait, was less than popular and sent a frisson of resentment around the country.7
Morocco's Islamists are barred from setting up parties, denied legal status as associations, and kept under a close watch. But they have been allowed to gather, arrange social events, publish newspapers, and preach a stricter adherence to Islamic values. None of the groups advocates violence, but certain violent factions do exist in Morocco, as was evident in 1994, when a cell of the Moroccan Combatant Islamic Movement (MIC) assassinated two Spanish tourists at the Atlas Asni Hotel in Marrakesh. Morocco accused the Algerian Secret Service of being behind the attack and imposed a visa requirement for Algerians wishing to enter the country, leading the Algeria to close the border. In fact, the radical Islamist groups had been operating in Morocco since the early '90s, led by Moroccan "Afghans" who led attacks such as those against a McDonald's in Casablanca and the Soci?t? Marocaine de D?pot Bank in Oudja in 1993 and against the Makro department store in Casablanca in 1994. Af
ter their arrest in France, in 1997 a Paris court sentenced members of the MIC network involved in the Atlas Asni Hotel attack.Moroccan police arrested a group of arms smugglers made up of 12 Moroccan members of the Jamaat al-Adl wal-Ihsan (Justice and Charity) and five Algerian GIA members in 1995, seizing a number of Kalashnikovs and pistols, homemade explosives, radio transmitter-receivers, and night-vision equipment. Two months later Morocco sentenced eight people for smuggling weapons to Algerian armed groups.
Clashes broke out in Casablanca in January 1997 between security forces and hundreds of students, most of whom were Islamists who had been attending the trial of three of their comrades. Several people were injured. The Islamists had imposed strikes and sit-ins, much as the General Union of Moroccan Students had done in the 1960s, and stirred up tension on the campuses. They continue to engage in grassroots activism in trade unions, especially the Democratic Confederation of
7 Jonathan Farley, "The Maghreb's Islamic Challenge" World Today, Aug.-Sept. 1991, pp. 149-50.
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| Orbis 8
Labour. For the time being, they have not created a specific Islamist trade union, as the FIS did with its Workers Islamic Trade Union. However, they are attaining positions in several professional sections of existing trade unions and have demonstrated their intention to foment strikes and obstruct any agreements' being reached between the unions and the government.
At the end of the 1990s, the social and political conditions in Morocco were favorable for radical Islam. These conditions included a concentration of wealth, corruption at various levels of the administration, and high unemployment (especially among those of age 15-25). The political class in Morocco and in Europe feared that demanding social justice and freer political expression would produce popular explosions in the absence of King Hassan's agile exercise of power. However, since Hassan II's death in August 1999, his son, Mohammed VI, has embarked on a careful process of transition and modernization. Moderate Islamists are becoming relevant in politics through the Hizb al-Adala wal-Tanmiyya (Justice and Development Party-PJD), and radical Islamists are also getting some protagonism.
The PJD has been effective in its frontal opposition against the steps taken in 1999 by socialist then-prime minister Abderrahmane Yussufi to reform the Mudawwana, the code of personal status. In March 2000 it staged a "One Million March" in Casablanca to protest the reforms. Legislative and local elections held in 2002 and 2003 evidence the wide support they enjoy. By March 2002, Lib?ration warned of the presence of "fundamentalist gangs organized as private militia groups spreading a reign of terror among the suburbs." In Fez, terrorists had set up roadblocks to identify drivers and hunt down alcohol users, something that carries an ugly ring of events in Algeria in the 1990s.
Along with the rise of political Islam came a new terror threat. Since 9/11, the international activities of Islamist terrorism and the presence of Moroccans in its midst--17 Moroccans are imprisoned in Guantanamo--has been an issue of growing concern to the security forces, the intelligence service, and the armed forces.
A combined operation led by the head of the internal information service, Gen. Amidou Laanigri, thwarted May 2002 attacks against Western warships in the Straits of Gibraltar. These would-be attacks demonstrated the presence of an increasingly globalized Islamist terrorist network extending throughout North Africa and Europe. The 17 Moroccans held in Guantanamo Bay provided the information that permitted the arrest of three Saudis apparently acting as liaisons for Al Qaeda and four Moroccan accomplices. They had apparently received instructions on carrying out terrorist attacks in Morocco from Mullah Bilal, who was responsible for Al Qaeda operations in North Africa and the Middle East. They appeared in court in Casablanca in June 2002, and it seemed clear that since the start of 2001 the suspects had been recruiting prospective terrorists from the Moroccan wing of the Islamic Combatant Group-GIC, which has links to the Algerian GSPC. Fear of infiltration by Islamist extremi
sm within the state's own ranks is another danger. In January 2003, the Royal Gendarmerie arrested an army sergeant, Yusef Amani, who had stolen Kalashnikov rifles from the Guercif barracks,intending to provide them to an Islamist cell in Meknes.
Maghreb
9
All these trends were dramatically confirmed by the May 2003 synchronized suicide attacks in Casablanca, which left 45 dead and dozens wounded. Since then, hundreds of militants in the Salafiya Djihadia Moroccan network and alleged Al Qaeda members have reportedly been arrested. For the time being, Morocco has approved rigid counterterrorism legislation and reinforced its links with international partners such as France, Spain, and the United States to combat the globalized radical Islamist terrorism threat. In this context, the king, who has this prerogative as the supreme religious authority in the country, instructed the parliament in December 2003 to pass a new personal code modernizing the Mudawwana.
Tunisia
Since November 1987, when he took over from former Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali has fought against radical Islamists in the Republic and tried to undercut the Islamist Harkat Nahida party's support by creating jobs and development. During the 1990s, the regime appropriated the slogans of Islamists and made itself the champion of youth, providing job opportunities for the poor and unemployed. President Ben Ali has developed a system of social assistance for disadvantaged communities through a solidarity fund run by the presidency, a program that has won UN support as a model for other countries and regions.
But since becoming the first Mediterranean country to sign an EU Association Agreement in 1995 toward establishing a free-trade zone with the EU by 2010, Tunisia is in a delicate transition period. Liberalization of the economy and privatization have brought tensions. The number of new job seekers will rise over the next few years, and unemployment levels are already reaching about 15 percent. With a small domestic market (the total population is about 10 million), Tunisia has to compete for foreign direct investment with countries of the Mediterranean as well as Eastern Europe and Asia.
The government's fears of radical Islam and its obsession with security threaten to further undermine its political position.8 Islamism in Tunisia has traditionally been a reaction to the secularization programs of presidents Bourguiba and Ben Ali and to President Ben Ali's growing personality cult, but it has also been activated from abroad. In the 1989 general elections, the last attended by the Islamists, even the government's unpublished polls showed Harkat Nahida candidates polling over 50 percent in some constituencies. The next year Islamists applied formally, as Ennahda (Renaissance), for registration as a political party, which was refused on the grounds that it was a religious organization, not a political party. Shortly thereafter Ennahda was implicated in bombing a building in Tunis belonging to the government party. One hundred leading members of the party were detained and its newspaper banned.9
8 Nicolas Demezieres, "La Tunisie, ou le triumphe du `tout-s?curitaire'," Relations Internationales et
Strat?giques, Winter 1994, pp. 128-30.
9 Farley, "The Maghreb's Islamic Challenge," p. 151.
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| Orbis 10
The terrorism threat from neighboring Algeria has aroused concern in Tunisia since the early 1990s, especially after an attack in Guemmar, on the Algerian border, in November 1991 and the appearance of clear signs of links between Algerian terrorist groups and Tunisian Islamists. In summer 1992 a large trial in Tunis confirmed the extent of Islamism in the armed forces and the real threat of coup d'?tat: 50 of 171 Ennahda members, and many of its so-called Commandos of Sacrifice, came from the military/security apparatus.10 A major diplomatic incident between Tunisia and the UK was provoked in 1993 when Ennahda's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, who had been sentenced to death in absentia for alleged involvement in terrorism in Tunis, was granted asylum by the British Home Office. The affair illustrates the differences in perception between the Maghreb countries and the Western countries on questions of political rights, as Algerian and Tunisian officials were prompt to point out
in September 2001.
The veteran Foreign Affairs minister, Habib Ben Yahia, initiated discussion of terrorism in the Arab League in 1993, and Tunis has been in regular consultation with allies such as Algeria, Egypt, and Tunis, exchanging information and coordinating activities, for a decade. More recently, Tunisia's economic growth, improved education and living standards for the rising middle class, and coercive security measures against real and suspected terrorists have kept Islamist politics quiescent. To Tunis, Algeria's problems only showed the folly of allowing elections that include Islamists. Many Tunisians are reluctant to support a cause that seems to threaten economic growth. Ennahda has been silenced at home and the activities of its exiled leader curtailed.11 The involvement of Tunisian terrorists in Al Qaeda's assassination of Commandant Ahmed Shah Massoud in Tajikistan on September 9, 2001, and, above all, the April 2002 suicide car bombing in Djerba's La Ghriba Synagogue, which
left 19 dead and dozens wounded, only intensified Tunis' counterterrorism efforts.12
Mauritania
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania's recognition of the State of Israel in 1995, its perpetual ethnic problems, its weakness, and its chronic security deficit have led to an upsurge of radical Islamist activism over the past decade. In 1995, Mauritanian authorities launched the first massive police operation against radical Islamist networks, and the next year they began a major crackdown on arms smuggling into Algeria, focusing on the triangle of arid territory defined by it, Western Sahara, and Mali.13 More than 40 suspects were arrested in connection with
10 In this trial of 279 Islamists, 265 were found guilty of offenses against the state and 46 received
life sentences.
11 Maha Azzam, "Recent Developments Among Islamist Groups" in Volker Perthes, ed., Political
Islam and Civil Society in Northern Africa. Four Approaches, Ebenhausen/Isartal, Stiftung Wissenschaft und
Politik, May 1998, p. 19.
12 ?lise Colette, "Comment Massoud a ?t? pi?g?," Jeune Afrique/l'Intelligent, Feb. 11-
17, 2002.
13 The need to bring this area under control is evidenced by the build-up in 2003 of a
Maghreb
11
contraband arms formerly belonging to the Azawad's Malian Touareg rebels, one among many rebel movements that are the real actors in the volatile Sahelian region. While Mauritania undoubtedly had its own reasons for cracking down on illicit arms dealings, Algiers presumably encouraged these moves. Algiers' influence is strong in Nouakchott. Also, the Algerian oil industry, which controls 55 percent of production and distribution of oil-based products in Mauritania, was reportedly considering the possibility of prospecting for oil and gas along the Mauritanian coast, a region that is becoming of more and more interest after exploration there by Australian and British oil companies in 2003. In summer 2003, a coup attempt against President Ould Taya highlighted the need for the West to support this country, which, because of its location in the extremely sensitive region connecting the Maghreb with subsaharan Africa, must not become a failed state.

The West and the Maghreb: Lessons Learned
Fear that the FIS triumph in Algeria could lead to Islamist takeovers throughout North Africa left most Western governments secretly siding, although weakly, with the Algerian government in the early 1990s. The Europeans additionally feared that turmoil in the Maghreb might mean waves of immigrants and/or refugees to Europe. At the same time, the Islamists' free-market economic programs, promoting an "Islamic" economy in which the state would disengage from most economic activities, made it seem that removing the economic, social, and political causes for these movements was the best option.14 The Maghreb states had in fact all been vulnerable to the advance of radical Islam since the end of the 1980s, as impoverished masses sought refuge in Islam during the turbulent process of modernization and globalization.
The most important security concern for the Maghreb in the mid-1990s was that Europe might play the role of home base for the Islamists, as was true for some European countries. At that time, European governments were reluctant to speak of an "Islamist International," but it was clear to a number of North African governments that radical Islam had external sources--arms trade and funding through Europe, connected with smuggling and drugs. It was also clear that Islamist terrorism had begun to affect European interests, with acts including the assassination of Europeans in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia; the hijacking of the Air France Airbus in Algiers in December 1994 and of two Air Algeria aircrafts over Spain in 1994; the series of bombings in France in 1995-96; and arms trafficking in Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain.
Western governments, mainly in Europe, finally asked whether the political agendas of radical Islamists in the Maghreb were strictly focused on confrontation with their own governments or if elements of a substantial transnational agenda against the West could be identified. The Maghreb regimes hoped their European facility in the southern Algerian city of Tammanrasset for the U.S. National Security Agency.
14 Pedro Moya, "The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism and the Future of Democracy in North
Africa," Interim Report of the Subcommittee on the Mediterranean Basin International Secretariat of the North
Atlantic Assembly, Nov. 1994.
ECHEVERR?A
| Orbis 12
counterparts would begin to crack down on the GIA and other groups in the terrorists' support networks, but it took years for their hopes to be fulfilled. Finally in 1995 a number of European nations began to reinforce bilateral and multilateral links with North Africa.
In Algeria, the government's counter-insurrectionist strategy, begun in 1992, eventually reduced the number of active radical Islamists. Both Algeria and Morocco have explored how to coopt Islamist opposition forces within the system, as with the Society for Peace Movement (formerly Hamas) and Islah (formerly Ennahda) in Algeria and the PJD in Morocco, isolating only the violent factions. At the same time, for the radical Islamists, the West--even if it is seen as apathetic to the suffering of Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine, Afghanistan, or Iraq--is an attractive refuge. The Islamist networks have exploited disputes between European and Maghreb states, such as that between Paris and Algiers after the interruption of elections in 1992, and among the European states themselves, such as the one between the northern and southern European countries on the nature of these networks in Europe. The reluctance of a number of Western countries to do their part in combating terror
ism in the Maghreb only strengthened the Islamists. The Europeans' belief that conflicts in the Maghreb did not significantly affect their national interests, along with the fact that the greater impact of this terrorism was on France, the former colonial power and the European country with the largest Maghrebi population, increased other Western countries' reticence to coordinate their counterterrorism efforts. That Rashid Ghannouchi found asylum in the UK, Anwar Haddam in the United States, and Rabah K?bir in Germany, all engaging in activism until the authorities finally decided to control their activities, was only the visible part of the iceberg. Radical Islamists from the Maghreb enjoyed Western liberties during the 1990s on European, American, and also Canadian soil, attaining the rights of "political activists" while actually feeding clandestine terror networks.
Fortunately, increased government networking began in the Mediterranean as globalization called for coordinated approaches to transnational issues. The Algerian government finally started to benefit from overt or covert European initiatives to dismantle the Islamists' European networks and to cut supplies and money. Members of Djamal Lounici's terrorist group were arrested in summer 1995 in Italy and tried there in April 1997. Lounici had been sentenced to death in Algiers in a separate trial for his involvement in the attack at Houari Boumedi?ne International Airport in 1992. In December 1996, Italy and Morocco signed an additional protocol to their 1987 Cooperation Agreement concerning terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking. Maghreb states and the West must continue to work together on terrorism, which is increasingly involving citizens from both areas, some holding dual nationalities.15
At the level of inter-Arab relations, Tunisia's and Egypt's counterterrorism efforts at the Arab League and the OIC have had more rhetorical than operational results. In December 1993, Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia claimed that Sudan was
15 Fran?ois Soudan, "Maghreb-?tats-Unis: L'ami alg?rien," Jeune Afrique/l'Intelligent, Jan. 5-11,
2003, p. 39.
Maghreb
13
home to the Islamist International, as reflected in the meeting of Hassan el Turabi's Arab and Islamic Popular Congress in Khartoum and another, larger conference in 1995. Washington accused members of the Sudanese Delegation to the UN of being involved in the February 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. The firm U.S. policy towards the Sudanese regime in 1995-96 was instrumental in stopping this Sudanese support to radical Islamist groups in the Maghreb. Algerian terrorist groups found their main sources of weapons supply in the Maghreb and other African countries (Morocco, Libya, Chad, or Mali) in the mid-nineties. They benefited from the lack of either border control or cooperation among states in the region. The improvement of Algerian-Libyan and Algerian-Malian cooperation made it possible to crack down on these sources of weapons. Since 9/11, the Arab Maghreb Union, which held its first meeting since 1994 in January 2002, has been working to develop common criteria
for joint analysis of terrorism. For the time being, the increasingly motivated radical Islamist groups in the Maghreb and abroad are proving that they can function with minimal resources. Despite the shutdown of funding sources, weapons and explosives remain easy to obtain. The most important lesson learned by the Maghreb and the West is that radical Islamist terrorism must no longer be able to benefit from the lack of a common international consensus on what constitutes terrorism and the absence of coordinated counterterrorism initiatives.

North Korea to Deploy Intermediate-Range Missiles, Chosun Says


May 4 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea plans to deploy a new model of intermediate-range ballistic missiles earlier than the U.S. and South Korea had expected, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unidentified South Korean government official.
North Korea is building two underground missile bases, one in the country's center and the other in the northeast, the paper said. The bases are as much as 80 percent complete and U.S. satellites detected about 10 new missiles and mobile launch pads at the bases between last year and early this year, it said.
The new missiles can fly as far as 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles), reaching the Okinawa islands, Guam and areas near Hawaii, the paper said. Of the North's previously deployed missiles, the longest-range was 1,300 kilometers, covering most of Japan, it said. The new missiles are smaller because they're more technologically advanced, it said.
Western intelligence agency haven't determined whether North Korea has developed the technology for attaching nuclear warheads on missiles, according to South Korean and U.S. media reports. North Korea, the U.S., China, South Korea, Japan and Russia are scheduled to hold lower-level talks this month on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons development program.

(Chosun Ilbo 5-4, p.1)



To contact the reporter on this story:
Meeyoung Song in Seoul at msong2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor of this story:
Peter Langan at plangan@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 4, 2004 01:27 EDT
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Once Again, North Korea to Make U.S. Terrorism List
WASHINTON, D.C. -- The U.S. will announce its annual report on global terrorism at 10 a.m. Thursday (local time), in which it plans to designate six nations -- including North Korea -- as nations that support terrorism.
A high-ranking U.S. State Department official said Tuesday that while North Korea will be named to the U.S. list of terrorist-supporting states for the 17th year straight, this year's report would specifically mention the kidnapping of Japanese citizens for the first time. The report will include Kim Jong-il's acknowledgement -- made during a February 2002 summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro -- that kidnappings of Japanese citizens were carried out by "special bodies." Accordingly, it has become more difficult for North Korea to escape the yoke of being classified a terrorist state.

14 North Korean defectors, five U.S. lawmakers, and about 200 figures from the religious and human rights group, attend the "North Korea Freedom Day" event on Wednesday and pray for the victims of the Ryongchon train explosion./AFP


The U.S. will designate Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria and North Korea as states that support terrorism.

Meanwhile, in speeches given at a "North Korea Freedom Day" rally in front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, five U.S. congressmen called for improvements in North Korea's human rights situation and regime change in the North.

Sen. Sam Brownback, the Republican who heads the East Asia Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that North Koreans have suffered enough under the North Korean dictatorship. "North Korea's oppression must end now," he said. Brownback discussed the Rwanda genocide of 10 years ago and the Holocaust of World War II, and said strong measures, like the quick passing of the "North Korea Freedom Act" currently in both houses of the U.S. Congress, were necessary.

Republican Rep. Edward Royce said, "To ignore North Korea's human rights situation is to distort the challenge facing the Korean Peninsula... The entire world must understand the essence of the North Korean regime and confront it, and more than anything else, it must get its message across to the North in a sincere voice."

Republican Rep. Trent Franks, too, said, "The rally must serve as a jump off point for improving human rights in North Korea," and called for the activation of NGO activity. Republican Rep. James Leach, chairman of the House Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, presided over a hearing on North Korea after the rally and demanded that attention be pain to the 200,000 people being held in North Korean political prisons, human rights abuses and the hardships suffered by defectors and refugees in China.

(Joo Yong-joong, midway@chosun.com )

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>> PHOTOS
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200404/200404270021.html

Ryongchon Survivors Face Wretched Conditions



Injured victim children of the April 2 train explosion lay on hospital beds at the People's hospital in Sinuiju, North Korea , Sunday.

DANDONG, China -- Six days following the powerful train explosion that ripped apart the North Korean town of Ryongchon, vivid evidence of the wretched conditions faced by locals is pouring into the Chinese border town of Dandong.
In particular, distressing news is pilling up from Chinese who have been to the disaster site to look in on ethnic-Chinese relatives who reside there.

One source in Dandong described the situation as "on the brink of death." The critically wounded are dying off as time passes, but because of poor medical facilities, it's common for people to just look on helplessly, he said.

In particular, he said that cries ring out from children who can no longer bear the pain in their bodies broken by debris and fragments from the explosion, but neither their parents nor medical personnel can give them pain killers.

He said, "I went to one Chinese medicine practitioner's, and there were several wounded being treated there. The skin on most of the patients' faces was almost peeled off, and in particular, children were crying with their eyes bandaged."

Young boys injured from the train explosion in Ryongchon Station lie in a hospital in Sinuiju, North Korea on Sunday. Many children's faces were severely burned from the accident.

Everything within a 500-meter radius of the explosion has been turned almost completely to ruin, another source said, but systematic reconstruction efforts were not taking place.

With about half the city of Ryongchon destroyed, thousands have been left homeless, and most of them -- with the exception of those who have found shelter with nearby relatives -- have been reduced to camping outdoors. In particular, when the weather turned cold Monday, blankets that appear to have been provided by the outside as emergency assistance gave the homeless much strength, said the source, but the number given fell way short of the number needed.

Locals are becoming increasingly panicked as time goes on, because not only was the accident a large-scale disaster, but the North Korean authorities have not been carrying out proper rescue operations.
Firstly, locals in Ryongchon are brushing aside the death toll resulting from the calamity claimed by the North Korean authorities -- 160 -- claiming the total is a "laughable number." One source said, "There's still talk going around Ryongchon that the total dead will surpass 2,000... You can't believe everything the locals there say, but the scale of the losses is likely to exceed greatly that which has been officially announced."

Moreover, perhaps because the survivors are so pessimistic about their own situation, but it's said that resentment against North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who passed through the area on the day of the accident, is on the rise. Because of this, talk is spreading among locals that, "some force tried to assassinate Kim, but killed only innocent residence."

Talk is also going round that security personnel got wind of an assassination plot and had Kim's train route hastily changed; his train was originally scheduled to pass through Ryongchon, but some are saying his train passed through nearby Baekhwa Station instead.

An ethnic Chinese living in North Korea who divulged information about the Ryongchon area said, "It's known that Kim stopped for about an hour at Sinuiju Station and consulted with North Korean officials in his train... If one takes this into consideration, it's possible that his travel times were changed from those that were originally known."

About the cause of the accident, too, evidence to the contrary of official announcements is being raised. Another source in Dandong said, "Locals say this accident was caused by a dynamite explosion."

One South Korean businessman who works in Dandong said, "The various rumors that are running wild are evidence of the panicked public sentiment in the area affected by the disaster... The North Korean authorities must quickly accept relief aid from the international community and cope with public sentiment in the area."

(englishnews@chosun.com )
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Who let the dogs out?

So now you know. Thanks to prime-time television, you, the American people, understand that war is horrible. The mystery is why you didn't know before, why you are outraged now. Perhaps the answer is, if it's not on TV, it's not happening. So, credit to CBS's 60 Minutes II for finally showing part of the truth - that Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison have been undergoing the horrors of war at American hands. No credit to the US media for pulling the wool over your eyes about this war for so long. No credit to you for being appalled now - you should have known that this is what happens in any war, no matter whose side God is on.
Don't you remember the stark images in Life magazine of US soldiers torturing suspected communists during the Vietnam War? Have you forgotten about the My Lai massacre? Did you think the Disasters of War, as depicted by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya in 1810-11 (click here ) were things that only other countries perpetrated, in other times?

Did you think American wars are more civilized, more humane? Well, of course you did. Your president and your media, after the nonsense about weapons of mass destruction had been swept under the carpet, sold you this war as ridding the world of the brutal, bloodthirsty tyrant Saddam Hussein; as bringing the forces of humanity, civilization and enlightenment to a people living in darkness. And you believed that war could achieve this. Now, shocked, you are seeing images that show that the brutal, bloodthirsty tyrant's boot fits some American feet as well. Sorry, but war is dehumanizing.

Your president thunders that prisoner abuse "is not the American way". Maybe he really thinks so - he never saw service in Vietnam, or any other war, after all. Maybe his advisers just didn't tell him what really goes on in war. But to all but the simple-minded and the rose-bespectacled, this is not only the American way of war, it is the way of all sides in all wars.
The US media tell us this morning: "General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told US news channels that those responsible [for the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison] would be brought to justice and that the 'chain of command' would be investigated, as well as the six junior soldiers who face court-martial proceedings." Splendid. There is no doubt, however, that the "chain of command" investigation will not go all the way to the end of the chain. Underlings will take the fall in the US leaders' efforts to show that apart from a few misguided individuals, American soldiers are enlightened and humane killing, raping and torturing machines. An oxymoron? You bet. But you don't win wars by being gentle.
The underlings who will be punished are soldiers who were dragged along by the dogs of war. If you are shocked and appalled by what they did, it is those who let the dogs out who should be investigated. They have only one question to answer, and it is not "Did you order the maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners?" The question is, "Is this a just, necessary war?" If it is a just war, you may swallow your horror, because this is how wars are waged.
Sometimes war is unavoidable. Just don't be naive about it. Sorry to say, the grim reality is a whole lot worse than what you have recently seen on the "stupid box".
(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 dehumanizing nature of occupation
By Ehsan Ahrari

If the United States invaded Iraq to liberate its people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, recent reports of "systematic" inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners only underscore that the very nature of occupation of one country by another is such that it invariably leads to acts that dehumanize the occupied people in the name of security. The outcome: intense and incessant hostility, resentment, and anger of the occupied toward the occupiers.

New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh has written a gruesome account of gross and systematic abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Gharib prison. The ultimate irony is that, during the rule of Saddam, Abu Gharib became a symbol of brutality. Once it could not find weapons of mass destruction to justify its invasion of Iraq, the administration of US President George W Bush claimed that the liberation of Iraqis from the most inhumane rule of a dictator was a good enough reason for taking military action against that country. Now reports of the US military's abuse of Iraqi prisoners in that notorious prison threaten to deprive the United States of even that wobbly claim.

The seeds of prisoner abuse were sown in the very act of invasion and occupation of a country, especially when it was done without the moral authority of the international community. By going into Iraq without the sanction of the United Nations - the sole symbol of international legitimacy - the occupation forces became the target of Iraqi anger, particularly by not only remaining there indefinitely, but also by promising to transform Iraq into the image of their own society. Any expectation of overwhelming cooperation from the Iraqi populace was unrealistic. The manifestation of Iraqi anger through acts of resistance and insurgency was bound to create an equally brutal response from the occupying forces.

No occupying force can effectively respond to acts of insurgency, subversion and resistance without good intelligence. Therein lies the rub. Can the Anglo-American forces get credible information regarding potential hostile acts - known in the jargon of intelligence as "actionable intelligence" - without the use of force, including psychological means of torture and acts of humiliation regarded highly offensive in the Arab and Islamic culture? The answer, at least in the case of Abu Gharib prison, is that someone at the top made the decision to use whatever means desirable to get credible and actionable intelligence, or to look away and play innocent. Now the focus of inquiry ought to be whether such a decision, indeed, was made at the top. If so, how far up the chain of command does the notion of culpability go?

Bush has appropriately and promptly expressed his feeling of disgust at the reports of abuse. However, General Richard Meyer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quick to go on the defensive during an interview conducted on Fox Television Network on Sunday. He said: "There is no evidence of systematic abuse" in the US detention operations in the region. However, his claim was in direct contradiction with the one reported in Hersh's essay. Major-General Antonio M Taguba's report, which he wrote for the Pentagon, but was not meant for public release, cites numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Gharib. The Taguba report notes: "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick; and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

The issue of culpability may be best pursued by closely examining the rationale - such as it was - for any abuse or dehumanizing treatment of Iraqi prisoners. At least for now, there are reasons to believe that the perpetrators of such acts were not merely some young soldiers from rural West Virginia or Oregon, acting on their own and without proper guidance, training, or supervision. Hersh reports: "In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Gharib. In a letter written in January, he said: 'I questioned some of the things that I saw ... such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell - and the answer I got was, "This is how military intelligence [MI] wants it done" ... MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.' The military-intelligence officers have 'encouraged and told us, great job, they were now getting positive results and information,' Frederick wrote. The CIA has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI's request. At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th MP Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. His reply was. 'Don't worry about it.'"

If the preceding information is correct, then these events may not be swept under the rug merely by taking disciplinary action against a few soldiers, junior officers and one flag officer, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of military prisons in Iraq. One has to go to the top - all the way to Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, senior commander of US forces in Iraq. After all, he was the one who initially ordered Major-General Donald Ryder, provost marshal of the US Army, to review the Iraqi prison system. The Ryder report concluded that the "situation had not yet reached a crisis point". Why did General Sanchez decide against a further probe when he knew how damaging such incidents could be for the overall US prestige in the world?

We know now that the conclusion of the Ryder report was rejected by General Taguba when he stated in his report: "Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder's] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation. In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment." He went on to add, according to Hersh: "Contrary to the findings of M G Ryder's report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade, were directed to change facility procedures to 'set the conditions' for MI interrogations." Army intelligence officers, CIA agents and private contractors "actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses".

The Arab world has been saturated with the reports and pictures of the dehumanization of Iraqi prisoners. Admittedly, there is no comparison between the brutality of the Saddam regime and the reports of abuse of prisoners in occupied Iraq. However, as one dispatch in the latest issue of Newsweek aptly notes: "No one would liken US abuses to Saddam's techniques, which included the most sadistic forms of torture and murder. But then, being more humane than Saddam isn't much to brag about."

Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.

(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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Editor-in-chief of U.S.-funded Iraqi newspaper quits, complaining of American control
By Lee Keath, Associated Press, 5/3/2004 14:47
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) The head of a U.S.-funded Iraqi newspaper quit and said Monday he was taking almost his entire staff with him because of American interference in the publication.
On a front-page editorial of the Al-Sabah newspaper, editor-in-chief Ismail Zayer said he and his staff were ''celebrating the end of a nightmare we have suffered from for months ... We want independence. They (the Americans) refuse.''
Al-Sabah was set up by U.S. officials with funding from the Pentagon soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein last year. Since its first issue in July, many Iraqis have considered it the mouthpiece of the U.S.-led coalition, along with the U.S.-funded television station Al-Iraqiya.
Zayer said almost the entire staff left the paper along with him and that they were launching a new paper called Al-Sabah Al-Jedid (''The New Morning''), which would begin publishing Tuesday.
Zayer had sought to break Al-Sabah away from the Iraqi Media Network, which groups the paper, Al-Iraqiya and a number of radio station and is run by Harris Inc., a Florida-based communications company that won a $96 million Pentagon contract in January to develop the media.
''We informed (Zayer) that the paper would remain part of the IMN,'' said Tom Hausman of Harris' corporate communications. ''He made the decision to resign.''
Hausman said Al-Sabah would continue publishing on Tuesday with a new staff.
''We had a project to create a free media in Iraq,'' Zayer said of the founding of Al-Sabah. ''They are trying to control us. We are being suffocated.''

Zayer accused Harris of interfering in the paper's workings, including trying to stop some of its advertising and speaking to reporters about articles.
Among the ads that he said Harris tried to prevent was advertisement from a new political organization called ''the Iraqi Republican Group.'' The ad ran in Monday's issue the last put together by Zayer's staff.
The ad complained of the ''griefs of occupation'' and called on Iraqi elite to rally ''to preserve our nation from destruction.''
Zayer said he was told by Harris that the ad was ''too political.''
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Buyer's Remorse
Dems start to worry that Kerry can't win.

Monday, May 3, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

It's six months until the election, and Democrats are already having buyer's remorse. The Bush campaign "is kicking Kerry's ass every damn day," one prominent Democratic operative told the Washington Post last week. "Kerry hasn't owned one day in the news yet. Not one day!"
Some liberals are so frantic that they want to pull the plug. Village Voice columnist James Ridgeway says prominent Democrats should "sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike" and withdraw. Call that the Torricelli option, after the former New Jersey senator who was muscled out of the race by party elders.
That's not going to happen. First, John Forbes Kerry has wanted to be president ever since he hung around the Kennedy family compound as a teenager. He's not going to let any of the same pooh-bahs who only last December wrote him off as a primary contender drive him from the race now. Second, Mr. Kerry's convention delegates are loyal to him and not easily transferable. There was similar grumbling about dumping Bill Clinton in the summer of 1992 when he was running third in polls behind both George Bush and Ross Perot. Nothing came of it.
But that doesn't mean that the worries about John Kerry's electability are going away. Time magazine columnist Joe Klein says Mr. Kerry is "engulfed by the sort of people Howard Dean railed against: timid congressional Democratic staff members and some of the old Clinton crowd. . . . Kerry's may be the most sclerotic presidential campaign since Bob Dole's." Ouch.
Complaints about Mr. Kerry extend beyond his staff. John Weaver, who was strategist for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign before he became a Democrat, calls Mr. Kerry's TV skills "abysmal. . . . I don't know if it's a stream of consciousness or stream of unconsciousness." MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who has lavished airtime on Mr. Kerry, is nonetheless frustrated with his elliptical speech patterns. "There's no such thing as a trick question with Kerry, because he won't answer it," he sighs. "We'll be having conversations afterward, and it's hard to get to him even then."
The few times that Mr. Kerry decides to abandon his nuanced reserve and programmed responses he can become argumentative and hectoring. ABC's Charlie Gibson asked him last Monday on "Good Morning America" to reconcile his inconsistent stories about whether he had flung his medals or merely his combat ribbons over the White House fence during a 1971 antiwar protest . After Mr. Gibson pointed out that he had covered the demonstration and had personally seen Mr. Kerry throwing medals away, the candidate replied: "Charlie, Charlie, you're wrong! That is not what happened. I threw my ribbons across. And all you have to do is go back and find the file footage." He then lapsed into incoherence.
Vaughn Ververs, the editor of the political newsletter Hotline, says Mr. Kerry's weak performances have led to "a good deal of hand-wringing among Democrats over the perception that one of Kerry's biggest strengths--his military service--seems to have become a liability."
One reason is that he began his presidential race talking far too much about Vietnam. My colleague James Taranto points out that in a December 2002 interview with NBC's Tim Russert, Mr. Kerry managed to work Vietnam into an answer about the death penalty. Robert Sam Anson, a Kerry friend who first met him during that same antiwar protest at which Mr. Kerry burst onto the national scene in 1971, concludes that Mr. Kerry is suffering from a desire to "explain away, deny, revise, trim or flat-out lie about all past events, beliefs and statements that got you the Democratic nomination in the first place. It happened to another friend of mine in 1972. His name was George McGovern. . . . See what happens when you ignore what Mother said about fibbing? No one's saying that Mr. Kerry's cooked. But McGovern parallels give him a toasted look he didn't get skiing in Sun Valley."
Liberals know they are stuck with Mr. Kerry, but that's not preventing them from worrying about his tendency to appear to take both sides of an issue. The irony is that Mr. Kerry has wanted the White House so badly, and for so long, that he has become almost a caricature of an opportunistic, programmed candidate. The resulting image turns off many voters who sense that not much is motivating him beyond blind ambition. For example, many voters may not feel comfortable with Mr. Bush's religious impulses and motivations, but they highlight the image he conveys of a sincere, committed leader.
It is traditional for party activists to grumble about their prospective nominee between the time he wraps up the primaries and when he is actually nominated. But the doubts about Mr. Kerry go beyond campaign kvetching. At times, they seem to verge on quiet panic.
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CACI Wants to Review Report on Alleged Abuse


By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page A18


CACI International Inc. said yesterday that an outside law firm will conduct its investigation of its employees' conduct in Iraq and review its operations around the world.
The Arlington defense contractor's chairman, meanwhile, complained that the government hasn't allowed the company to see an internal Army report that, according to portions made available to The Washington Post, says two CACI employees, along with two military intelligence officials, were "either directly or indirectly responsible" for abuses of prisoners allegedly committed by soldiers at Abu Ghraib detention facility outside Baghdad.
Details of the report were published previously in the New Yorker, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
"There are things flying around . . . and I'm sitting here having not seen anything from the government," J.P. "Jack" London, the company's chairman and chief executive, said yesterday. The government, he said, has not told the company its employees are accused of wrongdoing. The company has confirmed some employees were interviewed by the Army.
CACI said yesterday it has never employed one of the two men named in the report, but it declined to say which one.
Six soldiers have been charged with physical and sexual abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Seven others will be reprimanded, Army officials announced yesterday.
Pictures of the alleged mistreatment, aired on television and printed in newspapers around the world, have shocked people and inflamed Arab countries.
The law firm hired by CACI, which it declined to identify, "has competence with these types of matters," London said. "Frankly, we want to make sure that there isn't something going on that we were not aware of. We don't have any intent to support illegal behavior by our employees, if there is any."
CACI provides services such as engineering and integrating computer systems for government clients, including the Department of Defense, where it gets the bulk of its revenue.
Lawyers for some of the soldiers charged with abuse said CACI employees acted as interrogators at the prison. The company has declined to say how many people it has in Iraq or to describe their work, but it has posted ads seeking interrogators, intelligence analysts and counterintelligence agents on several Internet job boards.
"This particular type of work is something we've been performing for several years, this intelligence-gathering," London said. Asked how the company trains employees to conduct interrogations, London said CACI recruits "people who have these competencies and have demonstrated those capabilities." Many of them, he said, have previous military experience.
Military use of private contractors has escalated rapidly in the past 15 years, said Deborah Avant, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University who has studied the practice. Private companies have traditionally been hired to provide services such as food preparation and logistical support but more recently have been used for more demanding jobs such as providing security for U.S. officials.
Until now, though, Avant said, she was not "aware of a situation where the U.S. military has outsourced interrogation."
Employees of San Diego-based Titan Corp., which employed translators at Abu Ghraib, are also involved in the investigation, U.S. investigators have said. According to the New Yorker, the Army report quotes a Titan employee who witnessed the abuse.
A company spokesman, Wil Williams, said he did not know whether Titan was involved in the investigation. "I know of no allegations against Titan or any of its employees," he said.

Staff writers Sewell Chan in Baghdad and Renae Merle in Washington contributed to this report.



? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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CBS Delayed Abuse Report At the Request Of Gen. Myers
Associated Press
Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page A18


NEW YORK, May 3 -- CBS News delayed for two weeks airing a report about U.S. soldiers' alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners, following a personal request from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gen. Richard B. Myers called CBS anchor Dan Rather eight days before the report was to air, asking for extra time, said Jeff Fager, executive producer of "60 Minutes II."
Myers cited the safety of Americans held hostage and tension surrounding the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Fager said, adding that he held off as long as he believed possible given it was a competitive story.
With the New Yorker magazine preparing to run a detailed report on the alleged abuses, CBS broadcast its report last Wednesday, including images taken last year allegedly showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by U.S. captors at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Fager said he felt "terrible" being asked to delay the broadcast.
"News is a delicate thing," he said. "It's hard to just make those kinds of decisions. It's not natural for us; the natural thing is to put it on the air. But the circumstances were quite unusual, and I think you have to consider that."
Rather revealed the two-week delay in a postscript to viewers at the end of Wednesday's broadcast.
Fager said he believed the story was better because of the delay; CBS was able to interview Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt about the alleged incidents because the network waited.
Myers, speaking on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, confirmed that he asked CBS for the delay. "You can't keep this out of the news, clearly," he said. "But I thought it would be particularly inflammatory at the time."



? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Intelligence Reform Will Not Be Quick
Many Groups to Weigh In on Changes

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page A23

The White House, Congress and two independent commissions are discussing wholesale reform of the nation's intelligence community in the wake of its failures to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and accurately describe Iraq's weapons programs, mistakes that were highlighted in recent public hearings.
But despite warnings from some members of the national commission investigating the terrorist attacks that they will soon recommend intelligence reform, many government officials say it will be at least a year until any substantive change is realized.
None of the panels has completed its work, and any recommendations for substantial change will be politically controversial, particularly if they involve control of the Pentagon's intelligence programs, which account for the vast majority of U.S. intelligence spending. The large number of agencies and congressional committees with vested interests in the current intelligence structure guarantees that change will be difficult, as past commissions recommending reforms can attest.
Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which last month released a critique of intelligence failures before the attacks, describes reform of the intelligence community as a major focus of the panel's report to be delivered July 26. "It could possibly be our most important recommendation," Kean said recently, "but I don't think any of us can honestly say what that recommendation will be yet."
The Senate and House intelligence panels also will be making their own recommendations over the next few months based on separate inquiries into the failure of prewar estimates of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. Appeals Court Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman, co-chairman of President Bush's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, said recently that his newly formed group has just begun its inquiry into the Iraq failure and some intelligence successes, such as Libya. There, U.S. and British knowledge of Moammar Gaddafi's programs forced the Libyan leader to cooperate in destroying his weapons and stockpiles. Silberman's panel reports next March.
"We want to hear from all our commissions," said Sean McCormack, spokesman for the president's National Security Council, "but we are not ruling out any idea that could immediately provide protection to the American people."
Even CIA Director George J. Tenet has said there could be other ways for the intelligence community to be organized, but veterans of previous attempts at reform are urging caution. They are particularly concerned about one proposal that appears to be gaining popularity: creating a new director of national intelligence separate from the CIA and other intelligence agencies, but with overall budgetary and operational authority over the entire intelligence apparatus.
Tenet is the director of central intelligence (DCI) as well as CIA director. In the DCI role, he has only secondary control over the budgets of Pentagon-based agencies that receive nearly 90 percent of the intelligence community's roughly $40 billion annual budget. His relationship with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld determines how much influence he has over the use of the Pentagon's intelligence assets.
Proponents of a single director of central intelligence believe putting one official in charge of all intelligence agencies, including the Defense Department's, would make the collection and dissemination of information more efficient.
Kean said his commission is looking at the idea, but neither he nor other members of the panel have reached any conclusions. A similar idea, proposed more than a year ago by retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), has recently received attention inside the administration and on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking minority member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and other committee Democrats have proposed establishing a national director of intelligence (NDI) who would have overall operational and budgetary control over Defense Department intelligence agencies, which would remain in the Pentagon. The new NDI would have the same relationship with the CIA, without the direct administrative responsibilities.
Harman said recently she is pushing for action before November and has made a presentation to members of Kean's commission. "The DCI concept should have changed when the Cold War ended," Harman said. "Lacking budgetary authority, the DCI ends up being an advocate rather than a disinterested broker."
Most reformers forget how complicated it can be to change the intelligence community, said L. Britt Snider, who for 25 years has worked on intelligence issues in senior posts on Capitol Hill, at the Defense Department and at the CIA. The intelligence system is woven through numerous agencies, and officials report to at least 12 congressional committees, each with entrenched interests in the current structure.
"This is the first time a president has indicated a possible interest," Snider said. Reform "has not had that in the past, and nothing will happen without the president aboard and taking an interest."
But he warned that "the interests of the Defense Department have to be understood." The Pentagon handles more than 90 percent of the money spent on intelligence because protection of troops is the primary concern in the allocation of funds. In the past, Snider said, legislators, particularly on the House and Senate Armed Services committees, "were afraid of making changes that could harm military forces in deployed situations." Devoting more intelligence resources to terrorism, he added, could reduce intelligence gathering on other threats.
Former senator Warren Rudman (R-N.H.), who participated in several past reform attempts and served for many years as chairman of the PFIAB, said some quick efforts at reform have left the intelligence community "worse than we were in the first place." He said he was concerned about "creating massive new structures for politically expedient reasons."
Tenet has argued against a national director of intelligence, saying initially that the creation of that post would add another layer to the bureaucracy. "Rather than focus on a zero-sum game of authorities, the focus should be on ensuring that the DCI and the secretary of defense work together on investments tied to mission," he told Kean's panel.
He believes the "way into the future" is a system under which the intelligence community functions through new combined entities. In one recent example, intelligence officials from the Pentagon, FBI and other agencies were brought to work at the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center. "That's the way we are moving," he said.
Tenet feels strongly about rebuilding human intelligence capabilities and the need to be able to carry out covert operations against terrorists. But he said he believes the president's chief intelligence officer must be directly involved in the CIA's covert activities, each of which must be approved by the president. As CIA director and, earlier, as the top staff member of the Senate intelligence committee, Tenet has seen firsthand the political fallout from the failure of such activities.
"If you separate the DCI from troops, from [agency] operators and analysts, I have a concern about his or her effectiveness, his or her connection," he said.



? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Turkey Charges 9 In Plot to Bomb NATO Summit
Associated Press
Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page A21


ANKARA, Turkey, May 3 -- A Turkish court on Monday charged nine suspects in an alleged plot to set off a bomb at a NATO summit in Istanbul next month that President Bush is scheduled to attend.
Authorities in the northwestern province of Bursa on Thursday detained 16 alleged members of Ansar al-Islam, a Turkish group allegedly linked to al Qaeda, Gov. Oguz Kagan Koksal said. The suspects also planned to attack a synagogue in Bursa and rob a bank, Koksal said.
A Turkish court that deals with terrorism cases charged nine of the detainees with "membership in an illegal organization." They also could face other charges.
Prosecutors questioned and released the other seven suspects, as well as nine others who were questioned in Istanbul, officials said.
The leader of Ansar al-Islam, identified as Alpaslan Toprak, was among those detained, Koksal said. Police also seized equipment to make remote-controlled bombs, guns, books on bomb-making, forged identity documents and CDs that served as training manuals, he said.
The crackdown on the group comes amid heightened security before the June 28-29 meeting of NATO leaders in Istanbul. In November, more than 60 people were killed in the bombings of two synagogues, a London-based bank and the British Consulate in Istanbul that authorities blamed on suspected members of an al Qaeda cell in Turkey. Officials have charged 69 suspects in those attacks.
An Islamic group based in northern Iraq that also calls itself Ansar al-Islam and is believed to be linked to al Qaeda, asserted responsibility for suicide bombings on Feb. 1 against the offices of two Kurdish political parties in northern Iraq that killed more than 100 people. A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Turkish and Iraqi groups shared "the same ideology and tactics." The Turkish group has grown in size since the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the official said.



? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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U.N. Warns of Delay in Iraqi Election
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 2004; Page A19


UNITED NATIONS, May 3 -- National elections in Iraq scheduled for January could be postponed unless security there improves, the top election official for the United Nations said Monday.
"If the security situation does not improve, one of the things that is clear is that the U.N. won't participate in Mickey Mouse elections," Carina Perelli, the director of the U.N.'s electoral assistance division, told reporters in New York. "Elections under the gun," she said, do not go "hand in hand."
Perelli said that despite the ongoing violence in Iraq, technical preparations for elections are advancing faster than expected. The United Nations will establish an independent electoral commission by the end of the month after negotiating a new electoral law ahead of schedule. "Security aside, right now we are better than on track," she said.
Perelli, a Uruguayan election specialist who recently concluded a three-week visit to Iraq, said the United Nations will soon return to Iraq to work out a series of unresolved issues, including whether Iraq will be governed by a presidential or parliamentary political system.
The United Nations is trying to create a new electoral system from scratch in Iraq, a country that has little experience with democracy. In February, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that he could help organize elections in Iraq by the end of the year if Iraqis reached agreement on a new electoral law by May. That would provide U.N. and Iraqi officials with a minimum of eight months to prepare for elections.
As a first step, the United Nations has invited individuals from across Iraq's political, religious and tribal spectrums to vie for a few positions on the electoral commission. U.N.-appointed officials will narrow the field of candidates to 20 individuals and select an executive director general of elections and seven-member board of commissioners from the group. The United Nations will also appoint an international election commissioner to advise Iraq's electoral commissioners.
Perelli said that aspirants can obtain entry forms at any of 13 regional coalition sites throughout the country until May 15. She said that although coalition sites in five of Iraq's 18 governates were too dangerous to distribute the forms, contenders could get copies of the form on the Internet or travel to another site to obtain one.
U.S. occupation authorities have appropriated as much as $260 million to finance the elections, Perelli said. But she said the cost could rise if Iraqis living outside the country are allowed to vote.
In an effort to ensure their competence and independence, candidates for the electoral posts will be questioned by a panel of three international election specialists and required to sign a paper renouncing participation in politics as long as they serve on the commission. They will have to accept a "curtailment of the exercise of their civil and political rights," she said. They will be the "enforcers of the legitimacy of the process," she added.
Perelli said the United Nations would try to avoid selecting commissioners based on their political, tribal or religious affiliation. That is a major departure from the U.S.-led occupation authorities, who apportioned political seats on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council on the basis of affiliation.
The process has done little to strengthen the standing of politicians and political parties, which are viewed favorably by only 3 percent of the Iraqi population, according to a local poll cited by Perelli. "The anti-political party feelings of the population is extremely high," she said.
The decision has fueled anxiety by Iraq's factions that they may be left out if they do not aggressively promote their own causes. "There is a concern right now in terms of the different groups feeling that it is now or never" or they could be left out of Iraq's political future, she said.



? 2004 The Washington Post Company

CACI to Open Probe Of Workers in Iraq
Army Officials Interviewed Employees
By Renae Merle and Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 3, 2004; Page A16
Defense contractor CACI International Inc. said yesterday it launched an independent investigation of its employees in connection with allegations that Iraqi detainees were abused by U.S. soldiers at an Army-run prison in Iraq.
Six Army soldiers have been charged with the physical and sexual abuse of 20 prisoners at the Abu Ghraib facility, which is about 20 miles west of Baghdad, and others remain under investigation. Employees for Arlington-based CACI were serving as interrogators at the facility, according to an attorney for one of the soldiers facing criminal charges.
Two CACI employees were named in an unreleased internal Army report about abuses at Abu Ghraib, according to a New Yorker article published last week on the magazine's Web site. The report alleges that one employee allowed or ordered untrained military police to set conditions for interrogations that amounted to abuse, and recommends he be fired, according to the New Yorker account. It recommends that the other be disciplined.
CACI acknowledged that its employees had been interviewed by Army officials as part of the investigation, but said in an e-mailed statement that it has "received no indication from the Army that any CACI employee was involved in any alleged improper conduct with Iraqi prisoners."
"CACI has initiated an independent investigation of the actions of Company employees in connection with this matter," the statement said. It was unclear who was conducting the investigation. Company spokeswoman Jody Brown and the company's chief executive and chairman, Jack London, did not return calls yesterday for comment.
"We are appalled by the reported actions of a few," the company statement said. "The Company does not condone or tolerate illegal behavior on the part of its employees when conducting CACI business in any circumstance at any time."
CACI, which gets about 64 percent of its revenue from the Pentagon, has declined to disclose how many employees are working in Iraq or Afghanistan.
According to several Internet job sites, CACI has been recruiting interrogators, senior counterintelligence agents and intelligence analysts for work in Iraq for more than a year, requiring some to have active and current top-secret security clearances. An ad posted on Yahoo's HotJobs Web site in February, under the headline "Exciting intelligence opportunities in Iraq!," sought to recruit interrogators with two or more years "conducting tactical and strategic interrogations." Another posting on IntelligenceCareers.com lists opening for senior counterintelligence agent with 10 years experience and intelligence analysts with a minimum of three years' experience.
The increasingly prominent and important roles played by civilian contractors in Iraq have stirred criticism from some industry analysts, who said private contractors cannot be held to the same standards as soldiers. The Pentagon's oversight of private contractors around the world is "inconsistent and sometimes incomplete," according to a 2003 General Accounting Office report.
"The use of private contractors in Iraq is becoming an increasingly volatile political issue," the International Peace Operations Association, a Virginia-based nonprofit group representing private military service companies. "This incident could adversely impact an industry that has been instrumental in supporting stability and reconstruction efforts not just in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan, Liberia, Haiti and all over the world."
There are 15,000 to 20,000 civilian military contractors in Iraq working at jobs once reserved for soldiers, said Peter Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of "Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry." The duties have veered from the mundane, such as delivering mail and serving food, to critical activities that include conducting interrogations and coordinating logistics, Singer said. "We have truly pushed the boundaries to this," he said.
Staff writer Sewell Chan contributed to this report from Baghdad.

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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U.S. Official: Abuse Allegations Are 'a Big Deal'
Charges Involving Army-Run Prison in Iraq Seen as Setback for Military; Britain Launches Inquiry

By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 3, 2004; Page A16
BAGHDAD, May 2 -- The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged Sunday that allegations that Iraqi prisoners were abused at a detention facility run by the Army have set back efforts to cultivate a positive image for the U.S. military in the region.
"Where a handful of people can sully the reputation of hundreds of thousands of people that are over there trying to give a better life to 50 million people, it's a big deal, because we take this very seriously," Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers said on CBS's "Face the Nation," referring to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Myers added: "There are a lot of Iraqis that have daily contact with our forces, and they get to know the character and the compassion of our forces. And so they probably understand this is an aberration. Not that it won't be used against the United States of America. It certainly will."
Last week, CBS broadcast images showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being otherwise tormented, allegedly by their U.S. captors.
The British military has also begun an investigation into abuses, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Sunday, after the Daily Mirror newspaper published photographs Saturday that purportedly showed British troops kicking, stomping and urinating on a hooded Iraqi detainee in the southern city of Basra.
"These allegations are being taken extremely seriously," Straw said, according to the Reuters news service. "The allegations are terrible."
Human rights advocates criticized the alleged abuses by U.S. soldiers at the prison in Abu Ghraib, a western suburb of the capital.
"We had heard reports about torture, but we didn't know that it rose to this level of brutality," said Salim Mandelawi, a lawyer who directs the Human Rights Organization in Iraq, founded in 1960. "These are inhuman actions that are taken only to humiliate people."
An analyst said fallout from the reports of abuse allegations could be devastating for U.S. policy in Iraq.
"The public relations damage is profound and permanent," said Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. "The release of these pictures may be the point at which the United States lost Iraq."
Three separate investigations have been launched since the abuses were uncovered in January. Criminal charges have been filed against six soldiers and could be filed against four others. Administrative penalties have been recommended against seven officers.
The Army Reserve commander who oversaw all 16 Army-run detention facilities in Iraq said that military intelligence operatives exerted the most influence on the daily life of the prisoners in Cellblock 1A, the area of the prison where the prisoners allegedly were mistreated.
"The MPs were responsible for the detention operation," Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski said in a telephone interview Saturday. "They got them their meals, they got them showers, medical attention if they needed it. But the people that were in those cells, their every conduct was scheduled and negotiated by the MI people."
Karpinski said she did not learn about the allegations until she received an e-mail from Army criminal investigators on Jan. 19. "It is not excusable," she said. "It is not acceptable."
As commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Karpinski oversaw 3,400 soldiers, including the six soldiers charged. The six were part of a military police company based in Cumberland, Md.
An attorney for one of the accused soldiers said Sunday that he had requested a Court of Inquiry, which would precede a court-martial.
Gary R. Myers, who represents Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, said the inquiry should be "a broad-based fact-finding mission."
"It is the best truth-finding vehicle available in a hydra-headed circumstance such as this," the attorney said. If the military "is serious about getting the truth, this is the way to do it," he said. "A court-martial is limited by rules of evidence, and is not nearly so expansive as a Court of Inquiry."
Gen. Myers, on CBS, said the military is taking a close look at interrogation procedures inside Abu Ghraib. "We want intelligence information, but we have to stay inside international norms and international law," he said.
U.S. officials have confirmed that two contractors with employees at Abu Ghraib are subjects of the investigation.
One is CACI International Inc., an Arlington-based security firm, which supplied interrogators to assist military intelligence officers. "We are on the record of supporting the investigation," said L. Kenneth Johnson, CACI's president of U.S. operations. "None of our employees have been implicated in any wrongdoing, to the best of our knowledge."
The second company is Titan Corp., based in San Diego, which employed translators at Abu Ghraib. A company spokesman, Wil Williams, declined to answer questions about the company's work at the facility.
Staff writers Christian Davenport, Scott Higham, Ellen McCarthy and Renae Merle in Washington contributed to this report.



? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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'Sexual torture' sparks inquiry call
May 3, 2004 - 12:22PM
Images of abuse
The US-led coalition faced mounting pressure today to allow an independent inquiry into allegations of widespread prisoner abuse in Iraq as 11 more US troops and three Iraqis died in fresh fighting.
Meanwhile United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a UN-sanctioned multinational force will help maintain security in Iraq after the US military hands limited sovereignty back to the country on June 30.
London's Sunday Telegraph said up to 4,000 British troops are to be sent to take control of the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, currently under siege by US forces, in the largest expansion of British forces in Iraq over the past year.
Eleven US soldiers were killed in combat in less than 24 hours, military sources said.
Two died in an ambush in the southern city of Amara, two in Baghdad, one in an attack on a base near the northern city of Kirkuk, and six when another base was mortared west of Baghdad.
Three Iraqis were killed and eight wounded in clashes between Shi'ite militiamen and British troops in Amara, a hospital source said.
More than 750 US troops have died since the United States and its allies invaded Iraq in March last year, according to a tally based on Pentagon figures. More than 10,000 Iraqis are also estimated to have been killed.
But it was the graphic pictures of the abuse of prisoners by troops in the US and British media that continued to shock the world and undermine coalition claims that it was "winning the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people.
The images depicted prisoners of US forces, some naked, in humiliating, sexually suggestive poses, with military personnel pointing and laughing at them.
British tabloid the Daily Mirror followed up with photographs of British troops apparently abusing an Iraqi prisoner.
The British press exploded at the Mirror's photos, and though the BBC said their authenticity had been questioned, the daily's editor Piers Morgan stood by the story and hinted at more revelations.
Six US military police, including Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, in charge of US-run prisons in Iraq, were charged in March with offences relating to the abuse of up to 20 prisoners.
A senior military spokesman said US probes were leading to "other areas" outside the limited scope of prisoner interrogation procedures.
Karpinski told the New York Times she was "disposable" and hinted she was being made a scapegoat to protect the army military intelligence unit that controlled the abused prisoners.
Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers said the "handful" of US soldiers accused will be prosecuted, insisting that such misdeeds are "not systematic".
One soldier has been referred to court-martial, a second soldier's case is pending and "several are still under investigation," Myers said on US television.
Myers said he would be surprised if military intelligence was responsible for the soldiers' actions.
The former chief of the US group of experts which failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, David Kay, said the photographs had lent weight to calls for coalition troops to withdraw.
Amnesty International said its "extensive research in Iraq suggests that this is not an isolated incident".
"There must be a fully independent, impartial and public investigation into all allegations of torture. Nothing less will suffice," the human rights group said.
Sunni Muslim leaders in Iraq have said the abuse constituted "war crimes" while Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa has expressed "shock and disgust" at the "shameful images".
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to crack down on those responsible, while UN special envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi called it "very worrisome".
Meanwhile representatives of Iran-based Grand Ayatollah Kazem Hossein Haeri are helping mediate to end a standoff between radical Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and US forces besieging him in Najaf, the ayatollah's office said.
Sadr is wanted over the murder of a rival cleric last year and US forces have vowed to "kill or capture" him and dismantle his Mehdi Army militia, which is several thousand strong.
On the other main front troubling US-led forces, the Sunni bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad, insurgents were celebrating what they claimed as a great victory over the besieging US marines.
Iraqi forces under the command of a former officer from ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's army began replacing US troops around the city on Saturday under a plan to end a bloody two-week standoff and avoid an all-out US attack.
Annan told a US television programme, "The (UN Security) Council will probably authorise a multinational force to remain in Iraq to help create a secure environment."
"I think it will be part of the new resolution that the Council will be discussing and approving that will cover the period after the 30th of June," Annan said.
"Obviously the new government would also be consulted, but there will be a resolution authorising a multinational force and encouraging governments to come together in a genuine international effort to help stabilise Iraq," Annan said.
"Quite frankly, it's in everybody's interest that we do whatever we can to stabilise Iraq."
But Americans celebrated the news that US civilian contractor Thomas Hamill managed to escape his kidnappers in Iraq, though officials continue to be concerned about the fate of other US captives who remain unaccounted for.
Hamill, a truck driver supplying US forces, was captured April 9 after his convoy came under attack.
A videotape sent out by his captors showed them threatening to murder him within 12 hours if US troops did not end their siege of Fallujah, and nothing more had been heard of him until today.
AFP
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An empire in moral crisis
By Margo Kingston
May 2, 2004

Page Tools
Email to a friend Printer format A version of this piece was first published in the Sun Herald today. See Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker for TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB, a detailed report into systematic US torture at Saddam's former prison. Yesterday was the first anniversary of Bush's "Mission accomplished" decree. On Friday, American time, he defended his statement with these words: "A year ago I did give the speech from the carrier saying we had achieved an important objective, accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. As a result, there are no longer torture chambers or mass graves or rape rooms in Iraq." He lied. The US defence force has confirmed that Bush was kept informed of the investigation into the American torture chambers in Iraq - completed in February. Webdiary's April statistics are at the end of this entry. For an update on the torture scandal, see Is US withdrawal the least worst option?

Yep, time to get out of Iraq

by Margo Kingston

G'day. Time magazine this week interviewed Jumpei Yasuda, one of the Japanese hostages set free by Iraqi kidnappers:
"The man who pointed his gun at me told me he was walking on the sidewalk and was arrested by the G.I.s when he wouldn't answer their questions. He said he was imprisoned for almost a month and regularly beaten up. One day, he said, he was taken to a private room and sexually assaulted. He asked me what I would have done if I were him, and I had no answer."
I didn't believe the man's story. Now I do. I've also reversed my opposition to Mark Latham's promise to bring our soldiers home by Christmas. The photos released by Sixty Minutes in the US changed my mind (also see thememoryhole and albasrah). The photos record tableaus in a US prison in Iraq. In one, a man cloaked in black, his face covered, stands on small box, electric wires attached to his fingers, toes and genitals, after being told that if he falls off he will be electrocuted. In another, several naked men, garbage bags over their heads, are arranged in a human pyramid. One American soldier stands behind them, arms folded, smiling to camera. A female soldier squats behind them, also smiling.
The photos are deeply disturbing, not just for their sadism, but because they are precisely posed. They are `artistic', not torture in action, but torture frozen to capture the moment for the camera. Trophy pics. As Juan Cole wrote:
"There was also apparently coerced male on male sexual activity. The genteel mainstream news reports of this scandal (which have given it less attention than it deserves or than it will get in the Arab press) have not commented on the explicitly sexual message sent by the abusers, which is that Iraq is f**ked."
The decadent American empire now sees itself as the star of its own movie. Remember when it rushed a few troops into Baghdad to show it could win quickly, meaning no one was there to stop the inevitable looting and anarchy when Saddam's regime collapsed? Remember when George Bush dressed up as a soldier to pronounce "mission accomplished" in May last year? Every non-American is a stage prop for the greater glory of America.
We're told that those directly involved in recreating the Caligula movie in Baghdad will be court martialled. Yet if you read the very few stories on the matter in the US media, it's clear that the smiling faces are scapegoats for a US defence force which has lost its way. There was no training for the soldiers on holding prisoners. They were not even given the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners, and were told to get on with it when they queried prisoner abuse. The US even outsourced interrogation to private contractors!
When I wrote about my change of heart on Latham, a couple of readers accused me of being silly. "Surely you must have considered the possibility that, if psychopaths constitute between 1 and 5% of the male population worldwide, then there must logically be a similar percentage of psychopaths in the volunteer US military," wrote Mike Lyvers.
Matthew Cleary: "That you now think the troops should leave is akin to thinking jails should be abolished because there are instances of prisoner abuse by guards."
But the photos are the defining visualisation of what's been becoming clear since Saddam's statue fell last year. The Americans were unprepared for the task of securing the peace, with defence chiefs failing even to train soldiers on the cultural norms of the Iraqis so they would not needlessly humiliate or insult them. Even worse, the ugly side of being American, the side incapable of empathy with any other culture, let alone respect for it, has eaten alive any chance of nurturing democracy in Iraq.
Recently, a British officer said the US troops saw the Iraqis as "untermenschen", a term Hitler used to describe Jews, gypsies and other "racially inferior" groups:
"My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They view (the Iraqi people) as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful."
As one of three nations which invaded Iraq, Australia is responsible for what is happening there. What those pictures show is that it is not possible to "do the job" any more. The war is lost. They longer we stay, the worse it will get, for the world and for the long-suffering Iraqis.
As for the importance of the US alliance, the United States under its present government is a force for evil and perpetual war. Until America elects a leader and an administration which brings out the good side of America and listens to solid, thoughtful advice, we are endangering our security by supporting it.
All the reasons they told us to go to war have fallen apart except the one about giving the Iraqi people freedom and dignity. Now that one is in ruins. What is the job we must do, Mr Howard?
Bring our soldiers home. The longer we stay, the more complicit we are in the war crimes of an empire in moral crisis.

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Is US withdrawal the least worst option?
By Margo Kingston
May 3, 2004

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Email to a friend Printer format A year after Bush declared `Mission accomplished' in Iraq, a few mainstream American military and foreign policy voices are urging the US to admit defeat and withdraw.

These opinions were aired before the images of torture which end any chance that the Iraqi people will believe that America is a benign force for freedom and democracy in their nation.

Since the publication of those images on Thursday night the shocks keep coming. So tonight, updates on the tragedy of Iraq and your thoughts on what went wrong and what to do next.

The truth about American torture

* Seymour Hersh obtained the military report into America's torture chambers in Iraq: TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB: American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?

* Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, in charge of Iraqi prisons at the time, says the block concerned was off limits to her and under the complete control of US intelligence - Rough Justice in Iraq:

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski is angry. She says she warned her superiors from the first about the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners... The trouble was, Karpinski says, she didn't have enough troops or resources to do the job right, and the men at the top ignored her complaints. "They just wanted it to go away," she told NEWSWEEK last week... "There's no excuse for what these people did," says Karpinski. "They're just bad people. But the guys involved in this were new to Abu Ghurayb. It got way out of hand.

Karpinski says the abuse took place in Abu Ghurayb's Block 1A, which had been taken over and turned into a windowless prison-within-a-prison by military-intelligence officers. They called the shots there, not the usual military-police guards. "So far I haven't heard of any investigation of the military-intelligence people," she says.

* The American military denied problems in the prison for months, dead batting complaints from the British human rights envoy and Amnesty International. Hersh reports:

As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba's report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.

* An American veteran comments in Abu Ghraib as My Lai?

* The Americans have outsourced interrogation to private contractors (see Hersh), thus ending the last remaining core function of the State: Privatization of warfare. And now we're losing our SAS soldiers to the private army in Iraq: Army exodus: SAS troops quit. Webdiarist Donald Brook commented:

It's good to see the war being privatised, with soldiers leaving the SAS and going entrepreneurial. One had thought that the blight of socialism, under which armed conflict has been seen by old Lefties like Howard et al as essentially a public enterprise, would never be cured.

* The American media hardly run the story for days, although the Hersh scoop seems to have forced them to do so. See Iraq Torture Images Vie with Photos of U.S. War Dead:

This shows U.S. newspaper editors understand what kind of war coverage interests American readers, according to David D. Perlmutter, a historian of war and media at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. "The torture pictures are absolutely irrelevant," Perlmutter said in a telephone interview. "Americans care about American soldiers, and only journalistic and political and academic elites fret about pictures of collateral damage ...

As US blogger Kevin Drum said:

Remember this the next time someone wonders aloud why Arabs all hate us so "irrationally." We play down incidents like this as "aberrations," merely a few soldiers out of thousands, and run the story on page 27. They see it splashed across the front page and think of it as yet another case of American hypocrisy. It's going to be awfully hard now to convince them they're wrong.

***

Voices for withdrawal

* Former General Sees 'Staying the Course' In Iraq as Untenable:

It is delusional, asserts the Army veteran, college professor and longtime Washington hand, to believe that "staying the course" can achieve President Bush's goal of reordering the Middle East by building a friendly democracy in Iraq. For the sake of American security and economic power alike, he argues, the U.S. should remove its forces from that shattered country as rapidly as possible.

"We have failed," Mr. Odom declares bluntly. "The issue is how high a price we're going to pay. ... Less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later?" His is not the voice of an isolationist, or a peacenik, or Republican-hater. He is talking from the conservative Hudson Institute, where he was hired years ago by Mitch Daniels, later Mr. Bush's budget director. His office displays photos of Ronald Reagan, under whom Mr. Odom directed the National Security Agency, and Jimmy Carter, on whose National Security Council staff he served.

* Conservative' foreign policy expert Christopher Layne of the Cato Institute (one of the very few right wing think tanks which opposed the war) wrote The Best of Bad Choices in `The American Conservative':

The United States has no good options in Iraq but the least bad is this: Washington should transfer real sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30. It should tell the Iraqis to work out their own political future among themselves and turn over full responsibility for Iraq's external and internal security to the new regime in Baghdad. Simultaneously, the United States also should suspend all offensive military operations in Iraq, pull its forces back to defensive enclaves well away from Iraq's cities, and commence a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq that will be completed on December 31 (or on January 20, 2005).

There is no point in being Pollyannaish. In the long run, the U.S. will be better off leaving Iraq. In the short-term, however, there will be consequences -- not all of which are foreseeable -- if the U.S. withdraws. But that misses the point. Sooner or later the U.S. is going to end up leaving Iraq without having attained its goals. Washington's real choice is akin to that posed in an old oil-filter commercial that used to run on television: America can pay now, or it can pay later when the costs will be even higher.

* Paul Krugman in In Front of Your Nose:

Even among harsh critics of the administration's Iraq policy, the usual view is that we have to finish the job. You've heard the arguments: We broke it; we bought it. We can't cut and run. We have to stay the course. I understand the appeal of those arguments. But I'm worried about the arithmetic.

... I don't have a plan for Iraq. I strongly suspect, however, that all the plans you hear now are irrelevant. If America's leaders hadn't made so many bad decisions, they might have had a chance to shape Iraq to their liking. But that window closed many months ago.

* United Press International analyst Arnaud de Borchgrave wrote in Looking for the exit:

Total alignment on Prime Minister Sharon's anti-Palestinian strategy has turned even moderate Muslims against the United States. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak said hatred of the United States had never reached such depths.

When Mr. Bush suddenly dropped longstanding U.S. opposition to Jewish settlements on the West Bank, rooted as they were in U.N. resolutions, Israeli settlers could not believe their luck. Sharon conceded Gaza, where 7,500 Jewish settlers had no future among 1.3 million Palestinians, but in return obtained U.S. blessings for permanent Israeli habitation in large swaths of what was to be a Palestinian state. Even illegal hilltop settlements concluded they were now safe from removal and immediately began erecting permanent structures to replace mobile homes...

No sooner had the White House's red light flashed green than the once surreptitious, crawling annexation of the West Bank resumed in the open. Jewish West Bank settlers were jubilant, while Palestinians were adrift in the Slough of Despond. With the Right of Return for Palestinians also off the table, and no viable state of their own on the West Bank, extremist organizations will have no problem recruiting more jihadis (holy warriors) and merging terrorist operations with the underground resistance in Iraq, Arab opinion has been inflamed to the point where Palestine and Iraq are now two fronts in the war against what Charles de Gaulle used to call "the Anglo-Saxons."

Osama bin Laden is probably thinking he's some kind of strategic genius.

After the torture photos scandal, he wrote Tutwiler's mission impossible:

The shameful pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating naked Iraqi prisoners were the final straw for Margaret D. Tutwiler. Moved out of her post as Ambassador to Morocco last December to become Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs, Ms. Tutwiler was instructed to spruce up the Bush administration's image in the Arab world in particular and the Muslim world in general.

It took her only four months to conclude this was mission impossible. She was the third "image" czarina to come a cropper in three years. Competing against the Qatar-based al-Jazeera and Dubai-based al-Arabyia and their coverage of the occupation of Iraq gave Ms. Tutwiler about the same chance of success as going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

* For a detailed account of the end of the neo-con power in Washington, see Jim Lobe's US on the brink:

One year after President George W Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq, the United States appears to be teetering on the brink of strategic defeat in its Mesopotamian adventure.

Even as Bush on Friday reiterated his ambition to bring "freedom and democracy" to Iraq and the Middle East, a series of recent policy reversals - capped by Friday's announcement that a former Ba'athist general will take charge of an all-Iraqi security force in Fallujah - suggests that an increasingly desperate Washington will settle for far less.

* The father of thus Senate and a consistent opponent of the war, Senator Robert Byrd made a speech called Mission Not Accomplished in Iraq to mark the first anniversary of Bush's boast:

Since that time, Iraq has become a veritable shooting gallery. This April has been the bloodiest month of the entire war, with more than 120 Americans killed. Young lives cut short in a pointless conflict and all the President can say is that it "has been a tough couple of weeks". A tough couple of weeks, indeed.

Plans have obviously gone tragically awry. But the President has, so far, only managed to mutter that we must "stay the course". But what course is there to keep when our ship of state is being tossed like a dinghy in a storm of Middle East politics? If the course is to end in the liberation of Iraq and bring a definitive end to the war against Saddam Hussein, one must conclude, mission not accomplished, Mr. President.

The White House argues time and again that Iraq is the "central front" on the war on terrorism. But instead of keeping murderous al Qaeda terrorists on the run, the invasion of Iraq has stoked the fires of terrorism against the United States and our allies. Najaf is smoldering. Fallujah is burning. And there is no exit is in sight. What has been accomplished, Mr. President? (For Byrd's pre-war speeches against the war, see A lonely voice in a US Senate silent on war and Today, I Weep for my Country...)

***

Allen Jay

This piece by Alex Cockburn, Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders, Useless Spies, Angry World, summarises the situation perfectly and applies equally to Howard's Australia.

My only comment on evaluating intelligence and being able to sort the wheat from the chaff is that it requires an unbiased and open mind. When you have either a political or ideological bias there is a great temptation to ignore contrary facts and information as a matter of deliberate policy or because you subconsciously give them little credence.

That seems to be the deep corruption and failing within Australian, British and particularly US intelligence.

***

Alistair Bain in Perth

I am amazed at all these protestations of outrage at the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. We knew from interview snippets revealed during the invasion that elements of the American and British forces had little respect for the Iraqis. The abuse of prisoners is hardly surprising.

You claim not to have believed the released Japanese captive when he recounted his captor's claims of mistreatment by the Americans - until you saw the photographs. Hmmm. We believe what we want to, don't we? We invaded Iraq because we wanted to believe Mr Saddam had WMD. We didn't want to believe that Iraq's "liberators" could be brutal and inhumane.

The pictures - of which others, less "presentable", exist - are reminiscent of the rape of Nanking, where Japanese soldiers had happy snaps taken while they abused Chinese women.

However, I acknowledge your moral courage in openly stating your changed position. What amazes me is how quickly former supporters of the invasion are changing their minds or carefully qualifying their support. Why do they think so many people raised objections to the invasion in the first place? With what REAL evidence did they offer their support?

I sympathise with Mark Latham's pull-out call. However, part of me still believes that since Australia has allowed itself to become part of the Iraqi mire we have a moral responsibility to stay and help clean up the mess. Let's hope we can find ways of doing so which truly make amends for the unspeakable horror we have helped create.

***

Russell Dovey in Canberra

Recent images of American and British soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners are more than disturbing; they are damning to a cultural tradition that upholds itself as the way of freedom, peace, and civilisation. The West is shamed by these photos, as it is by every act of barbarity that its soldiers commit in foreign wars.

Those in the US and British military who were responsible for these crimes, those who gave the orders, and those who did nothing even though they knew these crimes were being committed, should be arrested and tried in a court of law. It is the third group that I fear will get away with their crime, because the very nature of these acts means that many will have heard what was going on, making it hard to separate criminal negligence from disbelief.get away with their crime, because the very nature of these acts means that many will have heard what was going on, making it hard to separate criminal negligence from disbelief.

It is disturbing to remember that before the war, the US refused to join many other countries around the world, including Australia, in signing and ratifying the treaty for the International Criminal Court. The ICC handles war criminals who have not been adequately tried in their own countries.

It is possible that the Bush administration knew this sort of thing was likely to happen, and therefore ensured it could control the investigation. So why didn't they make sure that soldiers knew the basic idea behind the Geneva Convention and respected a prisoner's human rights? Why did it not respond to allegations that many of its soldiers regard Iraqis as subhuman?

However, Margo, the solution you propose in An empire in moral crisis may be worse than the problem. If the US and Britain withdrew all their forces from Iraq, then there would be no more tortures, beatings or Falluja-style massacres committed by American or British soldiers upon Iraqis.

Unfortunately, the American and British forces are not the only self-righteous, militaristic cowboys in Iraq, just the most numerous and well-armed. There are dozens, if not hundreds of militia groups of various sizes in Iraq, each one with a different view on how the country should be run. The weapons available to these groups range from the ubiquitous Kalashnikov rifle to rocket-propelled grenades capable of ripping apart a car.

An optimist might think that once the American and British forces leave, these militias would have no-one to fight anymore. They would go home and keep their rifles buried in the back yard, wrapped in oiled cloth, in case they were needed again.

No doubt, this is exactly what many of them would do. Quite a few more would simply protect their own neighbourhood, as they have ever since the fall of Saddam's regime in the absence of any effective policing by the CPA.

Unfortunately, many of these groups were not formed in reaction to the Western occupation, or to protect their own neighbourhoods. Some are the personal armies of aspiring warlords, out to conquer as much territory as they can and hold it by force.

Other groups are motivated by religious beliefs, and intend to enforce their own rules and systems of worship wherever they can. Finally, there are terrorist groups under the banner of Al-Qaeda, using Iraq as a stage to hurt the US in their propaganda war, caring nothing for the people they kill or maim in the process.

Iraq's borders are being enforced by the American and British military. Effectively, Iraq now exists as a nation because of the occupation. If we withdraw, then the borders are just lines on a map. While regional militias would fiercely defend their territories from Turkish, Iranian or Syrian attack, they would be hard-pressed to mount the fully co-coordinated defence required to prevail against the well-equipped armies of Turkey and Iran.

At best, if American and British forces withdrew entirely, Iraq would become a fragile coalition of diverse militias, many of whom have long histories of violence with many of the others. In another part of the world, they might even maintain stability, and be left alone to find their own way to govern themselves.

However, the land of Iraq has been blessed, or cursed, with a staggeringly large amount of oil. Especially in a time when we are constantly being told that the oil will start to run out in 30 years, it is hard for any country to resist this lure. Oil is valuable both for its financial and its geopolitical value, even if a country is already the richest, most powerful nation on earth with its own oil reserves.

If the USA is unable to go without Iraq's oil, Iraq's neighbours would be even more unable to resist the opportunity to grab what they can now in order to protect themselves from economic chaos in 30 years, and Iran would especially see it as a chance to gain more control over the US economy.

So the Iraqi people, far from having a chance to determine their own future, would be invaded and plunged into anarchy. Civilian deaths in the widespread fighting could be in the tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands would probably die from lack of basic infrastructure, combined with an inability to deliver food aid. The flood of refugees into surrounding countries would cause even more hardship and famine.

Therefore, even though the occupation of Iraq is wrong and must end, to simply wash our hands of the mess would be worse for Iraq's people and for global stability. I don't mean that the PM is right about "getting the job done", because he wouldn't know what the real job was if it hit him in the face.

This petty, selfish national interest that the PM seems to believe in is not what the Australian people believe in. We are not a selfish, petty little people, ready to sell another country down the river to enrich our American big brother. Our fearless leader has done a great job of convincing the world that we are, but we know better.

***

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Former General Sees
'Staying the Course'
In Iraq as Untenable
April 28, 2004; Page A4
The time to worry is when Washington politicians on all sides agree. So when John Kerry echoes President Bush in arguing that the United States "can't cut and run" from Iraq, maybe it's time to listen to someone who says we must.
Maybe it's time, in other words, to listen to retired Gen. William E. Odom. It is delusional, asserts the Army veteran, college professor and longtime Washington hand, to believe that "staying the course" can achieve President Bush's goal of reordering the Middle East by building a friendly democracy in Iraq. For the sake of American security and economic power alike, he argues, the U.S. should remove its forces from that shattered country as rapidly as possible.
"We have failed," Mr. Odom declares bluntly. "The issue is how high a price we're going to pay. ... Less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later?"
His is not the voice of an isolationist, or a peacenik, or Republican-hater. He is talking from the conservative Hudson Institute, where he was hired years ago by Mitch Daniels, later Mr. Bush's budget director. His office displays photos of Ronald Reagan, under whom Mr. Odom directed the National Security Agency, and Jimmy Carter, on whose National Security Council staff he served.
Rather, his unsettling view reflects a broader reassessment of America's predicament as Iraq looks ever-uglier. It can be seen as well in U.S. Administrator L. Paul Bremer's tacit admission of error in disbanding the Iraqi Army and Mr. Bush's new reliance on United Nations help.
Mr. Odom opposed the Iraq war before it happened. An expert in comparative politics who teaches at Georgetown and Yale, he warned that there was no reason to expect that Iraq could soon develop the ingredients for constitutional democracy: individual rights, property rights and a tax-collection system supporting a government to enforce them. The violence of recent months, he concludes, has exposed Mr. Bush's vision of doing so as a dream.
Following the planned June 30 handover of nominal sovereignty, Iraqis may go to the polls and vote. But the result, Mr. Odom explains, will resemble theocracy more than liberal democracy. As televised images of Iraqis cheering attacks on U.S. troops suggest, it's not likely to be anything Americans would consider worth the war's cost in blood and treasure.
"Anybody that's pro-American cannot gain legitimacy," he says. "It will be a highly illiberal democracy, inspired by Islamic culture, extremely hostile to the West and probably quite willing ... to fund terrorist organizations." The ability of Islamic militants to use Iraq as a beachhead for attacks elsewhere may increase.
But can't U.S. troops there tamp down such hostile activity? Well, yes, he says -- at a cost of rising hostility to the U.S. throughout the region.
"It probably will radicalize Saudi Arabia, [and] it could easily radicalize Egypt," Mr. Odom says. Violence yesterday between security forces and terrorists in Syria hinted at what may come, heightening dangers for Israel and the U.S. Iran might agree not to stir trouble among fellow Shiites who are 60% of Iraq's population -- provided the U.S. eases its hostile stance toward Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Yet the stakes, in Mr. Odom's view, are much bigger. The longer U.S. troops hang tough, he reasons, the more isolated America will become. That in turn will place increasing strain on international economic and security institutions that have undergirded the emergence of "America's Inadvertent Empire," as Mr. Odom's latest book calls it. "I don't know that the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, [or] NATO can survive this," he says.
His proposed solution sounds initially like Mr. Kerry's: a call for the U.N. and European allies to take charge of political and security arrangements. What's different -- even Bushlike -- is that Gen. Odom would accompany that request with a unilateral declaration that U.S. forces would leave even if no one else agrees to come in.
Such a move, he concludes, might even provoke an unexpected result a year after Mr. Bush brushed off opposition from France, Germany and many others to oust Saddam Hussein. "The Europeans might get scared [of chaos] and go in," Mr. Odom says. "There'd probably be a big effort to try to rescue" Mr. Bush. But U.S. troops would be gone within six months in any event.
It is a jarring prescription. But ask yourself, as bullets fly in Najaf and Fallujah, which sounds more credible: Mr. Odom's gloomy forecast, or Mr. Bush's prediction of success?
Write to John Harwood at john.harwood@wsj.com

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
Issue of 2004-05-10
Posted 2004-04-30
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world's most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women--no accurate count is possible--were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.

In the looting that followed the regime's collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however--by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers--were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of "crimes against the coalition"; and a small number of suspected "high-value" leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.

Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners.

General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, "living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn't want to leave."

A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army's prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski's brigade headquarters.) Taguba's report listed some of the wrongdoing:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.


There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added--"detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence." Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their "extremely sensitive nature."

The photographs--several of which were broadcast on CBS's "60 Minutes 2" last week--show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects--Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits--are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.

The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.

Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. "Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other--it's all a form of torture," Haykel said.

Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.

The 372nd's abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine--a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called "hard site" at Abu Ghraib--seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the prison. Wisdom said:

SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.


When he returned later, Wisdom testified:

I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn't think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, "Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds." I heard PFC England shout out, "He's getting hard."


Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and assumed that "the issue was taken care of." He said, "I just didn't want to be part of anything that looked criminal."



The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript made available to me, "The investigation started after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees." Bobeck said that Darby had "initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong."

Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his colleagues had not been given any "training guidelines" that he was aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues, and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained:

What I got is that SSG Frederick and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to be run.


Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one occasion, "had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest."

At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick's co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. "The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts," Gary Myers told me. "We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged victims to examine." After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick.

Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client's defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, "Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?"

In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:

I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell--and the answer I got was, "This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done." . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.


The military-intelligence officers have "encouraged and told us, `Great job,' they were now getting positive results and information," Frederick wrote. "CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI's request." At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. "His reply was `Don't worry about it.'"

In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called "O.G.A.," or other government agencies--that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees--was brought to his unit for questioning. "They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away." The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison's inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, "and therefore never had a number."



Frederick's defense is, of course, highly self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were reinforced by two internal Army reports--Taguba's and one by the Army's chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general.

Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder's report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.

There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to "set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews"--a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. "Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state." General Karpinski's brigade, Ryder reported, "has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations." Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to "define the role of military police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel." The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice.

Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found "no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices." His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup.

Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. "Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder's] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation," he wrote. "In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment." The report continued, "Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder's report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to `set the conditions' for MI interrogations." Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors "actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."

Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, "MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick's job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk."

Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, "I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules." Taguba wrote, "Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: `Loosen this guy up for us.'`Make sure he has a bad night.'`Make sure he gets the treatment.'" Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. "The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, `Good job, they're breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They're giving out good information.'"

When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, "Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing"--where the abuse took place--"belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse."

Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, "I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes." (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this "they needed to give me paperwork.") Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a "bunch of people from MI" watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick.

General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen "who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by `setting conditions' which were neither authorized" nor in accordance with Army regulations. "He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse," Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had "received no formal communication" from the Army about the matter.)

"I suspect," Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib," and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action.



The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski's seven-month tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th M.P. Brigade. Some of the incidents had led to the killing or wounding of inmates and M.P.s, and resulted in a series of "lessons learned" inquiries within the brigade. Karpinski invariably approved the reports and signed orders calling for changes in day-to-day procedures. But Taguba found that she did not follow up, doing nothing to insure that the orders were carried out. Had she done so, he added, "cases of abuse may have been prevented."

General Taguba further found that Abu Ghraib was filled beyond capacity, and that the M.P. guard force was significantly undermanned and short of resources. "This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses," he wrote. There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained--indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released. Karpinski's defense, Taguba said, was that her superior officers "routinely" rejected her recommendations regarding the release of such prisoners.

Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered "without precedent in my military career." The soldiers, he added, were "poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission."

General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: "What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers."

Taguba recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded. No criminal proceedings were suggested for Karpinski; apparently, the loss of promotion and the indignity of a public rebuke were seen as enough punishment.



After the story broke on CBS last week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on the job. He had been the commander of the Guant?namo Bay detention center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators.

As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba's report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.

The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. "They'll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth," Rowell said. "`You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.' You don't get righteous information."

Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an "imperative" security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guant?namo.

As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States' reputation in the world.

Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick's military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was "attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins." Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick's civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. "I'm going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court," he said. "Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance."
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L'empire Carlyle
LE MONDE | 29.04.04 | 14h11
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Le plus grand investisseur priv? du monde, bien implant? dans le secteur de l'armement, est un groupe discret, qui cultive les accointances avec les hommes influents, dont les Bush, p?re et fils
Il y a un an, le 1er mai 2003, George Bush atterrissait, sangl? dans une combinaison de pilote de chasse, sur le porte-avions USS Abraham-Lincolnau large de la Californie. L'image est devenue c?l?bre. Sous une banderole proclamant "Mission accomplished" (mission accomplie), le pr?sident annon?ait pr?matur?ment la fin des op?rations militaires en Irak et sa victoire.

Le lendemain, de retour sur la terre ferme, il pronon?ait un autre discours martial, non loin de San Diego, dans une usine d'armement d'United Defense Industries.

Cette entreprise est l'un des principaux fournisseurs du Pentagone. Elle fabrique, entre autres, des missiles, des v?hicules de transport et, en Californie, le blind? l?ger Bradley. Son principal actionnaire est le plus grand investisseur priv? au monde. Un groupe discret, baptis? Carlyle.

Il n'est pas cot? en Bourse et n'a de comptes ? rendre qu'? ses 550 investisseurs - milliardaires ou fonds de pension. Carlyle g?re aujourd'hui 18 milliards de dollars, plac?s dans les secteurs de la d?fense et de la haute technologie (biologie notamment), le spatial, l'informatique li?e ? la s?curit?, les nanotechnologies, les t?l?communications. Les entreprises qu'il contr?le ont pour caract?ristique commune d'avoir pour clients principaux des gouvernements et administrations. Comme la soci?t? l'a ?crit dans une brochure : " Nous investissons dans des opportunit?s cr??es dans des industries fortement affect?es par des changements de politique gouvernementale."

Carlyle est un mod?le unique, construit ? l'?chelle plan?taire sur le capitalisme de relations ou le " capitalisme d'acc?s" pour reprendre l'expression du magazine am?ricain New Republic, en 1993. Le groupe incarne aujourd'hui, malgr? ses d?n?gations, le "complexe militaro-industriel" contre lequel le pr?sident r?publicain Dwight Eisenhower mettait en garde le peuple am?ricain en quittant ses fonctions, en 1961.

Cela n'a pas emp?ch? George Bush p?re d'occuper pendant dix ans, jusqu'en octobre 2003, un poste de conseiller de Carlyle. C'?tait la premi?re fois dans l'histoire des Etats-Unis qu'un ancien pr?sident travaillait pour un fournisseur du Pentagone. Son fils, George W. Bush conna?t aussi tr?s bien Carlyle. Le groupe lui a trouv? un emploi en f?vrier 1990, alors que son p?re occupait la Maison Blanche : administrateur de Caterair, une soci?t? texane sp?cialis?e dans la restauration a?rienne. L'?pisode ne figure plus dans la biographie officielle du pr?sident. Quand George W. Bush quitte Caterair, en 1994, avant de devenir gouverneur du Texas, l'entreprise est mal en point.

"Il n'est pas possible d'?tre plus proche de l'administration que l'est Carlyle", affirme Charles Lewis, directeur du Centre pour l'int?grit? publique, une organisation non partisane de Washington. "George Bush p?re a gagn? de l'argent provenant d'int?r?ts priv?s qui travaillent pour le gouvernement dont son fils est le pr?sident. On peut m?me dire que le pr?sident pourra un jour b?n?ficier financi?rement, via les investissements de son p?re, de d?cisions politiques qu'il a prises", ajoute-t-il.

La collection de personnages influents qui travaillent, ont travaill? ou ont investi dans le groupe ferait l'incr?dulit? des adeptes les plus convaincus de la th?orie du complot. On y trouve entre autres : John Major, ancien premier ministre britannique, Fidel Ramos, ancien pr?sident philippin, Park Tae Joon, ancien premier ministre de la Cor?e du Sud, le prince saoudien Al-Walid, Colin Powell, actuel secr?taire d'Etat, James Baker III, ancien secr?taire d'Etat, Caspar Weinberger, ancien secr?taire ? la d?fense, Richard Darman, ancien directeur du budget ? la Maison Blanche, le milliardaire George Soros et m?me des membres de la famille Ben Laden. On peut ajouter ? cette liste Alice Albright, la fille de Madeleine Albright, ancienne secr?taire d'Etat, Arthur Lewitt, ancien pr?sident de la SEC (le gendarme de Wall Street), William Kennard ex-patron de l'autorit? des t?l?communications (FCC). Enfin, il faut ajouter, parmi les Europ?ens, Karl Otto P?hl, ancien pr?sident de la Bundesbank, feu Henri Martre, qui a ?t? pr?sident de l'Aerospatiale, et Etienne Davignon, ancien pr?sident de la G?n?rale de Belgique.

Carlyle n'est pas seulement une collection d'hommes de pouvoir. Il poss?de des participations dans pr?s de 200 soci?t?s et surtout, la rentabilit? annuelle de ses fonds d?passe 30 % depuis une d?cennie. "Par rapport aux cinq cents personnes que nous employons dans le monde, le nombre d'anciens hommes d'Etat est tr?s faible, une dizaine tout au plus, explique Christopher Ullmann, vice-pr?sident de Carlyle, responsable de la communication. On nous accuse de tous les maux. Mais personne n'a jamais apport? la preuve d'une quelconque malversation. Aucune proc?dure judiciaire n'a jamais ?t? lanc?e contre nous. Nous sommes une cible commode pour qui veut s'en prendre au gouvernement am?ricain et au pr?sident."

Carlyle a ?t? cr?? en 1987, avec 5 millions de dollars, dans les salons du palace new-yorkais du m?me nom. Ses fondateurs, quatre juristes, dont David Rubenstein (ancien conseiller de Jimmy Carter), ont alors pour ambition - limit?e - de profiter d'une faille de la l?gislation fiscale. Elle autorise les soci?t?s d?tenues en Alaska par des Eskimos ? c?der leurs pertes ? des entreprises rentables qui payent ainsi moins d'imp?ts. Le groupe v?g?te jusqu'en janvier 1989 et l'arriv?e ? sa t?te de l'homme qui inventera le syst?me Carlyle, Frank Carlucci. Ancien directeur adjoint de la CIA, conseiller ? la s?curit? nationale puis secr?taire ? la d?fense de Ronald Reagan, M. Carlucci compte ? Washington. Il est l'un des amis les plus proches de Donald Rumsfeld, actuel ministre de la d?fense. Ils ont partag? une chambre quand ils ?taient ?tudiants ? Princeton. Ils se sont ensuite crois?s dans de nombreuses administrations et ont m?me travaill?, un temps, pour la m?me entreprise, Sears Robuck.

Six jours apr?s avoir officiellement quitt? le Pentagone, le 6 janvier 1989, Frank Carlucci devient directeur g?n?ral de Carlyle. Il emm?ne avec lui des hommes de confiance, anciens de la CIA, du d?partement d'Etat et du minist?re de la d?fense. Surnomm? "M. Clean" ("M. Propre"), Frank Carlucci a une r?putation sulfureuse.

Ce diplomate ?tait en poste dans les ann?es 1970 dans des pays comme l'Afrique du Sud, le Congo, la Tanzanie, le Br?sil et le Portugal o? les Etats-Unis et la CIA ont jou? un r?le politique douteux. Il ?tait le num?ro deux de l'ambassade am?ricaine au Congo belge, en 1961, et a ?t? soup?onn? d'?tre impliqu? dans l'assassinat de Patrice Lumumba. Il a toujours fermement d?menti. La presse am?ricaine l'a aussi accus? d'?tre impliqu? dans plusieurs trafics d'armes dans les ann?es 1980, mais il n'a jamais ?t? poursuivi. Il a dirig? un temps Wackenhut, une soci?t? de s?curit? ? la r?putation d?testable, impliqu?e dans l'un des plus grands scandales d'espionnage, le d?tournement du logiciel Promis. Frank Carlucci a eu pour mission de faire le m?nage dans l'administration Reagan au moment de l'affaire Iran-Contra et a succ?d? alors au poste de conseiller ? la s?curit? nationale ? John Pointdexter. En entrant en fonctions, il avait pris comme adjoint un jeune g?n?ral... Colin Powell.

Sur son nom, Frank Carlucci attire les capitaux chez Carlyle. En octobre 1990, le groupe s'empare de BDM International qui participe au programme de "guerre des ?toiles", et en fait une t?te de pont. En 1992, Frank Carlucci s'allie avec le groupe fran?ais Thomson-CSF pour reprendre la division a?rospatiale de LTV. L'op?ration ?choue, le Congr?s s'oppose ? la vente ? un groupe ?tranger. Carlyle trouve d'autres associ?s, Loral et Northrop, et met la main sur LTV Aerospace rapidement rebaptis? Vought Aircraft qui participe ? la fabrication des bombardiers B1 et B2.

Dans le m?me temps, le fonds multiplie les acquisitions strat?giques, telles Magnavox Electronic Systems, pionnier en mati?re d'imagerie radar, et DGE qui d?tient la technologie des cartes en relief ?lectroniques pour les missiles de croisi?re. Suivent trois soci?t?s sp?cialis?es dans la d?contamination nucl?aire, chimique et bact?riologique (Magnetek, IT Group et EG & G Technical services). Puis, via BDM International, une firme li?e ? la CIA, Vinnell, laquelle est parmi les premi?res ? fournir ? l'arm?e am?ricaine et ses alli?s des contractants priv?s. C'est-?-dire des mercenaires. Ceux de Vinnell encadrent les forces arm?es saoudiennes et prot?gent le roi Fahd. Ils ont combattu lors de la premi?re guerre du Golfe aux c?t?s des troupes saoudiennes. En 1997, Carlyle revend BDM et surtout Vinnell, trop dangereux. Le groupe n'en a plus besoin. Il est devenu le onzi?me fournisseur du Pentagone en mettant la main la m?me ann?e sur United Defense Industries.

Carlyle sort de l'ombre malgr? lui le 11 septembre 2001. Ce jour-l?, le groupe organise au Ritz Carlton de Washington une r?union avec cinq cents de ses plus importants investisseurs. Frank Carlucci et James Baker III jouent les ma?tres de c?r?monie. George Bush p?re fait un passage ?clair en d?but de journ?e. La pr?sentation est rapidement interrompue, mais un d?tail n'?chappe ? personne. Un des invit?s porte sur son badge le nom de Ben Laden. Il s'agit de Shafiq Ben Laden, un des nombreux demi-fr?res d'Oussama. Les m?dias am?ricains d?couvrent Carlyle. Un journaliste, Dan Briody, ?crit un livre sur la face cach?e du groupe, The Iron Triangle, et s'int?resse notamment aux relations ?troites entre le clan Bush et les dirigeants saoudiens.

Certains s'interrogent sur l'influence de George Bush p?re sur la politique ?trang?re am?ricaine. En janvier 2001, lorsque George Bush fils rompt des n?gociations avec la Cor?e du Nord sur les missiles, les Cor?ens du Sud, constern?s, interviennent aupr?s de son p?re. Carlyle a des int?r?ts importants ? S?oul. En juin 2001, Washington reprend les discussions avec Pyongyang.

Autre exemple, en juillet 2001, selon le New York Times, George Bush p?re t?l?phone au prince saoudien Abdallah m?content des prises de position du pr?sident sur le conflit isra?lo-palestinien. George Bush p?re assure alors au prince que son fils "fait de bonnes choses" et que "son c?ur est du bon c?t?". Larry Klayman, directeur de Judicial Watch, une organisation r?solument conservatrice, demande au " p?re du pr?sident de d?missionner de Carlyle. Le groupe a des conflits d'int?r?ts qui peuvent cr?er des probl?mes ? la politique ?trang?re am?ricaine". Finalement en octobre 2003, George Bush p?re quitte Carlyle. Officiellement, car il approche les 80 ans.

Carlyle a beau mettre fin ? toute relation avec la famille Ben Laden en octobre 2001, le mal est fait. Le groupe devient avec Halliburton la cible des opposants ? l'administration Bush. " Carlyle a remplac? la Commission trilat?rale dans les th?ories du complot", reconnaissait David Rubenstein, en 2003, dans une interview au Washington Post. Pour la premi?re fois, le groupe nomme un responsable de la communication et change de patron. Frank Carlucci devient pr?sident honoraire et Lou Gerstner, dirigeant respect? qui a sauv? IBM, prend officiellement les r?nes. L'op?ration semble surtout cosm?tique. M. Gerstner ne passe pas beaucoup de temps ? son bureau. Mais Carlyle veut devenir respectable.

Le groupe cr?e un site Internet. Il ouvre certains fonds ? des investisseurs apportant "seulement" 250 000 dollars (210 000 euros). Il aurait r?duit sa participation dans United Defense Industries, et affirme que la d?fense et l'a?rien ne repr?sentent plus que 15 % de ses investissements. Mais Carlyle fait toujours un usage intensif des paradis fiscaux et il est difficile de conna?tre son p?rim?tre et le nom des soci?t?s qu'il contr?le.

Carlyle multiplie aussi les efforts en Europe. En septembre 2000, il prend le contr?le du groupe su?dois d'armement Bofors via United Defense. Il tente ensuite, sans succ?s, de mettre la main sur Thales Information Systems et, d?but 2003, sur les parts de France T?l?com dans Eutelsat, qui joue un r?le important dans le syst?me europ?en de positionnement par satellite Galileo - concurrent du GPS am?ricain. De 1999 ? 2002, il g?re une participation dans Le Figaro. En Italie, il fait une perc?e en reprenant la filiale a?ronautique de Fiat, Fiat Avio. Cette soci?t? fournit Arianespace et permet ? Carlyle d'entrer au Conseil de la fus?e europ?enne. Autre coup, en d?cembre 2002 Carlyle ach?te un tiers de Qinetic, la filiale priv?e du Centre de recherche et d?veloppement militaire britannique. Qinetic occupe une position unique de conseil du gouvernement britannique.

"Anticiper sur les technologies du futur et les entreprises qui les d?velopperont est notre premier r?le d'investisseur. Les fonds de pension nous apportent leur argent pour cela. On ne peut tout de m?me pas nous reprocher de chercher ? prendre des positions strat?giques", souligne M. Ullmann.

Eric Leser

* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 30.04.04

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13 reasons why this picture may not be all it seems
By Anthony France
(Filed: 03/05/2004)

An expert in Army interrogation last night cast serious doubts on the authenticity of pictures published by the Daily Mirror of British troops allegedly torturing an Iraqi prisoner.

In a detailed analysis, Simon Treselyan, who served for 19 years training the SAS in interrogation methods, concludes that the pictures are highly suspicious and could be fake.

The former officer, who raises 13 serious questions about the pictures, said last night: "My conclusion is that someone has faked the photographs. For whatever reason, they set out to deceive.

"I believe these pictures are not of an Iraqi and they were not taken in Iraq.

"They are nothing like the pictures released last week of American troops abusing troops which were genuine and quite rightly caused revulsion around the world."

He raised the following 13 points and gave his expert opinion on each:

1. Why do the pictures appear so static, with no obvious signs that a vicious assault is taking place?

Mr Treselyan said: "Part of my job in the Army was to debrief victims of torture. If you were being attacked or hit in the groin by a rifle, the body goes into a foetal position to protect yourself.

"In one picture, the man's legs are actually wide open and he is making no attempt to stop the attack. Considering what he is going through, I would also expect him to be sweating and be covered in dirt. Why is there no blood?"

2. Why does the soldier appear to be armed with an SA80 Mk1 rifle which was not issued to British troops in Iraq?

"That weapon is no longer issued by the British Army and was certainly not issued to troops in Iraq. They were given the SA80 A2. I think the SA80 Mk1 rifle is now only used by Royal Logistics Corps and the Territorial Army.

"Also the condition of the rifle is odd because it is so shiny. The SA80 is mainly plastic and, as a result, it scratches easily. The ones I had lasted only a week. After that they looked like they had been in service 30 years.

"I think the weapon in the pictures is a reproduction weapon, possibly bought through battle orders in the UK."

3. Why is there no serial number on the rifle's foregrip?

"Every soldier has an identifying number given to him by the armoury which is painted on to the foregrip of the rifle in yellow paint. This is so the soldier can identify his own weapon very quickly without having to look at the engraved serial number."

4. Why has the soldier's webbing, where he would store ammunition for the rifle, been left open - against Army regulations?

"That is one of the worst things you could do. If he was to jump out of a vehicle and run in battle, all of his ammunition would fall out of his webbing.

"From day one, if you are ever caught with your pouch open, you would get hauled up and fined. This tells me the person in the pictures is not a soldier.

"Also, why are his ammunition pouches empty if he is an operational soldier? Normally, he would have three ammunition magazines in each pouch and you could see the bulge."

5. Why has the barrel of the rifle been left uncovered?

"That certainly does not happen in desert conditions. Sand is an abrasive. If it gets inside your rifle barrel, the damage makes shots less accurate.

"If the armourer caught you doing this, you would be court martialled. Every soldier I know uses either an issue barrel cover - like a pen top - or a condom to stop sand and moisture getting inside."

6. Why do the pictures appear to have been taken in the back of a type of Bedford truck that was never deployed in Iraq?

"It does not look like the standard four-ton vehicle that was in operation in Iraq. Another thing I noticed is how clean the truck is for one being used on the front line."

7. Why are the soldier's boots laced in a criss-cross fashion?

"British Army soldiers lace their boots straight, not diagonally. It has always been so.

"Any Second World War veteran will tell you that during the campaign in the Far East, they used to creep up on sentries and feel their lacing to find out if they were Japanese. If it was criss-cross, they would kill them. If they were straight they were British."

8. Why is the alleged torture victim wearing a potato sack made of hessian over his head?

"The British Army has set procedures for interrogating suspects. The hood is to disorientate the prisoner.

"You would never use a hessian sack because it is made out of a woven material which allows the suspect to see through it. The British Army use hoods made out of the same black material as darkroom curtains."

9. Why is the prisoner wearing a T-shirt with the Syrian flag on the front?

"According to the Daily Mirror's report, the torture victim comes from the Shia stronghold of Basra.

"He would be killed within two minutes on the streets of Basra wearing a T-shirt which would show support for the hated Ba'ath party. It's a bit like wearing a British National Party shirt in Brixton, the heart of black Britain.

"Why is he wearing underpants? Most Iraqis I met didn't wear any. I notice the prisoner is not as hairy as I would expect him to be and he appears well-fed for an Iraqi."

10. Why is the soldier wearing a floppy hat?

"These hats are not used operationally in Iraq. Soldiers wear either helmets or berets - especially if they are working outdoors. I never saw any colleagues wearing a floppy hat in operation."

11. Why is the soldier's face not visible?

"The idea of a trophy picture is to have something that you can keep for ever. In the ones I saw from the Falklands, in which people took pictures of themselves with decapitated Argentinians, their faces could clearly be seen. The pictures which came out of America last week were classic trophy pictures."

12. Is the picture where the soldier puts a rifle to the prisoner's head against normal procedure?

"You never, ever let your weapon get that close to a prisoner. It is standard procedure that no weapon goes within 3ft of a prisoner. Remember, these guys are suicidal and wouldn't think twice about making a grab for it."

13. Why does the soldier have clean hands and clothes?

"The soldier's hands are very soft - like an office worker. Why, if he has been in combat, are his hands and fingernails not covered in dirt?"

Mr Treselyan, 45, was a warrant officer in the British Army's Intelligence Corps until he took voluntary redundancy in October 1994. During his career he trained the SAS and America's CIA in interrogation techniques and specialised in the debriefing of torture victims.

Last night Col Bob Stewart, who commanded British forces in the Balkans, also raised doubts about the authenticity of the pictures.

He voiced concerns at the effect the pictures would have in the Arab world. "What happens to the next British soldier taken hostage?"
Related reports

Torture photo doubts


? Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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>> MEANWHILE IN THE NAVY...


Camera found in women's shower stall

Times staff
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2876274.php

Navy investigators are searching for whoever is responsible for hiding a wireless video camera in a shower stall for female sailors.
The camera was found aboard the San Diego-based command ship Coronado on April 14.

A Navy spokesman says the camera's battery was dead and a search of nearby compartments didn't turn up its receiver.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Navy's Seventh Fleet have interviewed several sailors and civilians aboard the ship. Coronado is 7th Fleet's flagship.

In March, a non-operational camera was found in the women's showers on the cruiser Monterey, which is homeported in Norfolk, Va.

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Accused soldier says command was vague about prisoner-treatment rules

By David Dishneau
Associated Press



Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick is shown in a photo taken when he had just entered Kuwait in 2003. Frederick, who is accused of abusing Iraqi war prisoners, kept a diary describing tough conditions at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. -- AP / Family photo

HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- A soldier facing a court-martial for his role in the alleged abuse of Iraqi war prisoners says commanders ignored his requests to set out rules for treating POWs and scolded him for questioning the inmates' harsh treatment.
Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick wrote that Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad lacked the humane standards of the Virginia state prison where he worked in civilian life, according to a journal he started after military investigators first questioned him in January.

The Iraqi prisoners were sometimes confined naked for three consecutive days without toilets in damp, unventilated cells with floors 3 feet by 3 feet, Frederick wrote in materials obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

"When I brought this up with the acting BN (battalion) commander, he stated, `I don't care if he has to sleep standing up.' That's when he told my company commander that he was the BN commander and for me to do as he says," Frederick wrote.

The writings were supplied by Frederick's uncle, William Lawson, who said Frederick wanted to document what was happening to him. Lawson and Martha Frederick, the sergeant's wife, said Frederick was being made a scapegoat for commanders who gave him no guidance on managing hundreds of POWs with just a handful of ill-trained, poorly equipped troops.

Lt. Cmdr. Nicholas Balice, spokesman for the Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, said he couldn't comment on Frederick's writings, but that the allegations against him were appropriately investigated.

Frederick is one of six members of the 800th Military Police Brigade facing courts-martial for allegedly humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Charges include dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person.

CBS's "60 Minutes II" broadcast pictures of the alleged abuse and an interview with Frederick on Wednesday. Some of the soldiers were smiling in the photographs obtained by CBS, which showed naked prisoners stacked in a human pyramid and being forced to simulate sex acts.

Lawson, of Newburg, W.Va., said his nephew was being portrayed "as a monster."

"He's just the guy they put in charge of the prison," he said.

Martha Frederick, of Buckingham, Va., said her husband, in Iraq since April 2003, told her his unit wasn't given proper training and equipment.

"I feel like things are being covered up. What has come to light has fallen on the burden of my husband," she said.

Seventeen members of the 372nd Military Police Company were temporarily suspended from their posts after the investigation at the prison, Col. Jill Morgenthaler, a military spokesman in Baghdad, told The (Baltimore) Sun.

Military officials said Frederick, 37, is among the 14 of 17 people under investigation from the unit of the 800th based in Cresaptown, in western Maryland.

The Sun's Friday editions identified two other soldiers facing court-martial. The newspaper cited unidentified Army officials in naming Sgt. Javal S. Davis, 26. His wife, who also spoke to the newspaper, defended her husband.

"We really don't know how those prisoners are behaving," said Zeenithia Davis, who is in the Navy in Mississippi. "There's a line between heinous war crimes and maintaining discipline."

A Sun reporter on Thursday showed a photo of one of the nude prisoner scenes to Terrie England, who recognized her daughter, reservist Lynndie R. England, 21, standing in the foreground with her boyfriend.

"Oh, my God," she told the newspaper from the stoop in front of her Fort Ashby, W.Va., trailer home. "I can't get over this."

The alleged abuses of prisoners were "stupid, kid things -- pranks," Terrie England said. "And what the (Iraqis) do to our men and women are just? The rules of the Geneva Convention, does that apply to everybody or just us?"

Her family said Lynndie England is detained on a U.S. base, but declined to say where.

Army officials said the investigation began in January when an American soldier reported the abuse and turned over evidence that included photographs. In addition to the criminal charges, the military has recommended disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers who helped run the prison, including Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Brigade.

Frederick's civilian lawyer, Washington-based Gary Myers, said he has urged the commanding general in Iraq to treat the case as an administrative matter, like those of the seven officers.

"I can assure you Chip Frederick had no idea how to humiliate an Arab until he met up" with higher-ranking people who told him how, Myers said.

Myers said Frederick has had his Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding. Myers said he will next request a change of venue because "you can't try a case of this magnitude in a hostile war zone environment."

In civilian life, Frederick has been a correctional officer for six years at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Va., his wife and a state agency spokesman said.

He wrote that he questioned the inmates' treatment and asked for standard operating procedures when his unit relieved the 72nd Military Police Company at the prison last fall. His requests were ignored until Jan. 19, five days after his first visit from investigators, when he found the Geneva Convention rules for handling prisoners of war on the Internet, Frederick wrote.


AP writer Bill Baskervill in Richmond, Va., contributed to this story.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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S?vices inflig?s ? des prisonniers irakiens : MM. Bush et Blair dans l'embarras
LEMONDE.FR | 01.05.04 | 19h10 * MIS A JOUR LE 02.05.04 | 13h11
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Le pr?sident am?ricain a r?affirm? samedi que les Etats-Unis allaient "terminer" leur "travail en Irak". Mais aux Etats-Unis et en Grande-Bretagne, la presse indique que les services de renseignement auraient encourag? les s?vices inflig?s par des soldats am?ricains ? des prisonniers irakiens. Des soldats britanniques ont eux aussi ?t? confondus, suscitant ? Londres une pol?mique accrue par la publication d'informations selon lesquelles Tony Blair s'appr?terait ? envoyer 4 000 hommes ? Najaf.
George W. Bush entend "terminer le travail". Un an jour pour jour apr?s avoir d?clar? "la fin des combats majeurs" en Irak, le pr?sident am?ricain a r?affirm? samedi que les Etats-Unis allaient y "terminer (leur) travail, car les enjeux sont cruciaux pour notre pays et le monde".

"Le succ?s de la d?mocratie irakienne enverra le message, de Damas ? T?h?ran, que la libert? peut ?tre l'avenir de chaque pays. Et la d?mocratie va vaincre en Irak, parce que notre coalition est forte, parce que notre d?termination est enti?re et parce que le peuple irakien d?sire et m?rite de vivre libre", a-t-il ajout? dans son allocution radio-diffus?e hebdomadaire.
"Malgr? de nombreux d?fis, la vie des Irakiens est ? des ann?es lumi?res de la cruaut? et la corruption du r?gime de Saddam", a-t-il ajout?. La vie quotidienne s'am?liore. L'?lectricit? est d?sormais plus accessible qu'avant la guerre. L'Irak a une monnaie stable et les banques prosp?rent. Les ?coles et cliniques ont ?t? r?nov?es et rouvertes, et les centrales ?lectriques, les h?pitaux, les infrastructures d'eau et d'assainissement, les ponts ont ?t? r?habilit?s, tandis que l'industrie p?troli?re produit environ 2,5 millions de barils par jour".
D?taillant la strat?gie am?ricaine, M. Bush a averti que "nous pourrions voir un accroissement de la violence de la part des groupes oppos?s ? la libert?" au fur et ? mesure que s'approchera le transfert de souverainet? du 30 juin. "Nous ne serons pas intimid?s", a-t-il r?affirm? en ajoutant que, "au 1er juillet, et ensuite, notre engagement militaire et pour la reconstruction se poursuivra". M. Bush s'est exprim? alors que les Am?ricains se montrent de plus en plus circonspects, selon les sondages, sur sa politique irakienne, l'un des dossiers sur lesquels il joue sa r??lection le 2 novembre.

Les d?mocrates critiquent la conduite de la guerre par M. Bush. Le Parti d?mocrate a r?pondu samedi ? l'adresse radiodiffus?e du pr?sident, George W. Bush, par le t?moignage d'un v?t?ran de la guerre en Irak critiquant des manquements criants dans la pr?paration mat?rielle et politique de l'op?ration militaire. "M. le Pr?sident, notre mission n'est pas accomplie !", a affirm? le lieutenant Paul Rieckhoff, qui a servi dix mois en Irak ? la t?te d'une groupe de 38 soldats am?ricains jusqu'en f?vrier. Dans son intervention, pay?e sur le budget de campagne du candidat d?mocrate John Kerry, Paul Rieckhoff raconte que, "d?s notre arriv?e ? Bagdad, nous devions rapidement d?couvrir que les personnes qui avaient pr?par? cette guerre n'?taient pas pr?tes. Il n'y avait pas assez de v?hicules, pas assez de munition, pas assez de mat?riel m?dical, pas assez d'eau". Au moment de la chute de Bagdad, les responsables am?ricains n'avaient pas de plan pr?cis pour la suite des op?rations, selon lui. "Ma question ? M. Bush est la suivante : quand allez-vous assumer la responsabilit? pour les d?cisions prises en Irak et r?aliser que les choses ne sont pas ce qu'elles devraient ?tre ?", a conclu M. Rieckhoff.

S?vices inflig?s ? des prisonniers irakiens : le renseignement militaire am?ricain incrimin?. Apr?s la diffusion mercredi par la cha?ne am?ricaine CBS de photos montrant des d?tenus irakiens de la prison d'Abou Gharib, pr?s de Bagdad, maltrait?s par des soldats am?ricains, et l'inculpation de six d'entre eux pour actes de cruaut? et conduite obsc?ne envers une vingtaine de prisonniers, en novembre et d?cembre 2003, deux journaux rapportaient samedi que ces s?vices ont peut-?tre ?t? plus cruels que ce qui a ?t? dit, et qu'ils auraient ?t? ordonn?s par les services de renseignement militaires.
L'officier en charge du syst?me p?nitentiaire militaire am?ricain en Irak, fustig? apr?s la diffusion de photos montrant des d?tenus humili?s, a affirm? que le quartier de haute s?curit? ?tait sous le contr?le du renseignement militaire, a rapport? samedi le New York Times. Le g?n?ral de r?serve Janis Karpinski a d?clar? au journal que ce quartier de l'immense prison d'Abou Gharib, ? l'ouest de Bagdad, ?tait sous le contr?le direct d'officiers du renseignement militaire, qui pourraient avoir encourag? ces violations des droits des d?tenus, et non pas des r?servistes sous ses ordres. Auparavant, le magazine New Yorker rapportait que les s?vices inflig?s aux d?tenus pourraient avoir ?t? ordonn?s par les services de renseignements militaires. Le g?n?ral Karpinski, qui a ?t? a ?t? suspendue de son commandement de la 800e brigade de la police militaire et fait l'objet d'une enqu?te, tandis que six autres officiers sont vis?s par une proc?dure administrative, a indiqu? penser que la hi?rarchie militaire tentait de faire porter toute la responsabilit? aux r?servistes, dont elle, pour prot?ger les officiers du renseignement encore en Irak. Elle a pr?cis? que le quartier de haute s?curit?, baptis? 1 A, comprenait une vingtaine de b?timents de cellules et que son acc?s ?tait interdit aux soldats non impliqu?s dans les interrogatoires, dont pratiquement toute la police militaire sous son commandement, selon le journal. Elle a ajout? que des emply?s de la CIA participaient souvent aux interrogatoires ? Abou Gharib.
Le magazine New Yorker, citant un rapport confidentiel de l'arm?e am?ricaine, r?dig? par le g?n?ral Antonio Taguba en f?vrier, ?crit que les prisonniers ont re?us des coups de balais ou de chaises, ont ?t? asperg?s d'eau froide ou de liquide phosphorique et menac?s de viol. Le rapport raconte ?galement, selon le journaliste Seymour Hersh, que la police militaire a ?t? autoris?e ? recoudre les blessures d'un prisonnier, qui avait ?t? pouss? contre les murs, et a sodomis? un d?tenu. M. Hersh, cite aussi une lettre du sergent Ivan Frederick, l'un des six militaires am?ricains inculp?s, ?crite en janvier ? sa famille : Il disait avoir "pos? des questions sur certaines choses" qu'il avait vues dans la prison. "La r?ponse qui m'a ?t? donn?e ?tait 'c'est comme ?a que les renseignements militaires veulent que ce soit fait'", poursuivait le sergent. D'apr?s le magazine, le sergent Frederick expliquait aussi que des officiers des services de renseignement militaires l'avait f?licit?, ainsi que d'autres soldats, sur le "bon travail" effectu? avec les prisonniers.

Des soldats britanniques ? leur tour accus?s. La pol?mique restait vive dimanche au Royaume-Uni o? la presse britannique revenait abondamment sur les s?vices inflig?s ? des prisonniers irakiens par des soldats du Queen's Lancashire Regiment, bas? dans le sud de l'Irak. Des photos d?gradantes avaient ?t? publi?es samedi par le Daily Mirror, suscitant la col?re de Downing Street, de la hi?rarchie militaire et l'ouverture d'une enqu?te. Selon le Sunday Telegraph, la police militaire va placer sous mandat d'arr?t six soldats du r?giment incrimin? qui ont ?t? interrog?s ? Chypre. Ceux-ci risquent la cour martiale et des peines de prison, pr?cise le quotidien. Pour l'Observer, "les photos de tortures et d'abus sur des prisonniers ne sont pas seulement profond?ment choquante, leur nature incendiaire met gravement en p?ril les espoirs de paix dans la r?gion". Certains journaux ?mettent toutefois des doutes sur l'authenticit? des photos publi?es par le Daily Mirror, un tablo?d pro-travailliste mais tr?s oppos? ? la guerre en Irak, deux jours apr?s la mise en cause de Marines am?ricains pour des faits semblables. Dans son ?dition de samedi, une seule photo, noire et blanc, occupait la Une du journal : un prisonnier irakien est assis ? l'arri?re d'un camion militaire, le torse partiellement nu, la t?te recouverte d'un sac en toile de jute. Debout devant lui, de dos, un soldat britannique lui urine sur le corps. En pages int?rieures, d'autres photos, toujours en noir et blanc, illustrent dans le d?tail le calvaire de ce prisonnier d'une vingtaine d'ann?es, arr?t? pour vol. Sur l'une d'entre elles, l'homme est frapp? ? coups de crosse de fusil dans les parties g?nitales. Sur deux autres photos, il semble recevoir des coups de pied en pleine t?te. "Soyons clair, si ces actes ont r?ellement eu lieu, ils sont totalement et absolument inacceptables", avait plaid? le premier ministre, Tony Blair, samedi apr?s-midi.
Si les troupes britanniques sont globalement lou?es pour leur comportement mesur? en Irak, certaines accusations de torture et de s?vices les concernant avaient d?j? ?merg? depuis le d?but de la guerre. Mais aucune photo n'avait encore ?t? publi?e. D?s mai 2003, un soldat de la 7e brigade blind?e britannique, h?riti?re des fameux "Rats du d?sert" du mar?chal Montgomery, avait ainsi ?t? arr?t? en possession de photos compromettantes. Sur un clich?, un prisonnier irakien, baillonn? et ligot?, ?tait exhib? dans un filet suspendu aux fourches d'un chariot ?l?vateur. Sur un autre, des soldats britanniques ?taient montr?s en train de se livrer ? des actes sexuels pr?s de prisonniers. La police militaire britannique a ?galement ouvert une enqu?te concernant les d?c?s suspects de deux Irakiens, toujours en mai, alors qu'ils ?taient sous la garde des soldats du Black Watch Regiment. De m?me une autre enqu?te a ?t? lanc?e dans le cas du d?c?s de Baha Al-Maliki, un prisonnier irakien qui aurait ?t? battu ? mort par d'autres soldats du Queen's Lancashire Regiment, en septembre, ? Bassora.

Londres d?ment ?tre sur le point d'envoyer 4 000 hommes ? Najaf. Le gouvernement britannique a d?menti dimanche avoir pris la d?cision d'envoyer jusqu'? 4 000 hommes suppl?mentaires ? Najaf, en Irak, comme l'affirme le Sunday Telegraph. Londres a indiqu? il y a plus d'une semaine envisager l'hypoth?se d'envoyer des troupes pour remplacer les 1 300 militaires espagnols qui se sont retir?s de la ville sainte chiite, mais il souligne qu'aucune d?cision n'a ?t? prise. Le Sunday Telegraph ?crit au contraire, citant un responsable du minist?re de la d?fense anonyme, que la d?cision a ?t? prise pour marquer le fait que Londres reste impliqu? aux c?t?s de ses partenaires dans la chaotique situation irakienne. Le contingent britannique, qui occupe le sud de l'Irak, totalise actuellement 7 900 hommes. Le premier ministre, Tony Blair, aurait pris la d?cision apr?s s'?tre entretenu avec le pr?sident am?ricain, George W. Bush, ? la Maison Blanche il y a deux semaines, indique le journal. "Il est difficile de pr?dire combien de temps ces troupes devront rester en Irak, mais cela ne sera pas pour moins de deux ans", a ajout? la m?me source. Selon ce responsable, aucune d?cision n'a ?t? prise sur l'importance num?rique de ces renforts, mais "les unit?s ont ?t? d?j? pr?venues de se pr?parer ? partir en op?ration".

Lib?ration d'un otage am?ricain. L'otage am?ricain Thomas Hamill est libre, trois semaines apr?s qu'eurent ?t? diffus?es des images le montrant entre les mains d'hommes arm?s, ? la suite de l'attaque d'un convoi en Irak, a annonc? dimanche l'arm?e am?ricaine.

Quatre soldats am?ricains tu?s ? Bagdad et Amara. Quatre soldats am?ricains et deux membres de la d?fense civile irakienne ont trouv? la mort dans des attaques men?es par des insurg?s ? Bagdad et pr?s de la ville d'Amara, dans le sud du pays, a fait savoir dimanche un haut responsable de l'arm?e. Deux soldats am?ricains et deux membres de la d?fense civile ont ?t? tu?s dimanche matin au nord-ouest de Bagdad, a-t-il pr?cis?. Deux autres soldats am?ricains ont ?t? tu?s samedi pr?s d'Amara, o? leur convoi a ?t? la cible de tirs ? l'arme l?g?re et au lance-grenades. Ces d?c?s portent selon Reuters ? 545 le nombre de soldats am?ricains tu?s au combat en Irak depuis l'invasion du pays par les forces sous commandement am?ricain, en mars 2003.

D?buts de la brigade irakienne ? Fallouja. L'accord pour la cr?ation de cette brigade irakienne a ?vit? une attaque des Marines dans la ville rebelle, a indiqu? samedi le g?n?ral am?ricain James Conway. Il a pr?cis? que celle-ci devrait assurer la s?curit? d'un premier convoi am?ricain qui doit traverser dans les prochains jours la ville. Les Marines ont quitt? vendredi certaines de leurs positions dans le sud de la ville, tout en avertissant qu'ils n'avaient pas l'intention de s'?loigner de Fallouja. Le g?n?ral Mark Kimmitt a pour sa part pr?cis? que la coalition conduite par les Etats-Unis et le minist?re irakien de la d?fense n'ont pas encore donn? leur approbation finale ? la nomination du g?n?ral irakien Jassem Saleh ? la t?te de cette brigade, dans l'attente de r?ponses sur sa participation ou non ? des crimes de l'ancien r?gime. Les habitants de Fallouja se sont, eux, r?jouis de la cr?ation de cette brigade irakienne.

Lemonde.fr, avec AFP et Reuters

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Les mauvais traitements inflig?s ? des prisonniers irakiens suscitent l'indignation g?n?rale
LEMONDE.FR | 30.04.04 | 19h51 * MIS A JOUR LE 01.05.04 | 10h51
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La pol?mique a rebondi samedi apr?s la publication par le "Daily Mirror" de cinq photos montrant des soldats britanniques battant et humiliant un d?tenu.
George W. Bush a exprim?, vendredi 30 avril, son "profond d?go?t" pour les mauvais traitements inflig?s ? des prisonniers irakiens par des militaires am?ricains, r?v?l?s par des photos diffus?es mercredi sur la cha?ne CBS. "Nous ne pouvons tol?rer cela", avait d?clar? un peu avant la prise de parole du pr?sident am?ricain le porte-parole de la Maison Blanche.
"Les militaires ont agi fermement contre les individus responsables de ces actes m?prisables", a-t-il ajout?. M. Bush est au courant de ces accusations "depuis un moment", et il s'attend ? ce que "des mesures appropri?es soient prises ? l'encontre des individus" mis en cause, avait-il ?galement averti.

Les photos diffus?es par la cha?ne am?ricaine ont provoqu? une vague d'indignation dans le monde, notamment en Grande-Bretagne et dans les pays arabes. Le g?n?ral Mark Kimmitt, chef adjoint des op?rations militaires en Irak, avait annonc? mercredi la mise en cause de six militaires, actuellement traduits en cour martiale pour avoir maltrait?s des prisonniers. Un g?n?ral am?ricain qui ?tait charg? des centres de d?tention en Irak a ?galement ?t? suspendu de ses fonctions apr?s la r?v?lation de ces cas pr?sum?s de mauvais traitements ? l'encontre de prisonniers irakiens.

Interrog? sur la r?percussion ? l'?tranger de ces images, M. McClellan a d?clar? qu'"elles ne repr?sentent pas ce que nous d?fendons". "Les militaires ont indiqu? tr?s clairement qu'ils allaient poursuivre ces individus, aussi s?v?rement que le permet le droit", a-t-il ajout?.

Vendredi, les bulletins d'information de la cha?ne satellitaire qatarie Al-Jazira, tr?s suivie dans le monde arabe, ont consacr? leur ouverture aux photos des prisonniers irakiens. La t?l?vision, qui fait l'objet de critiques s?v?res de la part des Etats-Unis pour sa couverture de l'Irak, a diffus? quelques-unes de ces photos montrant des soldats am?ricains maltraitant des prisonniers irakiens dans la prison d'Abou Gharib, pr?s de Bagdad. "Nous diffusons quelques-unes de ces photos qui montrent les agissements amoraux et inhumains" des soldats am?ricains, a indiqu? le pr?sentateur de la cha?ne, en soulignant que les militaires am?ricains ?taient actuellement traduits en cour martiale.

La cha?ne Al-Arabiya, bas?e ? Duba?, a elle aussi montr? ces photos, mais pas ? l'ouverture des bulletins d'information. "Des photos d?gradantes, diffus?es par les cha?nes de t?l?vision am?ricaines (...) et montrant la sauvagerie des soldats am?ricains qui ont ?t? suspendus de l'arm?e", a comment? la pr?sentatrice.

APPEL AU CH?TIMENT

La Ligue arabe a "vivement d?nonc?" ces mauvais traitements et appel? ? "ch?tier" tous ceux qui ont ?t? impliqu?s "dans ces actes sauvages". "Nous d?non?ons vivement ces mauvais traitements et l'humiliation" subis par des prisonniers irakiens "qui sont contraires aux droits de l'homme et aux conventions internationales concernant la protection de la population civile sous occupation", a d?clar? un porte-parole.

En Grande-Bretagne aussi, la diffusion des photos-chocs a tant scandalis? le pays que le premier alli? des Etats-Unis, Tony Blair, se trouve ? nouveau plac? dans une position embarrassante. "Le porte-parole de l'arm?e am?ricaine a dit ce matin qu'il ?tait scandalis?, que les personnes responsables ont d??u leurs camarades soldats, et ce sont des opinions auxquelles nous associons le gouvernement britannique", a fermement d?clar?, vendredi, le porte-parole du premier ministre.

Quinze jours plus t?t, Tony Blair avait affich? ? Washington sa d?termination ? maintenir, au c?t? de son alli? am?ricain George W. Bush, un front ferme face ? la crise en Irak. Essuyant, comme toujours, une nu?e de fl?ches de ses d?tracteurs, l'accusant d'un trop grand suivisme de son alli? am?ricain, adepte r?cemment de m?thodes muscl?es en Irak. Et toute cette semaine, la vie politique britannique s'est centr?e autour de la lettre de 52 ex-diplomates britanniques d?non?ant l'alignement de Londres sur la politique de Washington, cette fois au Proche-Orient.

Vendredi, trois journaux britanniques ont mis ? la "une" la photo d'un prisonnier irakien cagoul?, des fils ?lectriques attach?s aux poignets, r?servant aux pages int?rieures des photos de prisonniers irakiens nus dans des positions sexuelles plus humiliantes encore. CBS avait diffus? ces photos mercredi soir, en affirmant qu'une enqu?te de l'arm?e avait r?v?l? qu'il s'agissait d'une pratique r?pandue. Le g?n?ral Janis Karpinski, charg? des centres de d?tention en Irak, a ?t? suspendu de ses fonctions fin janvier apr?s que six militaires eurent ?t? accus?s de maltraiter des d?tenus dans la prison d'Abou Gharib.

Les m?dias am?ricains restaient en revanche tr?s discrets, vendredi, sur les accusations de mauvais traitements. Les photos accusatrices n'?taient visibles qu'en pages int?rieures du quotidien Washington Post. A l'exception de CBS, les autres cha?nes de t?l?vision n'en ont fait qu'assez peu de cas. Vendredi matin, CNN a toutefois ?voqu? l'indignation que ces images ont provoqu? dans le monde, pr?cisant que les responsables de la cha?ne n'avaient pas pu en v?rifier l'authenticit?.

Le Baltimore Sun de vendredi choisissait, lui, de donner la parole ? l'?pouse de l'un des militaires mis en cause, en soulignant que la situation des soldats ?tait "tr?s stressante" et qu'"on ne peut pas savoir comment se conduisent les prisonniers".

VIOLATION DES CONVENTIONS DE GEN?VE

La presse britannique a publi? samedi des photos d'un prisonnier irakien maltrait? par des soldats britanniques. Le Daily Mirror a publi? cinq photos qu'il dit avoir re?ues de deux soldats non identifi?s du Queen's Lancashire Regiment. Elles montrent un prisonnier arr?t? pour des soup?ons de vol, encapuchonn?, battu et sur lequel un soldat urine. "Les gars se relayaient pour le passer ? tabac, le frapper au visage avec des armes et l'?touffer", rapporte l'un de ces deux soldats cit?s par le journal. Le prisonnier aurait ensuite ?t? extrait d'un camp de Bassora et jet? de l'arri?re d'un camion. Quelques semaines plus tard, des hommes du m?me r?giment auraient battu ? mort un autre d?tenu, selon le Daily Mirror.

Le minist?re de la d?fense britannique a annonc? vendredi avoir ouvert une enqu?te. "Je suis au courant des all?gations qui ont ?t? faites aujourd'hui sur le mauvais traitement de prisonniers par des soldats britanniques en Irak", a d?clar? le g?n?ral Sir Michael Jackson, officier le plus grad? de l'arm?e britannique. Dans un communiqu?, il a fait savoir que si les faits incrimin?s ?taient confirm?s, "une conduite aussi consternante est non seulement ill?gale mais contrevient de fa?on flagrante aux crit?res ?lev?s de l'arm?e britannique". Les responsables de ces actes "sont indignes de porter l'uniforme de la reine, ils ont souill? la r?putation et l'honneur de l'arm?e", ajoute-t-il.

Ces actes "sont en contradiction directe avec toutes les r?gles pr?conis?es au sein de la coalition" en Irak, avait d?clar? vendredi le porte-parole de Tony Blair. "Dans le m?me temps, nous nous associons ? l'opinion du porte-parole de l'arm?e am?ricaine pour dire que cela n'est pas repr?sentatif [du comportement] des 150 000 soldats pr?sents en Irak", avait-il temp?r?. Downing Street a rappel? au passage que "le pr?c?dent r?gime sous Saddam perp?trait des actions similaires dans le cadre de sa politique".

L'envoy?e sp?ciale britannique pour les droits de l'homme en Irak, Ann Clwyd, s'est ?galement d?clar?e "choqu?e", vendredi, par ces informations. Il s'agit d'"un petit nombre de cas, horribles certes, [mais] on ne peut pas les comparer avec les dizaines de milliers de gens que Saddam Hussein a fait torturer et ex?cuter", a n?anmoins insist? cette militante travailliste des droits de l'homme, qui a d?nonc? pendant des ann?es les exactions de l'ancien pr?sident irakien.

"Amnesty International a recueilli de nombreux t?moignages d'Irakiens [faisant ?tat] de torture pr?sum?e ? la prison d'Abou Gharib et dans d'autres [lieux] o? ils sont d?tenus au secret et sans inculpation", a pr?cis? pour sa part vendredi Kate Allen, directrice en Grande-Bretagne de l'organisation de d?fense des droits de l'homme, qui s'est dite "choqu?e" mais "pas surprise".

Le secr?taire g?n?ral de l'ONU, Kofi Annan, s'est dit "profond?ment troubl?", esp?rant qu'il s'agissait d'un "incident isol?". L'envoy? sp?cial de l'ONU en Irak, Lakhdar Brahimi, a quant ? lui qualifi? de "tr?s inqui?tants" et "totalement inadmissibles" ces agissements.

Le Comit? international de la Croix-Rouge (CICR) a jug?, pour sa part, "troublantes et inqui?tantes" les photos des prisonniers, a d?clar? vendredi un porte-parole, rappelant que les conventions de Gen?ve interdisent les traitements humiliants et d?gradants. Le porte-parole a rappel? que les conventions de Gen?ve de 1949, qui s'appliquent juridiquement ? la situation actuelle de l'Irak, "interdisent tr?s clairement la torture et les mauvais traitements", et pr?voient que les prisonniers soient trait?s "avec humanit?".

"Les conventions de Gen?ve disent tr?s clairement qu'on ne peut pas utiliser la pression physique pour obtenir des informations et que les traitements humiliants ou d?gradants sont interdits", a-t-il ajout?. L'un des clich?s diffus?s par CBS montre des d?tenus nus et entass?s, avec sur le corps de l'un une insulte en anglais.

Avec AFP et Reuters


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Anniversaire embarrassant pour George W. Bush

Le pr?sident am?ricain, George W. Bush, a d?fendu vendredi le discours qu'il avait prononc?, il y a un an, le 1er mai 2003, dans lequel il d?clarait la fin des combats majeurs et qualifiait l'invasion de l'Irak de "victoire" contre le terrorisme. "J'ai aussi affirm? ce jour-l? que nous avions encore une rude t?che devant nous. Et nous faisons face ? un contexte difficile en Irak", a-t-il dit. Avril a ?t? le mois le plus meurtrier pour les Am?ricains en Irak : selon le Pentagone, 128 soldats am?ricains y ont ?t? tu?s, soit davantage qu'au cours des six semaines de combats qui ont suivi le d?clenchement de la guerre, le 20 mars 2003.
Le journaliste am?ricain Ted Koppel a consacr? vendredi soir l'int?gralit? de son ?mission t?l?vis?e "Nightline" sur ABC ? diffuser les noms et photographies de 721 soldats am?ricains tu?s en Irak, suscitant la col?re des milieux conservateurs qui l'accusent de propagande anti-guerre. Koppel a au contraire affirm? que son ?mission, exceptionnellement rallong?e ? 40 minutes au lieu de sa demi-heure habituelle, visait ? saluer sans aucune arri?re pens?e politique la m?moire des soldats tomb?s en Irak. L'?mission de Koppel s'est notamment inspir?e d'une ?dition du magazine Life en juin 1969, dans laquelle ?taient publi?s les noms et les portraits de tous les soldats am?ricains morts en une seule semaine de combats pendant la guerre du Vietnam.
Les Etats-Unis font toujours face ? une situation confuse, notamment ? Najaf, o? est retranch? le chef chiite radical Moqtada Al-Sadr. A Fallouja, apr?s une nuit relativement calme, le premier bataillon de la force irakienne charg? de prendre le relais des soldats am?ricains dans la ville ? commenc? ? se d?ployer. Un haut responsable du Pentagone a indiqu? vendredi ne pas ?tre s?r de pouvoir faire confiance ? l'homme qui commande ce bataillon, un g?n?ral de l'ancienne arm?e de Saddam Hussein, mais a laiss? entendre qu'il n'y avait gu?re d'autre solution satisfaisante pour mettre fin ? pr?s d'un mois d'impasse dans ce bastion sunnite irakien. - (AFP, Reuters.)

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U.S., U.N. Gird for Major Effort to Pick Iraqi Leaders
With Handover Looming, Factions and Instability Present Challenges as Envoys Consider Candidates

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 2, 2004; Page A27

Top U.N. and U.S. envoys will launch the last big push this week to form a new Iraqi government, following secret discussions at the United Nations late last week to help expedite the filling of the four leadership jobs and 25 cabinet posts, according to U.S. officials.

Favorite candidates for the top four jobs have emerged, with particular focus on two emerging Shiite politicians for prime minister and veteran Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi as the possible president, U.S. and coalition officials say.

With only two months before the handover of power on June 30, the U.S.-led coalition is cautiously optimistic that a new government can be named within 10 days.

When U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi "goes in, he's almost ready to start naming names. He's ready to start pulling things together. He's into the end game. He's created a structure," said a State Department official familiar with the Iraq talks. "We could go from political anarchy to the end game in a few days."

U.S. and U.N. officials also warn, however, that identifying new leaders and balancing disparate ethnic and religious communities -- plus coping with the anticipated backlash from excluded parties, including key members of the Iraqi Governing Council -- could eat up the entire month. Iraq's volatility could also complicate or defer consultations.

"Brahimi wants to finish it on this trip, if he can. But there may be other complications, like Fallujah on his last trip," said Ahmed Fawzi, Brahimi's spokesman.

But much of the political legwork has quietly been done over the past two weeks in Baghdad and Washington as well as the United Nations. Names of candidates for the four senior positions have already begun to circulate in Washington and New York, despite categorical denials from the United Nations and the Bush administration that final decisions have been made.

"Brahimi doesn't have definite plans. He's going in with an open mind having launched his sketchy ideas two weeks ago. He'll see how things will play out. We don't have a handbook that says, 'Instructions, here's how we do it,' " Fawzi added.

During talks in Baghdad last month, Brahimi asked several parties -- from a panel of Iraqi judges and the Governing Council to the U.S.-led coalition ruling Iraq -- to come up with slates of candidates. From these, he hopes to find common ground and then name a slate of candidates, U.S. and U.N. officials say.

As prime minister, a favorite of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad is Planning Minister Mahdi Hafez, the Shiite minister of planning who met Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior U.S. and U.N. officials during a quiet visit to the United States last week, U.S. officials said. Hafez, a former communist who became a moderate, is considered a capable technocrat who could lead a caretaker government until elections are held early next year, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

"People think he's honest and not corrupt, which is rare," said a senior U.S. official who served in Iraq. Added a Kurdish official: "He's a solid compromise candidate. No one is likely to feel threatened by him."

But U.S. officials are also concerned that U.S. and British news reports naming Hafez last week, before Brahimi and National Security Council Iraq troubleshooter Robert D. Blackwill get to Baghdad, could taint or doom his potential candidacy.

The other politician cited by many is Ibrahim Jafari, the Shiite leader of the Islamic Dawa Party and one of 25 members on the council that is likely to be dissolved and replaced by the interim government. Among Iraq's many political parties, Dawa had the highest support, at 14 percent, in an ABC News poll in mid-March.

Jafari also held talks with the United Nations and the Bush administration last week about forming a new government. "There needs to be consensus on the interim government," Jafari told reporters in Washington. "It may not reflect what I want as it's not elected, but it should be close to it."

He also pledged to work with the Brahimi-Blackwill mission. "We have to work with them so they succeed," Jafari said.

But Brahimi and Blackwill could face serious opposition from other Iraqis. Muhammed Bahr Uloum, a prominent Shiite member of the Governing Council, rejected Brahimi's mediation and warned Friday that Iraqis would rise up if the United Nations is allowed to pick the new government.

"We are not under age in need of a guardian. Iraqis are not a herd of 27 million people to be directed by Brahimi and the coalition," Uloum said. "Iraqis will take to the streets if Brahimi insists on his view."

The position of Shiite politicians is important because Shiites make up more than 60 percent of Iraq's population. The coalition is also scrambling to develop a political exit strategy because Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, rejected two handover plans. One of the biggest uncertainties over the next two months is how Sistani will react either to the U.N. plan or the Iraqis selected as caretakers, U.S. officials said.

Shiites are also expected to assume two of the top four posts and the largest share of cabinet positions. The prime minister is expected to be a Shiite, while the largely ceremonial presidency would be a Sunni and the two vice presidents would be a Shiite and a Kurd, U.S. and U.N. officials said.

The two Kurds mentioned by U.S. officials as possible vice presidents are Barham Salih of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Rowsch Shaways of the Kurdish Democratic Party. But Kurds have their own concerns.

After talks with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Brahimi on Friday, Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani insisted that political parties must be at the center of the transition. He pressed for the Governing Council to be retained and expanded from 25 to 50 or 75 people. Talabani is also on the council.

"This would be in parallel to the caretaker government," said Salih, who accompanied Talabani. It "would act like a senate or a national conference."

Under Brahimi's tentative plan, a national gathering of 1,000 to 1,500 Iraqis would meet, probably after June 30, to select a body of 100 to 200 people to act as an advisory council to the caretaker government.
Although Brahimi will take the lead, Blackwill has become his partner in the process and is likely to remain in Baghdad until a government is named, U.S. officials said. But unlike earlier efforts, the United States will keep a low profile.
"It's important that the U.N. be seen as an independent entity out there," the senior administration official said. "If he's seen as an instrument of the United States, it would undermine the outcome we wish to have."
Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Command Errors Aided Iraq Abuse, Army Has Found
By JAMES RISEN

n internal Army investigation has found that key military intelligence officers and civilian employees in Iraq may have spurred acts of abuse and humiliation by American enlisted personnel against Iraqi detainees at an overcrowded prison outside Baghdad.

A report on the investigation, seen Sunday by The New York Times, as well as other documents seen by The Times, also reveal a much broader pattern of command failures than initially acknowledged by the Pentagon and the Bush administration in responding to outrage over the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Officials said Sunday that the Army had opened two new investigations into the abuse allegations. One inquiry just under way by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, the incoming deputy commander of Army intelligence, is examining the interrogation practices of military intelligence officers at all American-run prisons in Iraq and not just the Abu Ghraib prison 20 miles west of Baghdad, where the worst abuses occurred.

The second review was ordered on Saturday by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, head of the Army Reserve, to assess the training of all reservists, especially military police and intelligence officers, the soldiers most likely to handle prisoners. Six members of an Army Reserve military police unit assigned to Abu Ghraib face charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees.

The main Army investigation of abuse, first reported in the new edition of The New Yorker, has found that key military intelligence officers and civilian employees may have actively encouraged acts of abuse and humiliation by American enlisted personnel against Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.

The investigation, led by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, identified two military intelligence officers and two civilian contractors for the Army as key figures in the abuse cases at Abu Ghraib. In his internal report on his findings in the investigation, General Taguba said he suspected the four were "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and strongly recommended disciplinary action."

The Pentagon and Bush administration have called the abuse an isolated case as they have sought to respond to the widespread condemnation of photographs released last week that show American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib late last year.

So far, six enlisted personnel from a reserve military police unit have been charged in the military abuse cases. The Taguba report found that they were never properly trained or supervised and that they had done the bidding of secret interrogators from the intelligence community. It found that in effect, the military police were told to soften up the prisoners so they would talk more freely in interrogations conducted by intelligence officials.

The Taguba report states that "military intelligence interrogators and other U.S. Government Agency interrogators actively requested that M.P. guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." The report noted that one civilian interrogator, a contractor from a company called CACI and attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, "clearly knew his instructions" to the military police equated to physical abuse.

The report and other documents reveal that Army investigators found a virtual collapse of the command structure in the prison, allowing midlevel military intelligence officers to skirt the normal chain of command to issue questionable orders to enlisted personnel from the reserve military police unit handling guard duty there.

Gary Myers, a lawyer for Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, one of the enlisted men charged in the case, requested this weekend that the Army open a court of inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, a move that would broaden the investigation beyond the six enlisted personnel to look at the broader command failures.

In addition to the Army documents, The Times has obtained, from people close to the case, a series of photographs taken by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib, showing acts of sexual humiliation and other abuses.

Some of the photographs have been broadcast and published in recent days, since the CBS News program "60 Minutes II" first broadcast them Wednesday. One photo shows a naked Iraqi man kneeling in front of another naked Iraqi man, who is standing over him with a bag over his head, while another shows a female American soldier pointing as an Iraqi man with a bag over his head is masturbating.

Another photo shows an American soldier sitting on top of a naked Iraqi man, who is straining to look up, and still more photos show naked Iraqi men in a human pyramid.

The photographs, some included in evidence in the Army's investigation, support the conclusions of the Taguba report, which found that "between October and December, 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees" by members of the 800th Military Police Brigade. "This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force in Tier 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison."

In addition, the report said, "there were also abuses committed by members of the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center."

Documents from an April 2 military court hearing in Iraq for Sergeant Frederick provide new details about the abuse. The documents show that Specialist Matthew Carl Wisdom, of the 372nd Military Police Company at Abu Ghraib, appeared in the hearing and described some of the acts of abuse he saw committed by other military police.

"I went down to Tier 1 (the cellblock where much of the abuse is said to have occurred) and when I looked down the corridor, I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open," he is quoted as saying in the documents. "I thought I should just get out of there. I didn't think it was right, as it seemed like the wrong thing to do. I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, `look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.' "

Some of the graphic photos of abuse were entered into evidence in the court hearing, and individual soldiers involved in them were identified. One photo shows a Pvt. Lynndie R. England standing next to an Iraqi man masturbating. The court documents state that she told investigators that SSG Frederick "motioned the detainee's hands back and forward on its penis to coax the detainee to masturbate himself," the court documents state. "He then made Pfc. England pose in a picture next to the detainee. She said she didn't want to pose, but she did it anyway," the court document states.

The Taguba report reserves its sharpest criticism for the officers in charge of the military police and military intelligence units in the prison.

"There is abundant evidence in the statements of numerous witnesses that soldiers throughout the 800th M.P. Brigade were not proficient" in basic skills needed to operate the prison, the report found.

A crucial problem, the report found, was the bad relationship between the commanders of the military police unit and the military intelligence officers. The report found that there "was clear friction and lack of effective communication" between Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the accused soldiers, and military intelligence officials operating in the prison.

"There was no clear delineation of responsibility between commands, little coordination at the command level, and no integration of the two functions," the report said. "Coordination occurred at the lowest possible levels with little oversight by commanders."

The report said the "ambiguous command relationship" in the prison was made worse by orders that seemed to give military intelligence officials broad authority inside the prison.

The orders from occupation commanders in Iraq effectively made a military intelligence officer, rather than an M.P. officer, responsible for the M.P. units, the report said. This arrangement was not supported by GeneralKarpinski, the report added, and "is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties."

But while the Taguba report criticizes military intelligence's role in the abuse, it does not spare General Karpinski. During interviews with the Taguba investigation, she "was extremely emotional during much of her testimony," the report found. "What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th M.P. Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers."

The report adds that "she blames much of the abuse that occurred in Abu Ghraib on military intelligence personnel and stated that M.I. personnel had given the military police "ideas" that led to the abuse.

The Taguba investigation recommended that General Karpinski be relieved of command and reprimanded for a series of command failures related to the abuse.

General Karpinski said Saturday that she was sickened by the photos of the abuse.

The report also states that an Air Force psychiatrist, Dr. Henry Nelson, has determined "that there was evidence that the horrific abuses suffered by the detainees at Abu Ghraib were wanton acts of select soldiers in an unsupervised and dangerous setting."

"There was a complex interplay of many psychological factors and command insufficiencies," he added.

Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |

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An All-Investor Nation
Time to transform Social Security into a wealth-creating vehicle.

By Larry Kudlow
Imagine if every worker in the United States had the opportunity to become an investor. Well, that dream has a shot at reality.
In his 2004 State of the Union address President Bush suggested that workers be given the ability to redirect a portion of their payroll taxes into individual retirement accounts. That was a big statement. It means there's now a legitimate chance of transforming Social Security from a financially bankrupt system into a source of real ownership and prosperity for all Americans.
Many Americans are investors, but not all. According to the Federal Reserve, 31.6 percent of households owned stock either directly or indirectly in 1989. By 2001 that number was 51.9 percent.
Since the Reagan presidency the country has made great strides toward democratizing capitalism by reducing marginal tax rates, deregulating the financial-services industry, and creating savings vehicles like IRAs and 401(k)s. Bush's latest proposal to create Lifetime Savings Accounts is another step in this right direction.
That said, the greatest impediment to saving, investing, creating wealth, and retiring prosperously is still the payroll tax -- which is presently 12.4 percent. Each payday workers see half of that go to today's retirees as well as many government programs. This depletes household savings and diminishes wealth, leaving too many Americans dependant on the government for retirement income.
When discussing even the idea of personal retirement accounts skeptics always point to the volatility of the stock market. What they fail to realize is that Social Security is a riskier scheme than the market will ever be. The government can at any time raise taxes or cut benefits. Moreover, workers born after 1960 are expected to receive a real rate of return on their payroll-tax contributions of less than 2 percent. Alan Greenspan stated this in 1999; his estimate was likely generous.
This measly rate of return (which is actually negative for African-Americans, a group with high mortality rates) is not a fair deal for retirees -- today or in the future. Even workers who put their money in standard government-insured savings accounts will earn higher rates of return than what the current Social Security system can provide.
But there's an alternative. According to a study by the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, a worker with a large personal retirement account can expect a return that's 60 percent greater than what's promised under the current system. As a Cato Institute study has shown, even during the worst twenty-year period for stocks, 1929 to 1948, the market's average rate of return was 3.36 percent -- a better return than Social Security promises today.
Dissenters also point to the collapse of Enron as further evidence the stock market is a "risky scheme." To the contrary, the Dow Jones closed at 9,736 the day after Enron's bankruptcy was announced in December 2001. Today it hovers above 10,400. Investors, who account for two out of three of all voters, have demonstrated by perseverance amid short-term shocks that they know the market is an immense source of long-run wealth. The investor class can vouch for the common sense of personal retirement accounts.
It's interesting that many who adamantly oppose personal retirement accounts already have their personal pensions in the stock market. In fact, state and local governments have been investing pension money in private stocks and bonds for generations. Members of Congress and other federal workers also have the option to invest in private markets. Why can't ordinary people have this opportunity?
The truth is they should. Individual retirement accounts are not a risk, but an historic opportunity to increase prosperity for all.
The question remains "How?" -- but the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity has an excellent answer. This group -- led by former congressman and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and former Social Security Commissioner Dorcas Hardy -- is devoted to enacting legislation that will enable all Americans to invest at least half of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts.
Under their scheme, the government, in effect, becomes the plan sponsor, putting the appropriate funds on the table and guaranteeing something akin to a death benefit should individuals lose money over forty years. In the unlikely event that market performance falls below promised Social Security benefits, government fills in the difference. In the likelier scenario that investment-market performance exceeds Social Security returns, investors pocket the gain.
This plan -- vacant of draconian tax increases or benefit cuts -- is on the money. Today there's a small window of opportunity for transforming Social Security into a vehicle that creates wealth and retirement prosperity for individuals, households, and communities. All Americans can have the chance to realize the American Dream if every American becomes an investor and every worker an owner.

-- Larry Kudlow, NRO's Economics Editor, is CEO of Kudlow & Co. and host with Jim Cramer of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer.
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>>

On Liberty & Lawyers
The Supreme Court hears arguments in the enemy combatant cases.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

In a very real way, listening to the Supreme Court of the United States spend two days poring over the implications of detaining enemy combatants during wartime should fill any American with a deep sense of pride. One is reminded how singular a privilege it is to live in a nation that so venerates liberty it will bestir itself to agitate even over the liberty of those trying to annihilate us -- not so much because of what it means to them as what it says about us.
It is, though, a tempered pride. "Liberty" so readily evanesces from a concrete circumstance to a lofty universal aspiration to a propagandist's jingo. As it makes that warped transition, it increasingly resides in a vacuum, ever more remote from the real world, where it must compete with other facts on the ground. Facts like this one: It's no longer September 10, 2001. That old world is gone forever.
The dismaying part about the arguments in the three combatants' cases the Court is grappling with -- one heard last week concerning foreign combatants detained in Guantanamo Bay and two on Wednesday dealing with American citizens held in military brigs here at home -- is that it's principally Liberty the Jingo that is at issue. We are breathlessly warned that the Constitution is under assault; George W. Bush has torn it asunder by declaring the right to lock up anyone -- meaning any American, in any place, at any time -- and hold him indefinitely, or until the end of the vaporous "War on Terror," which could take, as Justice O'Connor speculated, 25 to 50 years. At Guantanamo Bay, moreover, the President is claimed to have erected a lawless black hole, away from the watchful eyes and jurisdiction of federal judges, for encaging foreigners on the mere suspicion of being Mulsim. Liberty, the scaremongers wail, is besieged.
How far is the propaganda from the reality? Well, the war is now over 30 months old. During that time, in a nation of about 300 million American citizens, the president has designated exactly three -- three -- American citizens as enemy combatants. One, Jose Padilla (a.k.a. "Abdullah al Muhajir"), who trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and urged a post-9/11 mission involving the detonation of a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major American city, is said to have been dispatched here by al Qaeda's operational leaders to conduct massive attacks on dense residential areas and industrial infrastructure. Another, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, is alleged to have been part of a sleeper cell activated post-9/11 in the U.S. for a second wave of attacks (the government has tied him by phone records to a suspected 9/11 financier, whose number, in the run-up to the suicide hijackings, was also called by ringleader Mohammed Atta). The third, Yasar Esam Hamdi, was captured while armed on the battlefield fighting on behalf of enemy forces that even today -- as Army Ranger Pat Tillman's combat death in Afghanistan just last week poignantly reminds us -- continue hunting and killing Americans.
It is in light of these cases that the shock troops of the civil liberties jihad want you to think George Bush is coming for you, too.
But the caterwauling about the purported liberty interests of terrorists has nothing to do with the reality of liberty for you. Unless there's a colorable case that you are on the verge of indiscriminate mass homicide or are about to tote your AK-47 through Kandahar any time soon, your liberty is safe -- and your security to enjoy it is better assured because the people who want to kill you are in the brig.
And what of Guantanamo Bay? These are enemy fighters captured on the battlefield. There is, it bears repeating, a war going on. We could have killed them. Instead, we took the lesser measure of capturing them. As the Defense Department has recently announced, over 10,000 people -- enemy forces and their sympathizers -- have been removed from theaters of combat in Afghanistan. They were not all shunted off to Gitmo. They were, instead, initially screened to determine whether they were actually enemy combatants, whether they posed a continuing threat to our forces, and whether interrogating them extensively would likely yield intelligence that could help defeat the enemy, save lives, and end hostilities more promptly. Of the roughly 10,000, less than eight percent, or a little under 800, were shipped to Gitmo, where they have been humanely held and interrogated.
Contrary to the bombast, the military does not have a great incentive to hold captives endlessly. Once their intelligence value is exhausted, detaining them is burdensome, and makes sense only insofar as they pose a mortal threat. As a result, of the original 800 Gitmo detainees, scores have already been released -- to the point where we are now holding perhaps 650 prisoners, the ones believed to be most dangerous. And, as Newsweek reports this week, releasing many of these may have been a profound mistake -- and one made with an eye toward appeasing critics who, we should know by now, will never be mollified as long as even one terrorist's exertions are being impeded. The released detainees are, predictably, rejoining the battle, taking up arms once again against America.
At too many times during the arguments, in the remove and grandeur of a courtroom far, far from the smolder of the battlefield, Liberty the Jingo seemed awfully weighty as it jousted with these and other new world facts. Our nation has been viciously attacked. Three thousand of our fellow citizens were slaughtered. The enemy demolished a staunch symbol of the economy that is the backbone of our free society, while simultaneously striking at the seat of our military might. We are in a state of war, and it is anything but technical. Nearly 150,000 of our armed forces are in harm's way, lining hot battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are still being shot at, wounded and killed. Further, the enemy brayed to the world only days ago that it was working, ever working, to plot attacks during 2004 that promise to dwarf those of 9/11 -- even as the carnage of the last three years still stuns Madrid, Baghdad, Riyadh, Istanbul, Bali, Casablanca, Djerba, and other victims of militant Islam.
Despite all that, it was not the combatants' counsel but the government that was pressed hardest by the Supreme Court, some of whose members were viscerally disturbed about the seeming "indefinite[ness]" of the detentions. No one quibbled with the President's undoubted power to round up combatants in the first hours or days after the 9/11 attacks, but, for goodness sake, it's been two-and-a-half years now, and how are we to know how long these people will be held without trial?
It's the kind of abstraction closest to a lawyer's heart: the argument based on some hypothetical abuse peculiarly detached from the facts on the ground. Thirty months would indeed be a long time if the last shots had been fired long ago. As it happens, there is a very live war going on. It is a war that will destroy all of our liberties if we don't win. But part of the Court plainly wants the government to pick a number out of the air -- 30 months? three years? five? Some arbitrary time, unrelated to the progress of the war, when it would somehow feel like justice to say: You've held them long enough -- charge them with crimes or let them go.
This misses two core points. First, as already noted, letting them go while hostilities rage means letting them go shoot at our troops or terrorize our homeland. The idea here is to defeat the enemy, not send it reinforcements. Second, the arguments seemed devoid of any sense of how harmful court proceedings could be to an ongoing war. Justice Breyer opined that we use the court system all the time to neutralize bad guys -- as if Congress had authorized the President after 9/11 to fight the Latin Kings or the Bonanno Family. At least twice, Justice Ginsberg matter-of-factly asserted that the combatants must be presumed innocent. Well, with due respect, no. They are not criminal defendants -- at least not now.
They are enemy combatants. Upon being confronted by our troops on the battlefield, they are not presumed innocent; they are attacked, killed, or captured. Capturing them is part of the war effort, not a conversion into a court case. We are not trying to convict them; we are trying to defeat them. And we would decidedly not be advancing the urgent national cause of defeating them if we brought them to court, armed them with all the rights of criminal defendants, and had trial judges instruct jurors that they should presumptively be walked out the courthouse door unless the government has produced compelling quanta of proof -- evidence the publication of which, through our very public criminal process and generous discovery rules, would arm the enemy, in the midst of the war, with a trove of intelligence about our information, our sources of it, our methods of obtaining it.
Further lawyering the war process, some members of the Court, Justice Souter in particular, factitiously parsed the sweeping use-of-force authorization Congress extended to the president a week after the 9/11 attacks. The government argues, based on the Civil War-era Prize Cases, that the president is independently vested with power to repel threats against the U.S., and that, when that power is enhanced by a congressional authorization, the executive stands at the apex of his constitutional warrant. In this instance, America was brutally attacked, and Congress reacted within days with a joint resolution exhorting the President to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" that either carried out the attacks, harbor those who did, or are planning future attacks. It could not be clearer that Congress did not distinguish between Americans and non-Americans -- and it was already well known in 2001 that some al Qaeda affiliated terrorists were Americans, and that some of its cells operated domestically; we had established that during the terrorism trials of the 1990's.
But Justice Souter -- seeming oddly insulated from both al Qaeda's recent threats and its onslaught of international atrocities -- appeared to think the president's own authority to meet and defeat threats on the U.S. had petered out within a few days of 9/11. That left the congressional resolution, about which he and others brainstormed that perhaps it didn't really mean what it says. Does the use of force -- which indisputably includes killing -- really include the less drastic measure of capturing and holding? And, sure, Congress said all "persons" but did it really mean American citizens and those captured on American soil?
This, a friend of mine has jibed, is why people hate lawyers. And it's hard to argue with that. As Justice Kennedy wisely observed, historically declarations of war are simply not written to contemplate every conceivable contingency. But at times, listening to the justices, one imagined future declarations: monstrosities that would look more like the tax code or the federal sentencing guidelines than timely, clear, unadorned directions to do the things that for centuries have been done by nations to vanquish aggressive belligerents.
This also brings front and center a reason why conservatives so often complain about the Court's imperiousness. Even the justices most manifestly troubled did not seem to doubt that Congress could authorize, and the president execute, the use of even overwhelming deadly force. Nor was there real dispute that the power to do the greater necessarily includes the power to do the lesser -- that it is appropriate merely to capture and detain those you are empowered to kill. Nor, really, could it thus be credibly questioned that the authorization, as written here, could easily be construed to permit the detention of all enemy combatants until the end of hostilities. But rather than leave it at that, some of the justices want more -- a positive statement that the facts of these specific cases were within the ambit of legislative contemplation, as well as a certain date when, regardless of what impact it might have on national security, we can either begin jury selection or open the jailhouse doors.
Of course, even if Congress gave them all that, there would be another case tomorrow with new facts unexpressed in the revised resolution, and the merry-go-round would start anew. More to the point, the give-us-more methodology bespeaks a lack of faith in the political process and ignores that Congress often speaks by not speaking. Maybe there's no new resolution because there's no popular perception of a problem. If the American people were up in arms about the detention of three American terrorists and 650 foreign enemy troops who belong to forces that have thus far killed over 700 of our military and thousands of our civilians, there would be little reason to fear. There would quickly be a plethora of legislation calling for release, or at least greater scrutiny of the administration's actions. If broad coalitions in Congress thought for a second that the president's actions had breached the confines of the post-9/11 resolution, there would be a new resolution, cabining executive action where it had heretofore been excessive. That this has not happened is eloquent testimony to the measure, reasonableness, and humanity-indeed, the American-ness -- with which we have met our foes, even as they pursue their holy war.
It is difficult to predict how the combatant cases will be resolved. Oral argument is not always a good barometer of where judges stand on a dispute; sometimes their questions convey a view, sometimes they are merely meant to provoke and challenge, the better to sharpen the debate. In the Guantanamo case, the Court should stay out of it and let the branch responsible for fighting the war -- which has done it thus far to great effect and with dignity -- decide whom to kill, whom to capture, and whom to hold, without judicial second-guessing. But even if the Court flexes its muscles by seizing unprecedented review power, it is likely to exercise that power deferentially, approving the military's actions and giving our enemies scant reason for hope -- although potentially bogging the war effort down in legal process.
The American enemy combatants are a more worrisome call. It would be nice if the Court reaffirmed its World War II era ruling in Ex Parte Quirin that being an American does not inoculate an enemy from unlawful combatant treatment; but even if the Court were to lay groundwork for future, periodic judicial scrutiny to ensure that detention remains warranted, it is hard to believe the justices will look past the continuing al Qaeda peril and swing open the door to civilian trials, and all the damage they could wreak, in the middle of a war.
All that, however, is almost secondary. What these cases best display is that liberty, as both an ideal and a reality, is alive and well. For all the pernicious atmospherics, our government has been a model of restraint, and these essential detentions do not foreshadow tyrannical abuse.

-- Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others, is an NRO contributor.

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A Call for Kerry to Diversify His Assets

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, May 2, 2004; Page A05


Que pasa, Se?or Kerry?

Charges of a whitewash continue to dog the Democratic challenger to President Bush. The National Council of La Raza, a powerful Hispanic political organization, sent a letter to John F. Kerry last week protesting the "remarkable and unacceptable absence of Latinos" in his campaign.
Pointing to an April 16 Kerry news release about 28 "senior staff" appointments, NCLR President Raul Yzaguirre wrote: Not "a single one of your senior staff is Latino. Quite frankly we find this deeply troubling and raise questions about the seriousness of your commitment to diversity."
Nor was the Hispanic group placated by an April 22 follow-up announcement by Kerry of various "community outreach" workers, many of whom are Latino. This "only reinforces perceptions that your campaign views Hispanics as a voting constituency to be mobilized, but not as experts to be consulted in shaping policy," Yzaguirre wrote.
This comes after similar complaints from African Americans. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) told the Associated Press that he was "concerned" and suggested that "the senator should remedy this very quickly."
The Kerry campaign has moved hastily to address its lack of black talent, announcing last week that two African Americans had been named to senior positions.
But what about the Hispanics?
"Latinos are involved at all levels of this campaign in all departments -- including the top echelon," Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. "Additionally, it is important to note that the hiring -- much like the campaign -- has just begun." She named senior political adviser Paul Rivera, director of Hispanic outreach Luis Elizondo-Thomson, regional political director Lisa Garcia, deputy press secretary Dag Vega and director of Internet operations Luis Miranda.
And don't forget Vice President Bill Richardson.
"Oh, that's a secret," Cutter replied.

Dem Panic Watch, Part III
Plus, how to restructure Kerry's campaign.
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Sunday, May 2, 2004, at 2:34 AM PT


Dem Panic Watch 3: Brazile ... Edwards ... Rendell ... "one senior Democratic official" ... maybe Carter Eskew too! ... P.S.: Is it a horrible disadvantage--as the NYT's Nagourney, following the WashTimes' Lambro, suggests--that Kerry doesn't yet have an Ohio campaign director or a "full-fledged campaign 'war room'" six months before the election? Not even anti-Kerry RealClearPolitics thinks this is a big deal. ... Vain, pompous, dissembling candidate--important! Delay in fully-staffing 'war room'--not important! .... P.P.S.: Nagourney argues that a robust war room would have improved the Kerry response in the "medals" controversy--apparently by marshaling "surrogates" to rebut Good Morning America's charge instead of having Kerry go on the show and fight with Charlie Gibson. Hmmm. Wasn't that the sort of charge a candidate would normally be expected to answer himself? If a surrogate (or friendly foe like McCain) can handle that question, maybe surrogates can handle the candidate's other tasks too, like developing a "message"! ... Maybe the candidate can stay out of the public eye entirely for six months while the surrogates do the actual campaigning for him!... Maybe the Kerry campaign could streamline its problematic organizational structure by eliminating the candidate and running a group of these more appealing surrogates instead! ... Nagourney may be on to something here. ... 1:38 A.M.

Faster Iraq Watch: George Will joins the are-we-really-going-to-try-to-wait-until-January-to-have-elections-in-Iraq camp. Count me in. It would be great if months could be spent lovingly building the supportive intermediary institutions of civil society, but this is a luxury we don't seem to have. ... 5:13 P.M.

Dem Panic Watch 2: Coelho (who may have an ax to grind from 2000) and Brazile! ... 2:31 P.M.

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Many Westerners in Saudi packing their bags
Reuters News Service
YANBU, Saudi Arabia -- American and European families packed their bags today after Saturday's deadly attack on foreigners.
Gunmen killed four and wounded two Houston-based workers of an international engineering company Saturday. Six Westerners were killed in all, and more than two dozen Saudis were wounded.
The 90 employees of ABB-Lummus in Yanbu and their families all decided to leave within days, company spokesman Bjorn Edlund told The Associated Press. Most of the employees are Americans, but they also include Britons, Australians, Filipinos and Indians.
"Not surprisingly, everyone wanted to go home," Edlund said.
Many expatriates in Yanbu said it was too soon to decide whether to leave. "It's been a shock," said one. "There's been no panic but everyone is concerned and they will have to decide what steps to take."
U.S. government advice was unambiguous: "Last night we sent a message to all Americans," an embassy spokeswoman said. "Our advice stands. Americans should not travel to Saudi Arabia and those that are here should depart."
The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh issued a message today saying its staff would leave diplomatic compounds only for essential business "until further notice." It canceled all social events involving guests at the embassy or at the U.S. consulates in Jiddah and Dhahran.
Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, the U.S. consul general, advised Americans to leave the kingdom.
Britain's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sherard Cowper-Coles, visited Yanbu, 220 miles north of Jiddah, to insist that the attack would not cause "a mass exodus" of foreigners.
But behind closed doors, dozens of Westerners prepared to leave.
"It's not safe here anymore. I don't think I can stay any longer," said a Canadian engineer, walking inside a foreigners' compound with his young daughter. Like many Westerners, he refused to give his name out of concern for his safety.
Families of Americans walked quietly through the Radhwa housing compound, across the street from the Holiday Inn, but wouldn't speak to reporters. Many Westerners were visibly nervous.
"It's a little freaky out here," said Nick Dockett, a 36-year-old engineer from London. He quit his job with ABB in Yanbu two weeks ago and was preparing to move to Thailand when the attack occurred. "I guess I made the move at the right time," he said.
Saudi police beefed up security in the city, home to a large foreign business community, erecting checkpoints and roadblocks, after Saturday's attack. The four gunmen were later killed in clashes with police. Two officers also died and 18 were injured.
Crown Prince Abdullah said "foreign elements" were behind the killing and Saudi Ambassador to Britain Turki al-Faisal said he believed al-Qaida was responsible.
State oil firm Saudi Aramco has vowed to guard vital oil assets and protect employees.
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Panel Seeks Steps for Cuba Regime Change
51 minutes ago

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A government commission is recommending to President Bush (news - web sites) a series of measures to cut U.S. dollar flows to Cuba as part of a broader policy to hasten the end of the country's communist system, an administration official said Sunday night.
AP Photo
A commission report, in preparation for six months and overseen by Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), also calls for steps to overcome Cuban jamming of U.S.-government sponsored radio and television broadcasts to Cuba, the official said.
The official, asking not to be identified in advance of the report's public release, said it urges increased support for Cuban dissidents and families of political prisoners and also calls for measures to encourage foreign governments to distance themselves from the Cuban regime.
Last October, Bush announced the creation of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and set a May 1 deadline for completion of a report. The concept and the timing appeared to be linked to maintaining in the November elections the solid support Bush received in 2000 from Cuban-Americans in Florida. Without their backing, the election would have gone to Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites).
Four of the five chapters in the 500-page report deal with ways to assist a post-Castro government that seeks to establish democracy. The other chapter focuses on ways to end Castro's government.
Until now, the administration's policy has been to hasten a democratic transition in Cuba. The commission report goes a step further in recommending what amounts to regime change. Bush is expected make a final decision on the report later in the week. Some details in the report were disclosed in Sunday's editions of The Miami Herald.
Cuban officials have been awaiting the commission's recommendations with intense interest, warning citizens that U.S. military action could not be ruled out.
In a May Day speech on Saturday, Castro said Cuba would defend itself "to the last drop of blood," against possible U.S. aggression. Administration officials should be "calmer, more sensible, wiser and more intelligent" than they have been in the past in their policy toward Cuba, Castro said.
Bush has thwarted efforts by Congress to ease the U.S. embargo against Cuba but has disappointed some in the Cuban-American community for not doing more to bring about Castro's demise.
Still unresolved, according to the administration official, was a decision on whether to recommend a cut in the legal limit of $1,200 a year that Cuban-Americans are allowed to send to friends and relatives on the island. Much of the money ends up in government coffers.
Some officials are advocating that remittances be eliminated altogether to deprive Castro of an important source of income. Others recommend that the current limit be retained for humanitarian reasons. The official predicted that the final decision would be somewhere in between.
Another target is revenue that Cuba reaps from overweight baggage fees paid by Cuban-Americans who fly to Cuba with medicine and other items. The official said the report recommends that passengers departing for Cuba adhere to the 40-pound weight limit to avoid overweight fees on arrival.

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Most believe Saddam is guilty of atrocities, will be put to death

Fri Apr 30, 6:24 AM ET

By Steven Komarow, USA TODAY
Iraqis expect Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) to be put on trial this year, found guilty and sentenced to death for murdering Iraqi civilians, a new poll shows.
The Iraqi judicial system should "tell the world about his atrocities," says Ala Maki, an official of the Iraqi Governing Council. "That is the only way to learn the lesson of such a brutal dictatorship."
A USA/CNN/Gallup national poll of Iraqis shows a majority of all religious and ethnic groups believe the former dictator ordered torture, killing and the use of poison gas on Iraqi civilians.
Even Saddam's fellow Sunni Muslims, by greater than 60%, say he ordered the deaths of Iraqis. A plurality of them call for the death penalty. The majority Shiite Muslims and minority Kurds, both of whom were oppressed by Saddam, are virtually unanimous in their opinion that he is guilty of murdering Iraqis.
Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured near Tikrit in December. Two months before the U.S. turnover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, it's not clear when or how a trial for Saddam would be held, or by what method his execution would be carried out. U.S. authorities have said that Saddam will be turned over to Iraqis to face justice.
The poll also shows many Iraqis aren't sure he'll get a fair trial. A quarter of the people say a fair trial is not likely. Among the doubters, Sunnis say he'll get convicted whether he's guilty or not. Shiites say he could be found innocent even though he's guilty.
The Red Cross recently visited Saddam and said he was treated properly and was in good health.

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>> MALAYSIA WATCH



Nuke Rules
We don't want to, but it looks like now we'll have to:

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday requiring all 191 U.N. member-states to pass laws to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists and black marketeers.
...International treaties now target weapons proliferation by governments - but there are no laws to prevent "non-state actors" such as crooked scientists, black marketeers and terrorists from obtaining such weapons.

...The resolution requires all U.N. member states to adopt laws to prevent "non-state actors" from manufacturing, acquiring or trafficking in nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the materials to make them, and the missiles and other systems to deliver them.

It also requires all countries to take measures to account for, and secure, all banned weapons, missiles and weapons material and to develop border controls and step up law enforcement efforts "to detect, deter, prevent and combat ... the illicit trafficking and brokering in such items."

All countries are required to submit a report on their implementation of the resolution within six months to a new committee. It will remain in existence for "no longer than two years." [Associated Press via The Wall Street Journal Online]


Malaysia has all along been hesitant to introduce such laws; the latest case being one related to the Scomi affair.

With this resolution, we can be forced to do so:

The resolution was adopted under a chapter of the U.N. Charter which allows military enforcement if necessary. The Non-Aligned Movement, representing 116 mostly developing nations, objected, but Cunningham said the U.S. decided to keep the resolution under that chapter because it addresses "a threat to international peace and security."
The final draft makes clear, however, that there will be no unilateral enforcement. It expresses the Security Council's "intention to monitor closely the implementation of this resolution and, at the appropriate level, to take further decisions which may be required to this end."


I have argued that we, of our own volition and without anyone telling us to, should have introduced tighter controls, especially after the Scomi-BSA Tahir scandal.

Now we have no choice.

BTW Whatever happened to BSA Tahir?

Posted at 11:50 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Treaty-ing It Lightly
Presumably, the term "confidence building measures" does not hold much significance in these parts:

Malaysia is not keen to sign additional protocols to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the country lacks the capacity to fulfil the obligations required.
Director-general of the Malaysian Institute for Nuclear Technology Research (MINT) Datuk Dr Ahmad Sobri Hashim said the additional protocol regulates the import-export movement of components used in nuclear development.

These include centrifuge parts used for uranium enrichment.

If Malaysia signs the additional protocol, its "frontliners" like Customs officials, must be able to identify and report those parts to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

... As components like centrifuge parts can have multiple uses, it is often difficult even for experts to tell if they are meant for nuclear weapons development.

"The additional protocol contains a very subjective description of items. If trained nuclear scientists find it difficult to identify, how much more for frontliners like Customs officials? At the moment we lack the capacity at that level," he said. [via The New Straits Times Online]


We uncover a nuclear arms blackmarketeer and his activities in the country, but leave him unpunished.

We know certain safeguards would help prevent a recurrence of this embarrassing -- at the very least -- episode, but refuse to adopt them because it's supposedly too hard.

Should we be surprised at the insinuations thrown at us?

Sobri is right when he says that at the moment we lack the capacity. But the key phrase here is "at the moment."

We will never have the capacity if we don't start. And who says it's not doable?

We are more concerned about the export of such items, rather than imports, because Malaysia does not harbour nuclear arms ambitions.

So, we get every company and facility involved in producing materials and items that could be used in the production of nuclear weapons to declare in detail their capabilities in that area, open up their plants for monitoring and regular inspection, and allow our nuclear experts to examine every export-bound consignment of dual-use items at the production facility itself.

The onus would be on the producers and exporters to prove that they have complied with the law.

The state of our international standing should be important enough to justify the cost and effort to build up our capabilities in the areas that Sobri claims we are lacking.

Let's stop making lame excuses.

ONE MORE THING. When it comes to international treaties, shouldn't the Cabinet be the one to decide what we do or do not sign, and not the director-general of a government agency?

Posted at 12:27 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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N Korea train blast cannot drive nuke talks
By Kosuke Takahashi

TOKYO - The ferocious train explosion in North Korea last week, the request for aid and the outpouring of international assistance has prompted speculation that just maybe the Hermit Kingdom will humanize a bit, open up a bit, recognize that it needs the outside world and cooperate in forthcoming working-level talks on defusing the Pyongang nuclear crisis.

The first six-party working-level talks on defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis will be held May 12 in Beijing in advance of a formal session yet to be scheduled this summer. Is there a rail link between Thursday's announcement of the talks and last week's devastating train explosion in North Korea, accompanied by an outpouring of international aid? Probably not.

Informed observers say the explosion, the details of which are still not known, will have little or no bearing on the first working-level talks scheduled in advance of formal six-party talks expected, but not yet scheduled for this summer. The parties are North Korea and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, all but Pyongyang trying to put a permanent end to North Korea's nuclear programs in return for cheap energy, security guarantees and economic assistance.

The reasons are twofold: One, Pyongyang's response to the disaster hasn't revealed any change in North Korea's hostile attitudes toward the international community. Two, the United States is far more concerned with Iraq and the fighting in Fallujah than with North Korea - and it doesn't score points with voters by accommodating Pyongyang in any way.

"Despite the setup of the working group meeting on May 12, unfortunately the [US President George W] Bush administration is tied up with Iraqi issues, especially about [fighting insurgents in] Fallujah," said Douglas Ramsey, a consultancy manager with Jane's Information Group, affiliated with Jane's Defense Weekly. Ramsey is a commentator on security and defense issues, including Asia.

"The North's nuclear issue has become the back-burner issue at the Bush administration," Ramsey said in an interview with Asia Times Online. "Six-party talks will see no progress, unless some event drives it. Event-driven. But the train explosion is not big enough to drive it," said Ramsey, who is visiting Tokyo.

The impasse is likely to continue, but so will talks, at least that much is clear from Kim Jong-il's train trip to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders. He passed through the Ryongchon train station just eight or nine hours before it was flattened by an explosion last weekend. More than 160 people were killed, about half of them children; 1,300 were injured and more than 8,100 homes and 30 public buildings were destroyed, including an elementary school. Key manufacturing and industrial infrastructure, important to the failing economy, also were destroyed or damaged.

It's tempting to think that North Korea, which had refused international assistance in the past in disasters and famine, was revealing a new spirit of openness this time. Pyongyang, however, has been highly selective, refusing doctors, medicine, medical equipment, food, water and reconstruction teams from South Korea. It rejected the swift transport of supplies from south to north by road. This is the same old Pyongyang, observers say, that allows its people to suffer, and instead, requests color television sets, concrete and diesel fuel from the international community. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reports that stricken victims rushed back into burning buildings in order to "rescue" portraits of the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il. That speaks volumes about rigid ideology but says little about a new attitude in Pyongyang toward the international community.

So, this time again it is thinking about its regime's well-being first, before that of treatment-needy children. "Color televisions are not [the] answer for those children," said Ramsey. This type of request speaks volumes about the regime and its lack of sensibilities to the international perception," he said.

A week after the scourge of the massive rail explosion near the Chinese border, details of its damage are trickling out from the Hermit Kingdom. The Stalinist nation took the unusual step - for Pyongyang - of officially announcing the domestic catastrophe and welcoming aid workers to the site just two days after the explosion. Even in the "great famine" of the 1990s, in which millions of people died of starvation, North Korea did not seek aid from the international community. This also speaks volumes about the gravity of the explosion.

North Korea has refused any sort of external influence since its birth at the conclusion of World War II and has always avoided showing any weakening of internal control. It never wants to open the door because that would admit too many unwanted influences and the regime might come apart.

What really blew up?
Was it a nitrate explosion or a propane explosion? Details of the cause of the accident are still unknown, but eventually this too will trickle out in coming weeks and reveal a lot about North Korea's current energy and cash situation. Early reports said it was caused by the crash of two trains, one carrying fuel oil and the other liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or some sort of chemicals, during the shunting of cargo. But later on, KCNA said two rail wagons, believed to be loaded with ammonium nitrate used for fertilizer, blew up during a shunting operation with fuel oil wagons. The information has been complicated and confusing at best.

"We are not sure about the cause," John Sparrow, the Red Cross' representative in Beijing, said in a telephone interview on Thursday with Asia Times Online. "There are many versions of what happened. In the first stage, some even said it [was] caused by dynamite."

Photographs and video footage from the site apparently showed the explosion of some combustible products. The explosion scattered debris over two kilometers of damage radius and left children injured by a wave of glass, rubble and blasts of hot air.

The Customs General Administration of China has been presenting intriguing and puzzling data to oil market players in Asia, possibly relating to the tragedy. Surprisingly, in light of its own chronic energy shortages, North Korea recently has been exporting LPG, commonly known as propane, to China. For example, the latest data showed it exported to China 1,225 tonnes of propane in January, and 608 tonnes last November, while Japan only exported to China 814 tonnes and 3 tonnes during the same respective periods.

China is also suffering an energy shortage and needs more fuel for its super-heated economy. Does it aim to bolster Pyongyang's desperately weak economy by providing hard currency for the gas? Or is it just to give North Korea some "carrots" in order to win some political compromise in the stalled six-party talks?

The explosion occurred very close to the North Korean border with China. Traded propane could well be related to the blast. Even if propane was not the cause, the world might want to know how many tons of ammonium nitrate, which Pyongyang cited as the combustible material, exploded, because this also has a bearing on the North's cash and energy situations.

Some medical aid workers saw parallels between the fiery train blast and the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, that pushed the old Soviet Union to reform and finally collapse. But North Korea still represents the regime and personality cult built on mistrust of all outsiders since its inception, and this tragedy clearly will not nudge the Hermit Kingdom out of isolation.

Ramsey, the Jane's commentator, said that the huge amount of aid from the international community, including those in the six-party talks, will not induce North Korea to give up its nuclear program and what experts believe to be several weapons. North Koreans, he pointed out, always have extended their hands for assistance and given nothing in return. So far, there's no reason to change.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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China, India: Difference in the details
By Lynette Ong

China and India are among the fastest growing economies in the world, with growth rates much admired by developing countries desperately struggling to crawl out of the poverty trap. Their abundance of relatively skilled labor at low cost has turned them into "factories of the world", and their huge populations in turn offer lucrative consumer markets for multinationals. These two Asian giants are tipped to become the world's next economic superpowers.

Nonetheless, a closer examination reveals that they offer competing models of development, though they became modern nations at about the same time, India in 1947, China in 1949. They launched reforms from different starting points: China embarked on market reforms in 1979 - a decade earlier than India - from a centrally planned, economically backward, agrarian economy; India initiated its reforms in the early 1990s and is today a semi-socialist economy in a fledging democracy ridden with problems of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency.

Today, China is seen to be ahead of India; but there is much speculation on their respective growth trajectories.

What do the numbers tell us?
China's economic growth thus far is certainly more impressive than its South Asian cousin. China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by an average of 9.7 percent during 1982-92, and by 9 percent during 1992-02. On the other hand, India grew by 5.6 percent and 6 percent in the same respective periods, though still impressive by most developing countries' standards. India's lagging is due to a number of reasons. The Chinese save twice as much as Indians: for every US$1 earned, the Chinese save 44 cents, compared with 24 cents by Indians. As a result, the Chinese invest more in their economy than do the Indians. The share of gross domestic investment in GDP is 41 percent in China, compared to 22.8 percent in India. The Chinese economy is also more opened to international trade, and therefore gains from greater specialization in areas where China excels. China's export share of GDP is twice that of India's.

A more compelling reason to account for India's slower growth is the flows of foreign direct investment (FDI). As shown in the diagram below, the amount of FDI into India is only a small fraction of that into China. Of course, any statistics, especially those reported by communist cadres who are rewarded for economic performance of their localities, should be taken with a grain of salt. As frequently pointed out, China's FDI figures are likely to be exaggerated by "round-tripping" - domestic capital disguised as foreign investment (passed through Hong Kong) to qualify for special investment incentives reserved for foreigners. India's FDI figures, however, may be understated because they exclude foreigners' reinvested profits, the proceeds of foreign stock market listings, intra-company loans, and so forth. This may not be a simple issue of whether India is able to attract foreign investment, since it may have as much to do with New Delhi's policy or practice for years of keep foreign investors out of the country.
















China vs India: Key Economic Indicators
China 1982 1992 2001 2002
GDP (US$ billions) 221.5 454.6 1,167.1 1,232.7
Gross domestic investment/GDP (%)
33.2 36.2 38.5 41.0
Exports of goods & services/GDP (%)
8.9 19.5 25.5 29.5
Gross domestic savings/GDP (%)
34.8 37.7 40.9 44.0
India
GDP (US$ billions) 194.8 244.2 478.5 510.2
Gross domestic investment/GDP (%)
21.7 23.8 22.3 22.8
Exports of goods & services/GDP (%)
6.1 9.0 13.5 15.2
Gross domestic savings/GDP (%) 18.3 21.8 23.5 24.2

Foreign vs private companies
China may boast impressive records in courting foreign investors, but it has few successful indigenous private companies on which it can pride itself. China's private companies are systematically discriminated against by the capital market and the legal system. Private property rights have only recently been recognized by the central government and given legal recognition and protection. The state-owned banking system is notorious for molly-coddling the inefficient and debt-laden state-owned enterprises, while shying away from the vibrant private sector.

The stock markets are also largely reserved for those enterprises with state backing. Ironically, foreign companies in China are granted better recognition, legal protection and market access than indigenous private companies. The internationally better known Chinese firms, such as China Telecom, and the white goods, or major appliance, maker Haier, were formerly nurtured in the state cradle. China Telecom is a state-owned enterprise, and Haier was formerly a collectively owned township and village enterprise (TVE).

In stark contrast, India's brand of internationally well-known companies, such as software giants Infosys Technologies and Wipro, and pharmaceutical and biotech start-ups Ranbaxy and Dr Reddy's Labs, are born and bred locally. "Indeed, by relying primarily on organic growth, India is making fuller use of its resources and has chosen a path that may well deliver more sustainable progress than China's FDI-driven approach," write Huang Yasheng and Tarun Khanna, dons from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, and the Harvard Business School, in an article published in Foreign Policy in August, 2003.

"China's export-led manufacturing boom is largely a creation of foreign direct investment, which effectively serves as a substitute for domestic entrepreneurship," they argue.

The point about India's better use of resources is worth noting, as the numbers seem to lend support to this hypothesis. China's GDP growth rate (8 percent in 2002) is about double that of India (4.6 percent); however, China's savings ($542 billion) are four times higher than India's ($122 billion), not to mention that its FDI inflows are more than 10 times greater ($52 billion compared with $3.5 billion).

Not just markets - institutions matter
Why is entrepreneurship able to flourish in India but not in China? "Blossoming entrepreneurship in India is due in part to a liberalizing financial market, which provides capital access previously exclusive to certain caste groups to the budding entrepreneurs. Capital is now available to private start-ups, through venture capitalists, the banking system, and the stock markets," says Vijay Kelkar, an advisor to the Indian Ministry of Finance, at a speech recently delivered at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Aside from a financial market that allocates resources more efficiently, India seems to have in place the institutions - democracy, a functioning judiciary, property rights and so on - conducive to economic development. Huang and Khanna, from MIT and Harvard, argue: "Democracy, a tradition of entrepreneurship, and a decent legal system have given India the underpinnings necessary for free enterprise to flourish." Of the world's top 200 small-sized companies listed by Forbes in 2002, 13 were from India; while four were China's - all of them based in Hong Kong.

Nonetheless, China's greater openness to the outside world and its ability to benefit from foreign trade and investment can be attributable to a "stronger state" (albeit authoritarian), one that is able to advocate and implement policies in the country's interests, rather than being held hostage by any vested interest groups. By contrast, India's burgeoning but unruly democracy means that in order to gain power, the Indian policy makers are often trapped in myopic vested interests and are sometimes held hostage by protectionist voices.

Lynette Ong studies China's political economy at the Australian National University. She can be contacted at LHLO@lycos.com.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

How Would Democracy Change China?



Democratization and Greater China
How Would Democracy Change China?
by Arthur Waldron
Arthur Waldron (awaldron2@aol.com) is a Senior Fellow of FPRI and the Lauder Professor of
International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include From War to
Nationalism: China's turning Point, 1924-1925 (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and The
Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Given the requirements of China's increasingly affluent and wellinformed
society and its dynamic economy, political change in the
People's Republic of China is probably coming sooner than many
would expect and may well take the form of steps toward democracy. Key
among the reasons for this is the situation in Hong Kong. Since the mass
demonstrations held there on July 1, 2003, a swelling chorus of voices has
been calling for democracy in the Special Administrative Region. Influential
businessmen such as Sir Gordon Wu, who has long been skeptical about
democracy, have now joined the human rights and democratic activists'
cause.1
Remarkably, until July 1 placed the issue of ``democracy, yes or no?''
squarely in Beijing's lap, many observers treated the possibility of genuine
change as remote.2 Hence Beijing's response, several months after the
demonstrations, that local leaders ``must reiterate their support for [chief
executive Tung Chee-hwa] in public because it is crucial to preserve stability
in Hong Kong,''3 despite the near universal disapproval being expressed for
him. (An October 2003 poll indicated that Tung enjoyed the support of only
25 percent of the public.)4
The inexplicable conviction that democratization for China proper
was not an issue, let alone a possibility, was remarkably durable: it survived
the end of communism in the West and the pluralization of the Soviet Union,
as well as the wave of political change in Asia that began in the Philippines in
2004 Published by Elsevier Limited on behalf of Foreign Policy Research Institute.
1 ``Start talking on direct polls, says Gordon Wu,'' South China Morning Post, Sept. 16, 2003.
2 BBC correspondent Fergal Keene, for example, recently estimated that China ``is perhaps
one generation away from a major upheaval,'' Independent, Sept. 6, 2003.
3 ``We're listening, say leaders, but stability is key,'' South China Morning Post, Sept. 22,
2003.
4 ``Trust in government hits low point,'' South China Morning Post, Oct. 15, 2003.
Spring 2004 | 247
the 1980s. Today, China is surrounded almost entirely by democratic states,
from India to Mongolia to South Korea and Japan to Taiwan and into
Southeast Asia. It is one of only five remaining communist dictatorships in the
world: the overwhelming majority of the world's nations are democratic or
democratizing. Some political scientists have taken to explaining how
autocracy has survived in China, by implication suggesting that it will
continue.5
Now the people of Hong Kong have made their preferences clear, not
only through the summer demonstrations but also, even more powerfully, in
the record voter turnout and crushing victory of the democrats in this past
autumn's district council elections. Beijing must decide whether to go with
the clear trend or somehow try to stop it. The decision point is 2007 for
whether or not to permit universal suffrage and genuine democracy, as the
Basic Law suggests is possible.
If democracy is permitted in the Hong Kong SAR, then pressure for
similar dispensations elsewhere in China will prove difficult to resist (as
happened with economic reform, which was initially limited to a few special
zones). Unlike economic reform, however, which in certain respects has
strengthened the Party's control over business and wealth, democracy will
certainly undermine Party control of politics--and for that reason is a most
unwelcome possibility for many Party members.
What if Beijing decides against democracy for Hong Kong? In that
case, Hong Kong voters may punish the current, partially democratic
government by electing enough opposition legislators to create a deadlock
that will prevent the Beijing-appointed chief executive from securing
approval for his programs even under the current, Beijing-designed system.
Beijing is trying to stop this disastrous, for it, outcome by means of
rationalization and manipulation. Thus it stresses that economic, and not
political, grievances are at the root of the present situation and professes to
believe that if somehow Hong Kong's economy can be gotten back on track,
democratization will fade away. Thus State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan was
quoted as saying in September 2003 that ``we should recognize that boosting
Hong Kong's economy is the key to addressing the problems facing the city
and helping ease the grievances of the middle class.''6 If this strategy fails, as
is likely, only a very hard option will remain: rewriting the Basic Law and
somehow imposing dictatorial rule. Xu Kuangdi, a vice chairman of the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, condemned the summer
protest as ``a bad thing.''7 Leaders of the democratic movement such as
Bishop Zen and legislator Emily Lau Wai-hing have already been vilified in
5 Perhaps the best example is Andrew J. Nathan, ``China's Changing of the Guard:
Authoritarian Resilience,'' Journal of Democracy, Jan. 2003, pp. 6-17.
6 ``A revived economy will ease grievances, delegations told,'' South China Morning Post,
Sept. 16, 2003.
7 ``Beijing has never been so worried about HK,'' South China Morning Post, Sept. 11, 2003.
WALDRON
248 | Orbis
the official media.8 No doubt Beijing is of two minds about what to do next,
but it must do something soon.
What happens in 2007 is not going to be clean or neat. Democratization
is a difficult process that can go terribly wrong. In country after country,
the interim period when the old system is breaking down but the new one
has not yet taken root has proved to be a time of suffering, violence, and
often political extremism. The Soviet Union took its strong medicine in 1989:
abolishing the communist system, freeing the press and media, legalizing
opposition parties, introducing parliamentary rule, making the ruble into a
convertible currency, and liberating the Soviet empire. At first, many
observers felt that the cure was worse than the disease.
Economic Consequences
In the first few years after the end of communismin Russia and the Cold
War, poverty seemed to rise, the ruble collapsed, pensioners were wiped out, a
coup was attempted, and many regretted the loss of empire and superpower
status. But Russia has in the last few years begun to reap some benefits. While
authoritarian tendencies continue in government, the police, and the media,
the gloom of the late 1990s has lifted. The economy is developing at a
respectable rate, foreign exchange reserves are growing, the Russian media is
incomparably freer than either its Soviet or Chinese counterparts, and elections
continue to be scheduled and held. Russia's still incomplete democratization
has generally been beneficial to all Russians, and Moscow is emerging from
seven decades of grime as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
Regime type and regime change made a huge difference in the Cold
War and its end. During the Cold War, Kremlin-watchers would often
maintain that Soviet foreign policy was in keeping with Russian traditions.
Indeed, some blurred the line between the ancien regime and the USSR. This
sense that Russia somehow had a set of national interests that both tsar and
commissar held in common was widespread, and it was supported by the
then-current political science theory, which paid little attention to regime
type. Such arguments are nearly impossible to make for Russia today, but we
still hear them for China: that what is important is not the fact that the
government in Beijing is communist but that it is a Chinese regime, a rather
stable one at that, and that China has a set of rationally defined national
interests that any regime can be expected to further.9
8 ``Bishop Zen willing to talk to Beijing,'' South China Morning Post, Sept. 21, 2003; ``Do not
show toleration of Emily Lau's offence,'' China Daily (Hong Kong edition), Sept. 2, 2003.
9 ``In all, the preponderance of evidence indicates that the Chinese regime is relatively
stable at present [and] that its foreign policy is primarily motivated by rational national
interests.'' Letter to the editor signed by Michael D. Swaine and eleven others, Commentary,
Oct. 2003, pp. 10-11.
Democratization
Spring 2004 | 249
If this were the case, then China would be an even more exceptional
country than has been imagined. For in every other country, regime type has
made an immense difference in both domestic and foreign policy. In France,
the Bourbons sought power, glory, and territorial aggrandizement, but
Napoleon was something altogether different. In Germany, the foreign policy
of the Prussian (later imperial) government supervised by Bismarck was very
different from that of the Weimar Republic or National Socialism. In Britain, a
single election that threw out the Tories and brought in Labour meant rapid
independence for India. The United States has no single set of foreign policy
goals that are equally supported by Democrats and Republicans. Likewise,
the regime type in China has made a difference in the past and will continue
to do so in the future. Furthermore, fully democratic countries with
entrenched constitutions and regular elections (not states in the midst of
transition) have a low proclivity to make war on one another.
Nevertheless, many people in both China and the West are explicitly
hostile to the idea of Chinese democracy, even though the PRC's current
constitution does provide (even if only on paper) for elections and the
associated constitutional structures and independent judicial institutions.
Who would benefit from such elections? First, farmers. Rural residents
constitute 70 to 80 percent of China's population. They will dominate any
fairly elected parliament and change policies. Thus they might allocate funds
for rural infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and secondary roads, and
for education, health care, and social insurance for rural populations. They
would demand equality of treatment with the residents of the urban areas,
which today boast far higher standards of living and account for some 80
percent of government expenditures. They would call for trade policies that
made it easier for them to specialize in high-value crops and protect them
against subsidized exports from the developed world.
Such an electoral result would be nothing short of a revolution.
China's current economic ruling class is an interlocking directorate of Party
members, Chinese who have acquired foreign citizenship and then returned
to China to work with them, and foreign investors. As Hugo Restall writes,
``the most productive sector of the economy is largely run by foreigners, for
the benefit of foreigners.''10
The current economic system favors cities, especially coastal cities,
over countryside; state-owned enterprises (SOEs), communist officials (who
comprise some 80 percent of private business owners, though a small fraction
of the population), and foreigners over ordinary Chinese; and high
technology over agricultural development. The rural majority of a democratic
China would probably force the government to give them greater economic
opportunity and a larger voice in major projects. They might disapprove
massive projects like the Three Gorges Dam.
10 Hugo Restall, ``Why China Is a Paper Tiger,'' Asian Wall Street Journal, Aug. 1, 2003.
WALDRON
250 | Orbis
Providing money for rural areas would further strain China's budget,
which portends trouble ahead. Foreign Policy's Moises Naim notes that ``no
country has ever been able to go through the social, economic and political
change that China will undergo without accidents that derail even the best
laid plans.''11 Billions of dollars will be needed even to begin to address the
rural areas' problems. Where will the money come from?
The Chinese government currently runs a chronic fiscal deficit and
has rendered insolvent the banking system it controls by forcing it to make
massive loans to money-losing SOEs, which use the borrowed money to cover
current employment and other costs and to increase capacity. Most industrial
products are therefore oversupplied, which drives prices down and creates
chronic deflation.12 But the debt thus created--as well as the expansion of
the money supply as the government prints currency (RMB) with which to buy
dollars at a fixed rate and then issues bonds to soak up the excess liquidity--
plants the seeds for inflation. The only possible way to cover China's current
loan obligations is by means of the printing press. So here is the critical point:
new money for rural needs can only come from the redirection of current
resource flows.
It is estimated that the 2008 Beijing Olympics will cost more than $20
billion. The cost of launching the PRC's first manned space mission in October
2003 was comparable. China is also spending massively on missiles,
warships, and a new air force, much of which is imported.13 Democratization
would almost certainly change Chinese foreign policy.
Foreign Policy Consequences
China's current foreign policy is inconsistent and often self-defeating.
For instance, it is obviously in China's interest to have fewer, not more,
nuclear-armed neighbors. But China's military build-up and its nuclear
proliferation, especially to Pakistan, were the reason for India's decision to
become a declared and competent nuclear power. Perhaps Beijing imagined
that Washington would somehow squelch India and prevent it from
becoming a military rival to China. If so, it was mistaken. The result is
arguably the greatest setback to Chinese interests since 1949-50, when the
new government in Beijing failed to establish formal relations with the United
States and then entered the Korean War. If the infant PRC had dealt more
11 ``Only a Miracle Can Save China from Itself,'' Financial Times, Sept. 15, 2003.
12 At present China's central government is borrowing simply to keep the economy where it
is, grossly misallocating scarce resources and undermining its banks in the process. See
William Pesak, ``Commentary: Fragile Finances are the Real China Story,'' International Herald
Tribune, Aug. 27, 2003; ``Second Thoughts about Amazing China,'' Jane's Foreign Report no.
2755, Oct 2, 2003.
13 See ``China's Military Build-up,'' Jane's Intelligence Digest, Aug. 8, 2003.
Democratization
Spring 2004 | 251
deftly with Washington, or had it not humiliated Mr. Nehru in 1962 and
provided nuclear weapon technology to Pakistan, its current strategic
situation would be far better than it is.
The situation may be worsening. From Pakistan, nuclear technology
(mostly Chinese) has now spread to North Korea, where (along with Russian
missiles apparently obtained from the Middle East) they create an enormously
difficult and potentially dangerous situation. If the two Koreas are united, that
new state will surely also be nuclear. This development, like the Indian
decision for nuclear weapons, will be an enormous setback for Beijing: the
Korean peninsula controls access by sea to the ports of southern Liaoning
and northern Shandong, as well as Tianjin and the sea lanes to the Chinese
capital. Yet Beijing is accepting this with apparent nonchalance.
Above all, good relations with the United States are surely in Beijing's
interest. Whatever stability and wealth the Chinese government has achieved
to date ultimately rest on massive exports, of which the United States is by far
the largest buyer. Chinese involvement in any sort of hostilities in Asia would
certainly lead to the closing of the American market and the sequestration of
Chinese assets in the United States. Yet China not only keeps its distance from
Washington (seeking, for example, to create room for maneuver by aligning
itself with Germany, France, Russia, or even Serbia), it is also the only country
in the world today configuring its military to attack American forces--witness
its purchase of ex-Soviet supersonic missiles having as their sole target
American carrier battle groups.
These examples of China's foreign policy--towards India, North
Korea, and the United States--cannot be explained by rational calculations of
Chinese national interest. Each creates something new and bad for China: a
suspicious and militarily capable India; a nuclear-armed Korea in a position
to frustrate all sorts of possible Chinese actions; possibly a rearmed Japan that
would quickly outstrip China in military competence; and a United States
that, despite its desire for good relations with Beijing, has to devote more and
more time and money to countering Chinese threats to its friends and allies
and itself. Regime type is the explanation.
Chinese National Interest
How would a democratic Chinese parliament assess Chinese national
interests? First, it would be interested in improving the living standards of the
country's hundreds of millions of impoverished people. The only way to free
resources for this would be to change the foreign policy that demands, for
example, such vast military expenditures. This would entail shifting friendships
away from the few countries that seek to counter U.S. dominance in the
world and reorienting toward the countries that provide the most to China
economically. In other words, Beijing would have to become friendly with
WALDRON
252 | Orbis
the United States, its biggest market; Japan, another major trading partner
and, to a lesser extent, investor; South Korea and Taiwan, both important
trading partners and major investors (China's info-tech industry is owned
roughly 70 percent by Taiwan and 15 percent by South Korea); Europe (a
major market and investor); and Australia (a major trading partner,
particularly in raw materials). And being rid of its empire, it could enter
into genuine friendship, or at least correct relations, with peoples who had
previously despised it for its colonial rule.
Hitherto, Beijing has placed disproportionate stress on supporting
other dictatorships. It is deeply involved in Myanmar (whose human rights
record, it must be admitted, is somewhat better than China's). It continues to
subsidize North Korea, providing Pyongyang with items of trade that can be
used for military programs. It has supported Pakistan's nuclear program. Its
support for Serbia as NATO attempted to dislodge Slobodan Milosevic in
1999 was massive. Beijing continues to undermine its relationship with
Washington through its rigid14 approach to Taiwan, which should be its
partner, and its interest in Cuba, in particular in the former Soviet signals
intelligence facilities there. China has been reported, at least in the past, to be
involved in supporting a range of unsavory regimes in the Middle East and to
maintain a close clandestine military relationship with Israel. This political
and military club is not one to which China should want to belong.
Under conditions of freedom and democracy, China would move to
non-belligerence toward the West, cooperation, and increasing openness.
This would of course greatly benefit China's neighbors and the United States,
ending the accelerating arms race that wastes so much money and creates so
much danger in Asia today. But for now China remains a dictatorship, and as
such it cannot welcome the prospect of other dictatorships' becoming free.
China is an odd fit: its culture, from the time of Confucius, has contained
plenty of liberal elements, and in the past century, democracy was the shared
demand of most of the intelligentsia, some of whom imagined that
communism would be democratic.15 Not only that, until 1949 China was,
politically, far freer than it is today. True, it was ruled autocratically, but ideas
could be published and discussed, universities harbored genuinely free
thought, and entrepreneurship was relatively untrammeled. So China's
current global policies, far from being a natural consequence of Chinese
tradition and national interest, are anomalous.
14 The term is from Douglas Paal, in effect the American ambassador. ``Washington's Taiwan
envoy Paal bemoans rigid China,'' China Post, Sept. 17, 2003.
15 May believed this based on the famous Mao interview with a Reuters correspondent on
Sept. 27, 1945. See ``Answers to Questions Raised by Reuters News Agency Correspondent
Gamble'' published in the Chongqing Xinhua ribao and on October 8 in the Jiefang ribao.
Translation in Stuart R. Schram, ed., Arthur Waldron, assistant editor, Mao's Road to Power:
Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, vol. 9 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, forthcoming).
Democratization
Spring 2004 | 253
Greater China
This is even more evident when one looks at greater China--the
world of the huaren, or Chinese living outside China proper, from Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia to the United States. Hong Kong is
now part of the PRC, but no one there calls the SAR's inhabitants ``Chinese''
(Zhongguoren); they are Xiangangren (Hong Kong people), a usage that
recognizes the deep difference. Hong Kong people are proud of their
Chinese heritage, but they are southerners, speaking a distinct language and
instinctively distrustful of the crude and strident patriotic propaganda that
Beijing produces. They are also cosmopolitan, having their backs firmly to
China, as one longtime resident put it to me. Much the same is true for
Taiwan, though it has not until quite recently had anything like the degree of
contact with China that Hong Kong enjoyed from its cession to Britain until
1949, and then again since the 1980s. In Taiwan, even those having recent
mainland ancestry are lumped together in PRC-Chinese speech as Taiwanren
(Taiwan people). Taiwan is an amalgam of cultures and peoples: its pre-1945
population is exactly between Fujian and the Philippines, being an island
peopled by Chinese male immigrants who married local women related to
the Filipinos. Culturally, it bears the imprint of early Western colonization and
a very large dose of Japanese. Since 1949 it has followed its own course. It
now differs from China not only ethnically, but also politically (as a
democracy) and linguistically (using standard Chinese, not the simplified PRC
version). Still, it is Chinese enough that its rocky but so far steady progress
toward democratization demonstrates that such things could happen in China
as well.
Singapore, with a population that is more than 70 percent composed
of huaren, has lagged far behind Taiwan in political change.16 Its
political system is gerrymandered, its press anemic, and its economy
lagging. But its people are superbly educated and enterprising, and it is
difficult to imagine that the present Lee family dynasty is going to last much
longer--at which point Singapore will have to face democratic transition,
which will be agonizing notwithstanding that the country is well prepared
with institutions for this. In Malaysia, the huaren are enormously active
politically and, as the Malay-Islamic bloc begins to splinter, may come to
hold the decisive weight.
Paradoxically, those Asian states that are of Chinese heritage (Taiwan,
Singapore) and those where ethnic Chinese have real influence on national
security policy (Indonesia) tend to be far more distrusting of China than are
the states (Malaysia or Myanmar) where indigenous non-huaren run security
16 For an evocation of Singapore's once vigorous parliamentary life, see Chan Heng Chee, A
Sensation of Independence: A Political Biography of David Marshall (Singapore: Oxford
University Press, 1984).
WALDRON
254 | Orbis
policy, even though those indigenous people may be powerfully hostile to
the local huaren. Some of China's most serious problems are with their
huaren rather than with genuine foreigners--not just those nearby but the
many of them in the West, some of whom pose a major threat to Beijing's
political control. Thus the Falungong overseas, which consists overwhelmingly
of huaren, has repeatedly managed to hijack the Sinosat, China's official
communications relay satellite, and substitute for the regular programming
films about meditation and their religion.
Other huaren take a different approach and, like e?migre?s since time
immemorial, identify strongly with their country of origin. The profits to be
made have intensified this trend. The strong American business lobby that
supports Beijing, various distinguished former members of U.S. governments,
and the U.S. diplomatic corps increasingly drive the United States to identify
its interests not with those of the Chinese people but with those of the present
Chinese government and the Sino-foreign oligarchy that controls much of
China's economy.
Indeed, foreign support is increasingly vital to the survival of the
Chinese regime: not only foreign investment and foreign markets, but foreign
acknowledgment of the legitimacy of regime leaders through state and
ceremonial visits. After all, if the president of the United States and the prime
minister of Japan agree that an individual is China's legitimate ruler, who are
local Chinese to disagree? This again is a long-standing pattern in Chinese
politics: foreign support as flying buttresses, keeping the political system
from collapsing.
Steady Change
For a decade or more after the indignation of 1989 had cooled,
American policy toward China was guided by the approach described above:
one that favored the status quo and saw China as an increasingly ``normal''
power, stable and, in the long run, vital to American interests. Over the same
years, the degree of U.S. concern about both its own security and that of its
friends and allies was rising steadily. But it was increasingly accepted that
somehow economics would trump freedom and that the Party was here to
stay. Even such remarkable events as Taiwan's democratization had little
impact on those who held to this view, who found that example irritating
rather than illuminating. That is all beginning to change, for reasons both
domestic and having to do with greater China.
Steady change is audible in China's political rhetoric. Political reform
has long been under discussion, but now there are actually small signs of
motion. President Hu has called for strengthening democracy within the Party.
This arguably is a tactical move, designed to move the locus of final power
from the nine-member Standing Committee of the Politburo (which former
Democratization
Spring 2004 | 255
President Jiang Zemin packed with his followers before stepping down) to the
Central Committee (which numbers 356 members and alternates) and even to
the Party membership as a whole (66 million in 2002). Even a small step in the
direction of freer speech and political participation within the Party would
almost inevitably lead to arguments--at first hidden from the public--about
what policy should be. That would be a substantial step forward from what has
characterized intra-Party politics up to now: namely, argument over who
should rule rather than what they should do. As happened with the formation
of factions in the British parliament in the eighteenth century, issues would
start to replace personalities as the focus of discussion. Content would be
injected into what China-watcher Roger Uren has termed China's ``endless,
contentless politics.''17
More surprisingly, Hu has at least paid lip service to democracy for
the citizenry as well. On the eve of National Day, October 1, he made a
speech that asserted: ``We must enrich the forms of democracy, make
democratic procedures complete, expand citizens' orderly political participation
and ensure that the people can exercise democratic elections, democratic
decision making, democratic administration, and democratic scrutiny.''18 Why
is Hu saying this?
Other Chinese have been forthright in their demands that their
country adopt what journalists still often refer to as Western-style
democracy--even though Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines,
and other Asian states have democratic lineages in many cases far longer than
many of the West's ``new democracies.'' Thus, on the eve of a Party meeting
called for mid-October to discuss amending the constitution, the respected
Beijing constitutional scholar and economist Cao Siyuan published China's
Constitution Revision--Protect Everyone's Legal Rights, which he sent to
every member of the Politburo. In it he advocates immediate steps to discard
Marxist rhetoric, give priority to citizens' rights, and enforce the presumption
of innocence in court proceedings. He urges holding direct elections at all
levels, empowering local and provincial legislatures, privatizing the media,
and guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, and religion.19 The immediate
official response to these suggestions was to place Cao under 24-hour
security police surveillance (now lifted). Almost simultaneously with Cao's
calls came news that an experimental, directly elected community council
may be envisaged for a Beijing neighborhood.20 Reporters did not expect a
dramatic democratic breakthrough, but was this a straw in the wind?
17 Personal communication to author.
18 ``Hu Invokes Democracy As a Shield,'' Far Eastern Economic Review, Oct. 16, 2003.
19 Points as summarized by Amy Gadsden in a manuscript shared with the author. Some of
Cao's views may be found in ``Five Recommendations for Chinese Constitutional Reform,''
Harvard Asia Quarterly, Mar. 22, 2001.
20 ``Beijing Community Council: Democratic model may be toothless tiger,'' Financial Times
(North American Edition) Oct. 14, 2003.
WALDRON
256 | Orbis
This is not to suggest that the Communist Party has changed its colors
and is preparing to lead China through a transformation to democracy. But
evidently the issue is alive in China and the Party is attempting to deal with it.
Almost inevitably, that will lead to experiments in limited opening--and
those, as we saw in the late 1980s and early 1990s, usually lead to far greater
changes than their authors envisage. The reason that the Party is playing with
democratic fire is simple: popular pressure, at home and from the Chinese
diaspora, and the knowledge within the political class that whoever succeeds
in channeling into democratic institutions the aspirations and free-floating
resentments of today's China will emerge as a winner.
Taiwan and Hong Kong
As has been the pattern in China since the mid-nineteenth century,
overseas pressures, particularly from the huaren, have a disproportionate
impact in the country. Thus, although Taiwan's international profile is so low
as to approach invisibility, thanks to de-recognition by all but a handful of
states, it nevertheless enjoys substantive relations with countries ranging from
Russia to France and India to the United States that have large and wellinformed
(if well-concealed) diplomatic presences there. Furthermore,
leaving aside the difficult issue of international status, Taiwan also enjoys
the best of both worlds with respect to China. Politically, it is master in its
own house: electing its own parliament and president, having its own
military, and governing itself. Yet economically it is increasingly involved in
trade and investment with China, now owning great swaths of the most
advanced productive capacity there and selling far more to China than it
buys. Its political example is well known and admired in China, but because
it is politically independent of Beijing it cannot exert the sort of influence that
Hong Kong is now showing.
Hong Kong's status is, by contrast, internationally recognized. It is
sovereign Chinese territory, having a close economic relationship with China
and a government structure designed to appear to permit local self rule
(Gangren zhi Gan--Hong Kong people running Hong Kong, though the
chief executive is in fact from Shanghai via the United States) while in fact
allowing Beijing to run things behind the scenes. It is the sudden instability of
this arrangement, so clear in the November 2003 district council elections,
and the lack of any obvious way to muddle through, that may occasion
genuine democratization in Hong Kong and then in China. For while Beijing
may regularly scold Taiwan, no timetable, no current crisis in which it is
directly involved, forces it to do anything. The same is not true for Hong
Kong.
The Hong Kong SAR is part of China, and Beijing ultimately bears
responsibility for what happens there. Yet there is clearly no consensus in
Democratization
Spring 2004 | 257
Beijing about how to deal with the problems in Hong Kong except through
exhortation, financial incentives, and a hope that the issue will somehow go
away. The stakes are very high. So Hong Kong can be an entering wedge,
potentially dividing the Beijing leadership in a way that Taiwan can never
match.
For Beijing, the path of least resistance is not to crack down--which
could begin an economic and financial panic that might unravel the whole
PRC economy--but rather to permit Hong Kong to democratize (even though
that process must ultimately threaten Communist rule in China itself).
At present it looks as if Beijing has decided that it has no alternative
but to play the democratic game, at least in Hong Kong. The man in charge of
policy in the SAR, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, has called for much closer
economic cooperation between Hong Kong and China, the hope being that if
the economy picks up, voters will support pro-Beijing candidates.21 The chief
secretary of Tung's administration, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, has termed
universal suffrage a ``clear goal.''22 In Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao has called
for ``gradual development of democracy'' in the SAR.23 But even while
enunciating pro-democratic sentiments, the governments in the SAR and in
Beijing appear to be scrambling to win the elections that, according to their
own rules, they must carry out.
Thus, in the run-up to the first test, district council elections last
November, the Electoral Affairs Commission in Hong Kong cut voting time by
three hours, a move intended to deny 200,000 people the opportunity to cast
a ballot.24 Meanwhile, in private, pro-Beijing groups attempted to cobble
together a coalition of local employees of Chinese enterprises, pro-Beijing
trade unionists, members of clan and civic associations, and staff and family
members of companies that have invested in China--or about 40 percent of
total registered voters.25 But as the result showed, all such efforts failed.
What next? When mainland Chinese poured out in the millions to
demand democracy in 1989, a handful of officials at the top of the Party made
the decision (not even following Party procedures) to order the People's
Liberation Army, in effect, to sack Beijing. That option simply does not exist
in Hong Kong--but as was true in China itself fifteen years ago, nothing
anything short of such brutal repression will conceivably halt the slide toward
democracy even temporarily. So the possibility cannot be excluded that the
Party will, for want of other options, grudgingly accept the outcome. In other
words, the Party will show that although it will not of itself promote
democracy, it will yield to pressure. If and when that is demonstrated,
pressure for democracy will only increase--inside China.
21 ``We Must Get Even Closer, Says Beijing,'' South China Morning Post, Sept. 18, 2003.
22 ``One Man, One Vote For HK Is `A Clear Goal','' South China Morning Post, Sept. 19, 2003.
23 ``Gradual Democracy Right for HK: Wen,'' South China Morning Post, Oct. 9, 2003.
24 ``Poll Hours Cut `To Stop 200,000 Voting,'' South China Morning Post, Sept. 26, 2003.
25 ``Beijing Expected To Intervene in HK Elections Next Year,'' Straits Times, Oct. 1, 2003.
WALDRON
258 | Orbis
Consequences
Should democratization be completed in China, everyone--Chinese
and foreigner alike--will benefit. But the path will be difficult and frightening
at times, and much as one would hope that the United States and other
foreign governments would shout encouragement, the high degree of official
identification of U.S. interests with ``stability'' in China may well muffle that
sound.
Since President Nixon fundamentally reversed U.S. policy toward
China in 1972, the United States has been working things in a way that is
intellectually inside-out. Washington's premise is that China is unified,
uniform, and reliably controlled by Beijing. Therefore it focuses on official
Beijing and judges its relations by examining that single linkage. It pays
relatively little attention to China outside of Beijing, and even less to the
world of the huaren outside of China and their potential linkages to and
influences on China proper. The U.S. consulate in Hong Kong was, until
recently, a cheering section for ``one country, two systems,'' devoting its
attention chiefly to gathering information and intelligence about China, not
about Hong Kong. The U.S. diplomatic presence in Taipei is disguised and far
smaller than it would be if the posting were judged by its importance. For the
United States, it is arguably one of the top ten places of greatest potential
importance; for Japan, one of the top five. In Singapore, Washington pays
scant attention to the large portion of the population that does not speak
English. It has taken as fact the PRC's self-presentation and acted on it, paying
considerable attention to the ostensible ``center'' and little or none to the
``periphery.'' (The United States is not alone; most other countries do the
same.)
Based on Chinese history over the last century and a half, this
approach is extremely ill-considered. Every major political change in China
since the late Qing (except the coup d'etat and short rule of Yuan Shikai
from 1912 to 1916) came from the periphery: from the south (the 1898
reformers, Sun Yat-sen, and the Nationalists) or the far northwest (the
Communists) and the corresponding diasporas (in Southeast Asia in the first
case, and in Moscow and the communist world in the second). The
democracy movement of 1989 started at the center in Beijing and spread
across the country. It was crushed. But in 2003, when people in the
marginal SAR of Hong Kong demanded change, they succeeded in getting
it--at least so far.
Of course, the center is not irrelevant to political change. The margins
can exert influence best when the center is divided. Time and again, political
disorder or change has begun in China when the succession was disputed (at
the end of the Qing) or when the rulers in Beijing split among themselves and
went to war (clearing the way for the Nationalists in 1924-25 and for
economic opening and social liberalization in the Cultural Revolution).
Democratization
Spring 2004 | 259
Beijing's Dilemmas
The same stars are coming into alignment today. In Beijing, among
the recognized leaders and Party members, there are several powerful
figures, some older, some younger, none of whom has complete authority,
and who disagree among themselves. Then there is a kind of ghost
population, embodied in former Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang, who favored
political reform and whose house arrest has recently been relaxed a bit. In
addition, there are the tens of thousands of Party members who supported
the democracy movement that brought about Zhao's ouster but who
managed to return to government. And among the post-1989 group, a clear
division exists between Jiang and his circle and that of the current official
authorities, Hu and Wen. No one of these leaders looks set to become even as
powerful as Jiang was over his long tenure, during which he stayed in place
by avoiding rather than indulging in the exercise of power. The last strong
man, Deng Xiaoping, is in his grave, and China will probably see no more.
The issues the Party faces today, moreover, are complex, interlocking,
and intractable. Take the current debate about the value of the RMB. The
reason China is under pressure to raise the value of the currency is that it has
run such an enormous trade surplus with the United States and other
countries that a political reaction has begun against it. In fact, the growing
U.S. trade deficit, combined with internal deficits, threatens a possible
collapse of the dollar. Were this to happen, it would be, in part, the result of
Chinese mercantalist trade policies--but it would hurt China by greatly
reducing the value of its foreign exchange holdings. So it is in China's interest
to avoid a dollar collapse. To help do that it will have to increase the
exchange value of the RMB, which will also reduce the value of its dollar
holdings, though probably by not as much. Why does it not do this? Because
even a small revaluation of the RMB might lead to a crisis in the insolvent
Chinese banking system. Why is the banking system insolvent? This has
nothing to do with trade. Rather, it is because the government has forced the
banks to turn over money, in the form of non-recoverable loans, to SOEs. And
why has the state thus corrupted its own banking system? Because it has
made a strategic decision to maintain the SOEs, rather than close or privatize
them, and since it lacks the ability to subsidize itself through taxes, it has
turned to loans. And why is it essential to maintain control of the SOEs?
Because a genuinely private economy in China would be a very difficult
environment for the Communist Party. So if we trace the chain of causes
back, it is the Communist Party's insistence on maintaining control that--
passed through several stages--is threatening the world financial order. It
would make much more sense for China to make the domestic adjustments
necessary to keep the world economy upon which it depends functioning,
rather than straining it to the breaking point for reasons having everything to
do with power and nothing to do with economics.
WALDRON
260 | Orbis
How does one fix this? Opinions are divided in Beijing. But the stakes
are high, so the arguments will be long and divisive. Consensus will prove
elusive, and muddling through impossible. Under such circumstances,
players around the edges begin to have weight, even decisive weight. And
if the center splits, as has happened before, outsiders can move in to change
things.
``Greater China'' and the Emergence of Chinese Democracy
``Greater China,'' which until lately usually referred largely to Taiwan,
has regularly in history exerted decisive influence on China proper, and its
importance on China's future cannot be overstated. But Hong Kong has
suddenly come to life. It seemingly had been becoming less important,
overshadowed by Shanghai, its economy doing badly, its people demoralized.
Now it is back at the center of things. Just how things will work out is difficult to
say. But one can be realistically optimistic and even identify Hong Kong as the
potential starting point for a process of change in China that many people have
long acknowledged would come, but who have been unable to pinpoint just
where and how. If the process unfolds in a way even remotely resembling what
I have described, the gain in security and living standards for the people of
China will be vast. But the process of getting there will be hair-raising at times.
One hopes that those who will play a role--the peoples and governments of
the huaren states outside of China, the international businesses upon which
Beijing now depends so much, and the ever-cautious China diplomats in the
world's foreign ministries--will recognize, as they did not when change began
in the USSR, that something is happening, and that the old ways no
longer apply. The time to start thinking about what new ways might
be appropriate is now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democratization in Greater China
Democracy and Federalism in Greater China
by Tahirih V. Lee
Tahirih V. Lee (tlee@law.fsu.ed) is associate professor of law at Florida State University
College of Law.
I n the past decade, federalism has become popular as a way to make
sense of the evolving relationship among the legal systems of the
People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and
even to describe the internal dynamics of the PRC's decentralization of
lawmaking authority since the early 1980s. What lurks behind almost all of
the various uses of the concept of federalism in this ``greater China'' region,
which for certain purposes includes Singapore (whose government is
largely comprised of ethnic Chinese, even though its population is not)
is one or another assumption about the relationship of democracy to
federalism.
The assumptions are not explicitly articulated, but they seem to
strike out in a variety of directions. In Taiwan, the two ideas, democracy
and federalism, have become opposed to one another; the one-country,
two-systems framework is viewed as a straightjacket that inhibits
Taiwan's autonomy. In a similar way, though perhaps less ubiquitously,
Hong Kong residents juxtapose one-country, two-systems with Hong
Kong's autonomy, and therefore portray federalism as diminishing Hong
Kong's ability to remain a democracy or to become more democratic. By
contrast, PRC scholars critical of the PRC's leadership depict democracy as
either not far behind the transition to, or a precondition for, a federal
structure.
Because these assumptions about the relationship between federalism
and democracy may be driving the very decision to adopt, reject, or
promote the concept of federalism in greater China, it is worth examining that
relationship more closely. It is a complex one, encompassing myriad local
variations. Here we will look, first, at the relationship between democracy
and greater China's legal, political, and economic structure, and then to the
concept of federalism, in order to make sense of the federalism/democracy
relationship.
2004 Published by Elsevier Limited on behalf of Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Spring 2004 | 275
Democracy and the Structure of Greater China
From the late nineteenth century to the mid-1980s, the states of
greater China were almost completely separate: legally, politically, and
economically. Since the mid-1980s, however, these states have felt pressures
toward interdependency. After nearly two decades of negotiations between
Great Britain and the PRC, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative
Region of the PRC on July 1, 1997. The document that enshrined this
extension of the PRC's sovereignty, the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR,
allowed Hong Kong certain freedoms not enjoyed by other parts of the PRC,
such as the freedom to maintain its own currency, flag, and most of the laws
that had evolved under British colonial rule there. Macao followed the same
path in 1999, and although its constitution gives the people of Macao the
same freedoms as those of Hong Kongers, in practice Macao enjoys less
autonomy from the PRC. For its part, Taiwan has remained officially
independent but has been subject to intensive diplomatic and even military
pressure to join the PRC as yet another SAR. While resisting these pressures
toward unification, Taiwan's residents have nonetheless invested huge sums
in mainland China and reaped some of the benefits of the mainland's
economic growth since the mid-1980s. Singapore escaped pressure from
the PRC to unify with it legally and politically, but has cooperated in several
economic initiatives to develop parts of the PRC in collaboration with the
PRC's leadership.
Democracy and Separation Among the Units. Both the goals and the
methods of democracy's proponents in Hong Kong and Taiwan have led
them to call for separation of the units of greater China. This can be seen in
the demonstrations in Hong Kong against a security law slated for enactment
last summer. Purportedly initiated by the PRC, the law would have augmented
coordination between Beijing and the local administration.1 A half million
residents of Hong Kong demonstrated to prevent its enactment. In seeking to
stop the PRC-Hong Kong rapprochement called for in the proposed law, the
protestors were pushing for greater separation between the two units. Their
exercising their right to speak out expanded the democratic component of
the lawmaking process in Hong Kong, thereby distancing it from the
lawmaking process in the PRC, which involves only a few thousand out of
1.3 billion people.
The demonstrations were a shock to the Hong Kong administration.
After all, the public had voiced little outcry when the administration laid the
1 See Joseph Kahn, ``2 Key Hong Kong Posts are Filled after Protests,'' New York Times, Aug.
5, 2003. The planned law was principally going to amend the Crimes Ordinance, the Official
Secrets Ordinance, and the Societies Ordinance.
LEE
276 | Orbis
legislative groundwork for this law in 1997.2 Just days before the 1997 round
of legislation, Martin Lee Chu-ming led his Democratic Party and others in a
theatrical protest against the legislative body, calling it a step backward for
democracy because a mere 400 or so elected it. Lee's critique thus
encompassed the notion that for democracy to survive or flourish in Hong
Kong, the PRC needed to recede as a legal and political presence there. But
this protest, like the few others that followed during the next several months,
exerted no visible effect on the legislative agenda of that body in 1997.
Lee's position became more popular six years later, however, when
the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, one of the local
political parties favoring coordination between the mainland and Hong
Kong, lost ground in the District Council elections held November 23, 2003.
This led to the resignation of its chair, Tsang Yok-sing. Analyzing why the
party fared poorly in the election, Hong Kong political commentator Christine
Loh pointed to its ``staunch support'' for the national security law that would
have strengthened the PRC's grip on Hong Kong. She suggested that the party
demote all of its leaders, particularly those who were more in league with
large corporations than with labor, because of their ``longstanding personal
and family associations with Beijing.'' Her recommendation supports the
view that Hong Kongers see big business as anathema to democracy.3
In a July 2000 interview, Lee stressed that Hong Kong's Chief Executive,
Tung Chee-hwa, and his cabinet had repeatedly attempted to undercut the
democratic process laid out in Hong Kong's Basic Law by seeking Beijing's
direct intervention in Hong Kong's affairs. One example of this was Tung's trip
to Beijing a few months after the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal ruled that
Articles 22 and 24 of the Basic Law did not prevent children of mainland
Chinese parents from seeking permanent residency in Hong Kong.4 This trip
resulted in a ruling from the PRC's National People's Congress Standing
Committee reversing the Court of Final Appeal's interpretation of those Articles.
In Taiwan, too, democracy promoters emphasize the importance of
the country's remaining independent from mainland China. One of their
2 In spring 1997, the soon-to-be-instituted Provisional Legislature drafted two laws that
restricted public demonstrations and gatherings in the name of ``national security, public
safety, public order, and protection of rights and freedoms of others.'' The legislature then
enacted them into law on July 9, 1997 to take retroactive effect on July 1, 1997. See
amendments to Sections 2, 6, 9, 11, 13, and 15, Hong Kong SAR Public Order (Amendment)
Ordinance, July 1, 1997, Order No. 119 of 1997; amendments to Sections 5 and 8 of the
Societies (Amendment) Ordinance, July 1, 1997, Order No. 118 of 1997. The latter law required
all organizations to register the names and addresses of all members with the government of
Hong Kong as a quid pro quo for the right to meet and for the right of the organization to
legally exist. Provisions of the law singled out organizations with ties to Taiwan as particularly
susceptible to the reporting requirement. See amendments to Sections 2 and 5.
3 Enewsletter, Dec. 2, 2003, sponsored by the think tank Civic Exchange, www.civicexchange.
org.
4 Author interview, July 28, 2000, Hong Kong (``Lee Interview'').
Federalism
Spring 2004 | 277
strategies is to downplay of the idea of a ``Chinese'' ethnicity, because it
causes Taiwanese and mainlanders to identify with one another. Taiwan's
first democratically elected president, Lee Teng-hui (1988-2000), went to
great lengths to distinguish Taiwan's culture and ethnicity from those of the
PRC. In the late 1990s he organized Taiwan's youth into focus groups aimed at
instilling a sense of local ethnicity, using terminology for ethnic groups on
Taiwan that was not used in mainland China. Members of the Democratic
Progressive Party tried to heighten Taiwanese's sense of difference from
mainlanders, beginning a ``New Taiwan Independent-ism'' campaign5 and
sponsoring a variety of publications to support its platform of Taiwanese
independence by directly questioning the existence of a Chinese ethnicity.6
Democracy and Separation Within the Units. Taiwanese party leaders
pander to divisive tendencies within the country during presidential
campaigns in order to win votes. They aim to slice the population into
smaller interest groups than are normally formed absent a presidential
campaign. Edward I-hsin Chen has shown how ethnic mixing over the past
century in Taiwan led to a breakdown in the distinctiveness of the various
populations, which primarily consist of the Southern Fujianese Chinese,
Haaka Chinese, recent mainland Chinese e?migre?s, and the aboriginal
Taiwanese natives who predate China's conquest of the island early in the
Qing dynasty. Taiwanese are not only ethnically indistinct from one another,
argues Chen, but also they are politically unified around the desire to
maintain the status quo, namely the present independence of Taiwan
from mainland China without international statehood. In the 1996 presidential
election, Lee's winning strategy attempted to separate Taiwanese
from one another by emphasizing ethnic differences and slight differences of
opinion about the proper relationship between Taiwan and mainland China,
and then persuading about half of each of the artificial subgroups to vote
for him.7
Influential dissent is one measure of democracy, making the July 2003
demonstrations in Hong Kong particularly noteworthy. The demonstrations
succeeded in getting the security law withdrawn from consideration and
caused the resignation and replacement of two top government officials.8
5 Chen Shiyao, ``Taiwan `du' deqilai ma?'' [Will Taiwan's ``Independence'' Be Realized?]
Shijie zhoukan, Nov. 2-8, 1997; Jonathan Moore, ``Prosperity is a Double-edged Sword,''
BusinessWeek, Sept. 15, 1997.
6 E.g., Li Xiaofeng, ed., Taiwan, wode xuanze! Guojia rentong de juanzhe [Taiwan, My
Choice! The Complications of National Identity] (Taibei: Zhushan she chuban, 1995), pp. 148-
52.
7 Edward I-hsin Chen, ``The Impact of Democratic Politics on ROC's Crisis Decision-Making
Before Presidential Elections'' (Conference paper, Sept. 18-19, 2003, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia), pp. 5-7 (``[I]f [Lee] did not divide the traditional provincial votes
into new categories and attract more votes from each of them and even from the Traditional
DPP supporters, he would have lost his re-election bid.'').
8 Kahn, ``2 Key Hong Kong Posts.''
LEE
278 | Orbis
Before that, the impact of protests in Hong Kong was less measurable, but the
size of the dissent registered gradually larger beginning in 1989. Smaller
groups had gathered in Victoria Park to commemorate anniversaries of the
violence in Tiananmen Square, implicitly criticizing the PRC government for
its handling of that demonstration. Other gatherings in 1997 and 1998
protested various changes in Hong Kong's government after the handover to
the PRC.9
Authoritarian Moves Emphasize Union Among and Within Units.
Democracy opponents within greater China similarly link potential moves
toward democracy, such as the freedom of assembly and exercise of religion,
with separation among local units. Beijing seems to see local variety in
worship as a threat to the unity of the realm, judging by its propaganda on
Tibet and Xinjiang and the religious populations native to those regions, as
well as by its handling of Falungong and Christian worship services held in
China. Similarly, local elections could cut the locality loose from the unified
communication and command network of the government and the Chinese
Communist Party.
Beijing portrays the separation of localities, both from one another
and from the central administration, negatively, as leading to ``chaos'' or
``rebellion.'' Conversely, it portrays the centralization of control over
mainland territories or greater China as ``unification'' and fostering ``stability''
and associates it with ``patriotism,'' ``loyalty,'' ``local economic prosperity,''
and even with sentiments like ``love.''10
Beijing has worked hard behind-the-scenes to centralize and stymie
budding democratic processes within greater China. It pressured British
diplomats in the 1980s to ignore, and even to circumvent and reshape, public
opinion in Hong Kong when working out the logistics of how Hong Kong
would be transferred to Chinese sovereignty. This pressure continued
unabated even when it shifted from British negotiators to Hong Kong
negotiators in the later stages of the transition toward 1997.11
The Winner-Take-All Principle
Yan Jiaqi and other PRC scholars portray federalism as concurrent or
compatible with democracy. They do not, however, spell out the precise
relationship between the two, because for them, federalism is virtually
9 Stella Lee, ``Complaint Lodged Over Blast of Beethoven,'' South China Morning Post, July
12, 1997; Stella Lee, ``Extended Bail for Protesters,'' South China Morning Post, Aug. 29, 1997.
10 See Tahirih V. Lee, ``The Media and the Legal Bureaucracy of the People's Republic of
China,'' in Chin-Chuan Lee, ed., Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and
Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2000),
pp. 208, 224-28; Mark Roberti, The Fall of Hong Kong: China's Triumph and Britain's Betrayal
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994, 1996), p. 192.
11 Mark Roberti, The Fall of Hong Kong.
Federalism
Spring 2004 | 279
synonymous with democracy. It is also a codeword for democracy. Scholars
in the PRC endanger themselves if they discuss proposals for democratizing
China, and so use proxy words.12
If federalism means unification, however, visions of federalism put
forward by Yan and others may not spell democracy. The type of federations
that join previously separate units unleash anti-democratic forces within
those areas. If, however, federalism means decentralization, then federalism
indeed has a direct relationship with democracy.
On the whole, these scholars' visions are of a federation that
decentralizes government within the PRC. Yan also includes Taiwan and Hong
Kong in his blueprint, which calls for centralizing the government of greater
China, but this portion of his plan is less important than the part that sets out
the relationship among the provincial governments of the PRC and between
them and the center. The federalist frameworks that are discussed in
mainland China promote a push toward the decentralization of law-making
authority and the full gamut of economic decisions, ranging from what loans
banks make to what goods factories will produce and to which countries
Chinese goods will be exported.13
Not all proposals for federal-type structures in greater China
emphasize decentralization, however. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, the
one-country, two-systems framework offered by the PRC and all the variations
thereon that are discussed unofficially--including those with the names
``federation'' or ``confederation''--provide a means to become part of a larger
centralizing structure.
Many citizens of Hong Kong and Taiwan view these centralizing
federal structures as jeopardizing democracy. Indeed, Beijing offers these
structures as a way of bringing Taiwan and Hong Kong into greater political
12 See e.g. Yan Jiaqi, Lianbang Zhongguo gouxiang [A conception of a federal China] (Hong
Kong: Mingbao chubanshe, 1992), esp. p. 123; Zheng Yongnian and Wu Guoguang, ``Tanpan
jizhi yu `xingweixing lianbang''' [Bargaining and the formation of ``behavioral federalism''],
Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu, 1994, pp. 26, 32-37; Yongnian and Guoguang, `` `Chanquan difang
hua': Yilun zhongyang yu difang de jingji guanxi'' [Property rights localization: A discussion of
central and local economic relations], Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu, 1994, pp. 39-51; Wang
Shaoguang, ``Fenquan de dixian,'' [The bottom line of the division of powers], Dangdai
Zhongguo yanjiu, nos. 1 and 2 (1995), pp. 39-68; Zhang Zin, ``Lunyi lianbangzhi xianfa zuowei
Zhongguo tongyi de falu tiaojian,'' [Discussing the legal provisions of a constitutional federal
system for a united China], Zhongguo xianzheng yanjiu tongxun, June 1994, p. 2; and Dali
Yang, ``The Politics of Fiscal Rationalization and Its Implications for Central Local Relations in
China'' (paper given at the ABA Section on International Law and Practice annual spring
meeting, Mar. 31, 1994), p. 17.
13 In addition to those cited above, other discussions of federalism as a way to decentralize
mainland China include Sen Lin, ``A New Pattern of Decentralization in China: The increase of
Provincial Powers in Economic Legislation,'' China Information, Winter 1992-93, pp. 27-33;
and Wang Xi, ``Cong Meiguo lianbangzhi de fazhan kan Zhongguo de fenquan wenti''
[Looking at the problem of division of powers in China from the development of the United
States federal system], Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu, nos. 1 and 2 (1995), pp. 168-69, 191-93.
LEE
280 | Orbis
and legal alignment with the PRC. This necessarily calls for some degree of
harmonization of the legal systems. While all the participating entities may
exert some pull in the transformation, arriving at some meeting in the middle
of the great divide, Taiwanese consider it more likely that the PRC--with its
overwhelmingly larger population and political might and greater need of
wealth to shore up its sagging industrial sector and social welfare system--
would exert the greater pull. Just as it has been in the PRC before, where the
leadership argues that democracy is a luxury affordable only by wealthy
nations, democracy in the Taiwan SAR would be sacrificed in the name of the
economic needs of hundreds of millions of new compatriots.
Apart from a general pressure toward lopsided harmonization is the
fact that the moment Hong Kong became a part of the PRC, it became less
democratic. Hong Kong's new constitution, which came into effect at
midnight of June 30, 1997, cut back the franchise for legislative elections
from 2.7 million to about 400. The government of Hong Kong also
immediately set about curtailing the franchise in elections of district urban
councils, which were created in the early 1980s to involve Hong Kong
citizens in the improvement of their neighborhoods. Less than three years
later, the Hong Kong SAR administration circumvented Hong Kong's new
constitutional procedures. It sought to convince Beijing to overturn the
HKSAR Court of Final Appeal's 1999 decision in Ng Ka Ling, Ng Tan Tan v.
Director of Immigration and two other cases consolidated with it, a
decision that had opened the floodgates to citizens of mainland China to
emigrate to Hong Kong.14
Why should a decentralizing structure promote democracy and a
unifying structure inhibit it? It is because of what I call the winner-take-all
nature of unification. If an entity is unified, it is more likely to be taken over,
more acquirable, than if it is splintered. It is easier to negotiate with one entity
than with many. It is easier to persuade one mind than many. Thus, discord
leads to or preserves not centralized (in the form of a takeover by an outside
power) but decentralized authority.
Take, for example, the case of Hong Kong's reversion to mainland
China in 1997. In the few years leading up to that constitutional event, Hong
Kong's government centralized. Local government became more focused on
winning the support of the wealthiest. Business elites and government
officials cooperated as never before, even to the point of subverting
governmental formalities and bureaucratic practices. One week before the
reversion, reports surfaced that soon-to-be Chief Executive Tung's close
business associates from his career as a shipping magnate enjoyed more
access to him than did chief secretary Anson Chan. Newspaper reports
accused Tung and his new Secretary of Justice, Elsie Leung, of putting their
personal secretaries from their private sector firms directly into government
14 2 HKCFAR 141 (HKSAR Court of Final Appeal, Jan. 29, 1999); Lee Interview.
Federalism
Spring 2004 | 281
posts. In its first week the new government also moved to freeze pro-union
labor laws enacted on the eve of the reversion, and six weeks later it
scrapped the two of those laws that most threatened big business, namely
those that introduced collective bargaining and protected workers from
termination for union activities.15
Dissent among the professions and the ranks of large companies was
quelled by signals sent by their respective leaders. Shortly before and after
Hong Kong's reversion, the heads of several local universities and university
departments indicated in various ways to their faculties that criticism of the
PRC or the new government of the Hong Kong SAR would be frowned upon.
The new head of a local bar association used language reminiscent of the
Chinese Communist Party to emphasize to the members of the association the
importance of presenting a positive and unified face to the public. Principal
officers of Hong Kong's new government encouraged such self-censorship.16
Recent Taiwanese presidential elections are an example of the
converse of the winner-take-all nature of unification, namely the divide-andstay-
locally-autonomous nature of decentralization. What at first glance
looked like politicians attempting to rally their electorate around an anti-PRC
stance was, in fact, a concerted effort to divide public opinion. During
periods when there was no campaigning, 80 percent of the public preferred
the status quo, a return to internal unification.17
The interplay between the legislature and the president of Taiwan
illustrates how local disunity makes takeover by outsiders more difficult
because it slows change, including the changes necessary to reorient the
locality toward the outsider. Scholar Yuan-kang Wang has concluded that
freeing the legislature from the control of the Taiwan executive results in
``gridlock'' and ``deadlock.''18 Taiwan may yet join the PRC, but for the
moment, it is doing an effective job of staying outside of it, and its promotion
of democratic elections within it borders is helping with its effort to stay
independent.
A locality unifies with another territory either by negotiating with an
outside power or by willingly surrendering to an outside power that it
admires or views as advantageous. Local unity facilitates the process of
inviting in outsiders because this invitation is a local decision and such unity
15 See South China Morning Post, July 12-19, July 26, and Aug. 22, 1997.
16 The Provisional Legislature's president, Rita Fan condemned the counsel for the PRC
citizens seeking to emigrate to Hong Kong by saying that paying them out of public funds was
a ``waste of money.'' Other members of the legislature voiced their disapproval of any kind of
public criticism of the legislature. Michael Davis, ``Threat to Integrity,'' South China Morning
Post, July 20, 1997; May Sin-Mi Hon, ``HK Ruling on Children `Vital for Autonomy,''' South
China Morning Post, July 18, 1997.
17 See Chen, ``The Impact of Democratic Politics,'' p. 5.
18 Yuan-kang Wang, ``Taiwan's Democratization and Cross-Strait Security'' (paper presented
to the Sino-American Conference on Contemporary Chinese Affairs, Philadelphia, Sept. 18-19,
2003), p. 11.
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282 | Orbis
facilitates the local community's decision-making process. ``Divide and
conquer'' flies in the face of this idea, and it is mistaken to use it to explain
what is happening in greater China today, or even to describe any
process of unifying territories, whether or not in the guise of a
federation. In this case, division creates strength, not weakness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Implications of Missile Defense for
Northeast Asia
by Amy L. Freedman and Robert C. Gray
Amy L. Freedman (amy.freedman@fandm.edu) is assistant professor of government and
Robert C. Gray (robert.gray@fandm.edu) is professor of government at Franklin and Marshall
College. They thank Michael DeGrande for his research assistance.
Congress and the Bush administration are committed to building a
defense against ballistic missiles. The current U.S. plan calls for
fielding ground-based interceptor missiles in Alaska and California,
with the first ten missiles scheduled to be operational in October 2004. These
will be used to conduct research and development testing, although the
administration maintains that they will have some capability to intercept
missiles launched from North Korea. Work will also continue on ship-based
interceptor missiles and other systems. With the planned fall deployment,
missile defense is certain to be an issue in this year's presidential election,
although the Democrats' candidate is more likely to criticize the specifics of
the Bush administration's plan than the wisdom of building some type of
defense.
This article assesses the implications of U.S. ballistic missile defense
for security relations in Northeast Asia. While relations among the great
powers in Europe have become more cooperative and institutionalized over
the last forty years, relations in Asia are still marked by territorial disputes
involving the Koreas, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Brunei, the Philippines,
Malaysia, and Japan; an unclear distribution of power; and potentially
disruptive power ambitions by major actors. The United States is a significant
player in the region, but U.S. interests and commitments often seem difficult
for Asian countries to perceive accurately. This is especially true with
Washington's decision to move forward with missile defense.
The near-term missile defense programs announced by the Bush
administration in December 2002 are prudent, but they create the potential
for an inadvertent offensive-defensive arms race with China and/or a Chinese
perception of a window of opportunity in which to coerce Taiwan before
missile defense is operational. To reduce the probability of these outcomes,
2004 Published by Elsevier Limited on behalf of Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Spring 2004 | 335
we recommend that the United States incorporate the maximum possible
amount of transparency into its pursuit of missile defense.
The Evolution of American Missile Defense
Since the American search for a defense against ballistic missiles
began in the late 1940s, there have been three rounds of public debate. The
first, focused on the Sentinel-Safeguard system, ended with the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty of 1972. Missile defense then disappeared as a political issue
until 1983, when President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense
Initiative. The vigorous debate about SDI ended when the Soviet Union
collapsed, taking with it the rationale for the system.1
Research and development efforts on missile defense continued in
the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations. Especially during the Clinton years,
U.S. programs were reoriented from defending the United States toward
theater missile defense (TMD)--defending U.S. troops overseas. Given the
Iraqi use of SCUD missiles against American forces during the 1991 Gulf War,
developing such a defense was uncontroversial, and the missile defense issue
again largely receded from public view.
This began to change in 1995, when the National Intelligence
Estimate concluded that it was unlikely the United States would face such a
threat in the next fifteen years. A skeptical Congress created the Commission
to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, chaired by Donald
Rumsfeld. Reporting in July 1998, the Commission concluded that the threat
was much greater than that forecast by the NIE. In July 1998, it reported that
North Korea and Iran ``would be able to inflict major destruction on the U.S.
within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability.'' Moreover,
``during several of those years, the U.S. might not be aware that such a
decision had been made.'' That month, Iran tested its medium-range Shahab-
3 missile, and in August North Korea tested its Taepo Dong missile. Missile
defense was back on Washington's agenda.
The 1999 NIE projected that ``during the next 15 years the United
States most likely will face ICBM threats from Russia, China, North Korea,
probably from Iran, and possibly from Iraq.'' Reflecting the heightened sense
of a ballistic missile threat, Congress passed the Missile Defense Act of 1999,
calling on the United States ``to deploy as soon as is technologically possible
an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the
1 David N. Schwartz, ``Past and Present: The Historical Legacy,'' in Ashton B. Carter and
David N. Schwartz, eds., Ballistic Missile Defense (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,
1984); John Newhouse, Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1973); Robert Joseph, ``The Changing Political-Military Environment,'' in James J. Wirtz and
Jeffrey A. Larsen, eds., Rocket's Red Glare: Missile Defenses and the Future of World Politics
(Boulder: Westview Press, 2001); Donald R. Baucom, ``Ballistic Missile Defense: A Brief
History'' (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, May 2000).
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
336 | Orbis
territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack.'' Research
and development intensified over the remainder of the Clinton administration,
with the objective of deploying ground-based missiles to intercept a
small number of ICBMs. In September 2000, however, President Clinton
decided that the time was not right to make a decision to deploy.2
Candidate George W. Bush pledged in the 2000 presidential campaign
to pursue missile defense. In late 2001 President Bush's administration gave the
six months' notice required to abrogate the ABM Treaty, and in June 2002 the
constraints imposed by that treaty on the development and testing of missile
defense systems disappeared. The administration also changed the defense
acquisition process for missile defense in order to expedite the development,
testing, and deployment of missile defense.
The current controversy is similar to the missile defense debates of
the past in many respects.3 As in the past, believers and skeptics offer
contrasting assessments of the technical feasibility of missile defense. The
cost/benefit calculations for missile defense systems, which will consume
tens of billions of dollars while leaving the United States vulnerable to nuclear
or biological attack by other means, are also the subject of disagreement.
Many analysts are concerned about vertical proliferation. If the United States
deploys missile defense, other countries will undoubtedly respond, and one
option would be the deployment by other countries of additional missiles
and warheads. Finally, in this debate as in previous ones, the potential
diplomatic costs remain a concern.
Despite these similarities, the environment of this third missile
defense debate differs in important ways from that of previous rounds.
During the Cold War, missile defense opponents argued that active defenses
would undermine the strategic balance and might even provide incentives in
a crisis for one side to strike first. This was a powerful argument at a time
when uncontained crises might have led to the detonation of thousands of
warheads in the United States and the Soviet Union. Although it is still the
case that Russia is the only country that could annihilate the United States,
relations between the two are sufficiently improved that the crisis-stability
argument has little force in the U.S.-Russian context. Also, unlike the SDI,
current plans do not involve deploying a defense against the entire Russian
2 National Intelligence Council, ``Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat
to the United States Through 2015 (Sept. 1999)''; Public Law 106-38; ``National Missile Defense
Act of 1999,'' July 22, 1999; Joseph Cirincione, ``Assessing the Assessment: The 1999 National
Intelligence Estimate of the Ballistic Missile Threat,'' Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2000.
3 For arguments in favor of missile defense, see James M. Lindsay and Michael E. O'Hanlon,
Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense (Washington: Brookings
Institution Press, 2001), and Keith B. Payne, ``The Case for National Missile Defense,'' Orbis,
Spring 2000. For arguments against, see Steven E. Miller, ``The Flawed Case for Missile
Defense,'' Survival, Autumn 2001, and Craig Eisendrath, Melvin A. Goodman, and Gerald E.
Marsh, The Phantom Defense: America's Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 2001).
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 337
ICBM force. The main focus is on North Korea and Iran. Moreover, advances
in computers, micro-miniaturization, and related technologies make the
missile defense advocates' arguments seem more plausible than they did in
the 1960s and 1980s, especially against a limited threat.4
Iran has neither nuclear weapons nor missiles capable of striking the
United States. North Korea may have nuclear weapons and has tested a
missile that might eventually have sufficient range to attack targets in North
America. It is this possible threat from North Korea that has accelerated
American missile defense efforts.
In October 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted
North Korea with knowledge that it had been covertly enriching uranium for
nuclear weapon production, thus violating the Agreed Framework signed in
1994. North Korea promised under the Framework to halt nuclear weapons
development in exchange for oil shipments and help in building light-water
reactors for power generation. In January 2003, North Korea withdrew from
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and that summer North Korean officials
claimed that enough spent nuclear rods had been reprocessed to construct
six nuclear weapons and that they ``intended to move ahead quickly to turn
the material into weapons.''5
In addition to an active nuclear weapons program, North Korea has a
substantial capability to deliver WMD, including hundreds of No Dong and
SCUD missiles, to targets in the region. In 1998 North Korea flight tested the
Taepo Dong 1 over Japan. Some reports conclude that with an additional
stage, a Taepo Dong 2 could hit targets in the United States. In exchange for
increased food aid, North Korea agreed not to continue tests of the Taepo
Dong, but in March 2003 North Korea suggested that it might end its flight
moratorium. Consequently, North Korea is largely responsible for the revival
of serious American programs for missile defense.
Types of Missile Defense
Three important definitional categories are used in discussing ballistic
missiles and defenses against them. The first describes the range of the
missile: short-range (less than 1,000 km), medium-range (1,000 to 3,000 km),
4 National Intelligence Council, ``Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat
Through 2015,'' Dec. 2001. For a comprehensive review of possible missile defense systems, see
Steven A. Hildreth and Amy F. Woolf, ``Missile Defense: The Current Debate,'' Congressional
Research Service Report RL 31111, updated periodically. The Feb. 5, 2003 version is used here.
5 Seth Mydans, ``Threats and Responses: Nuclear Standoff North Korea Says it is Withdrawing
From Arms Treaty,'' New York Times, Jan. 10, 2003; Murray Hiebert, ``North Korea--Two Steps
Forward,'' Far Eastern Economic Review, Jan. 16, 2003, p. 20; and David E. Sanger, ``North Korea
Says It Has Made Fuel for Atom Bombs,'' New York Times, July 15, 2003. For a comprehensive
account of recent developments, see Jonathan D. Pollack, ``The United States, North Korea, and
the End of the Agreed Framework,'' Naval War College Review, Summer 2003.
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
338 | Orbis
intermediate-range (3,000 to 5,500 km), and intercontinental (ICBM), with a
range of more than 5,500 km.
The second marks the three distinct phases of a ballistic missile's flight
path. The boost phase refers to the first few minutes after a missile is
launched, during which it is powered by its engines. Once the missile is in a
ballistic trajectory, the engines stop and the midcourse phase begins. During
this phase, which can last as long as twenty minutes for an ICBM, the warhead
separates from the missile. The final phase is the shortest, lasting less than a
minute. In this terminal phase the warhead reenters the atmosphere and
streaks toward its target.6
Third, missiles are characterized according to the intent of those who
wish to intercept them. TMD programs, for example, are designed to protect
American forces and allies overseas. The goal of the Clinton administration's
national missile defense (NMD) program was to defend U.S. territory. Because
these terms depend on intent, they can be confusing. Some U.S. systems
being developed for the Middle East, for example, would provide TMD for
U.S. forces in the region but national missile defense for Israel. The Bush
administration has abandoned use of the TMD/NMD dichotomy, although
much of the literature still uses the distinction.
The Bush administration now presents the possible components of a
missile defense system simply as functions of the three phases of the ballistic
trajectory: terminal, midcourse, and boost.
Terminal Defense. The Patriot PAC-3, designed to intercept incoming
aircraft, cruise missiles, or short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, is a
ground-based terminal system that is considered lower-tier because it engages
an enemy missile within the atmosphere. As with all U.S. missile defense
systems currently under development, the interceptor collides with the enemy
missile rather than detonating an explosion in its path. This is called ``hit-to-kill''
or ``kinetic kill.''7 The PAC-3 is the only missile defense system that is currently
deployed. In the 2003 Gulf War, it was used to intercept Iraqi missiles, but a
complete analysis of its effectiveness is not yet available.
The second ground-based system, the Theater High-Altitude Area
Defense system (THAAD), was designed to intercept short-, medium-, and
intermediate-range missiles at a higher altitude than the PAC-3 and is
considered an upper-tier system. It engages the enemy missile as it reenters
the atmosphere (at the end of the midcourse phase) and so is capable of
defending a wider area than PAC-3.8 Flight testing of this truck-mounted,
mobile missile will resume at the end of 2004.
6 Arms Control Association, ``U.S. Missile Defense Programs At a Glance,'' www.armscontrol.
org
7 The Israeli Arrow-2 uses a blast fragmentation warhead. Although this was developed in a
joint program with the U.S., the United States is not using that approach.
8 CRS, ``Missile Defense,'' pp. 44-45. A description of missile defense programs can be
found at the Missile Defense Agency website, www.acq.osd.mil.
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 339
Ground-based Midcourse Defense. When the Bush administration
announced its missile defense plans for the immediate future in December
2002, the focus was on ground- and sea-based interceptors.9 The Ground-
Based Midcourse Defense system is designed to intercept long-range ballistic
missiles. The immediate objective is to intercept missiles launched from North
Korea at the United States. The administration plans to field 20 interceptor
missiles in 2004-05. Sixteen of them will be at Ft. Greeley, Alaska and four at
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. These interceptors will obtain the
warning and tracking information necessary to guide the kill vehicle to the
incoming warhead from several types of sensors: existing Defense Support
Satellites, upgraded early-warning radars in Alaska and elsewhere, and a new
sea-based X-Band radar. The new systems will be part of the Pacific Missile
Defense Test Bed, although the administration plans to use the interceptor
missiles in both test and operational roles.10 In the latter, the interceptors are
supposed to provide an interim capability against ICBMs until more mature
systems are available.
Sea-based Midcourse Defense. The Bush administration plans to field
a sea-based system in 2004-06. To be placed on destroyers and cruisers with
the Aegis air-defense system, the interceptor missiles would be guided to
their targets by improved Aegis radars. The Aegis ballistic-missile defense
system is intended to intercept medium-range missiles as they are ascending,
initially using modified SPY-1 radars and the SM-3 missile. The components of
this program were originally designed to intercept short- and intermediaterange
missiles, but the administration hopes to adapt it for use against ICBMs
in the future.11
Boost-Phase Defense. Although there are preliminary programs for
space- and sea-based boost-phase systems, the only clearly defined one in
development at this time is the Air-Based Boost program, which places an
Airborne Laser on a Boeing 747. Originally designed to intercept theater
ballistic missiles in their first few minutes of flight, this system may be
adapted to target ICBMs as well.12 The Missile Defense Agency hopes to have
``an initial emergency capability'' as soon as 2005, but a recent report by the
9 ``Missile Defense Deployment Announcement Briefing,'' Dec. 17, 2002, available at
www.defenselink.mil.
10 As Undersecretary of Defense E. C. Aldridge described it, ``We are talking about the
construction of a test bed . . . which will be augmented with some limited operational
capability.'' Some senators expressed concern about the plan to deploy a system that has not
been fully tested. In fact, a booster rocket for the ground-based system has not yet been
chosen. See Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing, Mar. 18, 2003 (GPO). The Pentagon's
Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Thomas P. Christie, has conceded that the
ground-based system ``has not yet demonstrated operational capability'' because ``many
essential components of the ground-based midcourse defense have not yet been built.'' Ibid.,
p. 9.
11 Ibid., p. 38.
12 Federation of American Scientists, ``Airborne Laser,'' at www.fas.org.
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
340 | Orbis
American Physical Society questions the feasibility of boost-phase
technologies.13
Sensors and System Integration. The successful operation of all the
above systems depends on the ability to detect the launch of a hostile missile,
to track its course, and to guide missiles to the point of interception.14 To
increase the probability of destroying an incoming warhead, more than one
interceptor may be fired. But a hostile country would do everything possible
to defeat U.S. missile defense.
One obvious countermeasure, for example, involves placing decoys
along with the warhead on the missile.15 The warheads and decoys separate
from the missile in the midcourse phase, so if the missile is not destroyed in
the boost phase it becomes necessary to track a larger number of objects in
space. Discriminating between warheads and decoys is important because
the defending side does not want to waste its finite number of interceptors on
decoys. This task requires sophisticated sensors, and programs have been
designed to provide them. The main one of interest here is the Space
Tracking and Surveillance System.16
The necessity to integrate sensors with the various interceptors for all
three phases of a ballistic missile's flight adds great complexity to the layered
missile defense system to which the Bush administration is committed. It leads
some observers to question the feasibility of missile defense. For our purposes,
we assume that at least some defensive systems will be deployed. It is
impossible, however, to describe what the eventual system will look like,
because the missile defense program has been removed from the normal
weapons acquisition process. The spiral process that has been adopted gives
the administration considerable flexibility to pursue research and development
on all of the missile defense options described above. The director of the
Missile Defense Agency, Gen. Ronald Kadish, has argued that it is not possible
to describe the precise system to be built. As he put it, ``Five years ago, nobody
could have written a requirement for today's Internet and gotten it exactly
right.''17 We therefore illustrate here the range of possibilities the administration
may deploy in the next decade by discussing three levels of defense.
13 The report concluded that although boost-phase technologies might be useful against
liquid-fuelled ICBMs, those technologies would not work against solid-propellant ones.
Because intelligence reports estimate that North Korea and Iran could have solid-fueled
missiles within the same timeframe that boost-phase defenses could be deployed, the latter
``risk being obsolete when deployed.'' American Physical Society, ``Boost-Phase Intercept
Systems for National Missile Defense'' (July 2003), p. xxxv, at www.aps.org.
14 For a summary of the current state of American efforts to design an integrated system, see
Glenn W. Goodman, Jr., ``Focus on the Boost Phase: U.S. Layered Ballistic Missile-Defense
Plans Now Emphasize Early Intercepts,'' Armed Forces Journal, June 2003.
15 An adversary could also put more warheads on each missile, but that requires more
advanced technology than North Korea or Iran is likely to have in the next decade.
16 CRS, ``Missile Defense,'' p. 52.
17 House Armed Services Committee Hearing, Feb. 27, 2002.
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 341
Lower-Tier Missile Defense. The United States could provide PAC-3 for
its forces abroad and allies (e.g., South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) while
taking no action to defend the United States. In light of the bipartisan support
for some form of defense of U.S. territory, this option is likely to be chosen
only if the other systems are demonstrable failures. This is the most
technologically conservative option in that PAC-3 is the only system that
currently exists.
Limited Layered Missile Defense. This option parallels the Bush
administration plan announced in December 2002: PAC-3 for lower-tier
terminal defense; the Aegis sea-based system for short-, medium-, and
intermediate-range missiles; and ground-based midcourse interceptors for
ICBMs. This would be designed initially to defend against North Korean
missiles and to provide eventual protection against Iran as well.
Extensive Layered Missile Defense. This option would include
everything above and also a sea-based midcourse system upgraded to
engage ICBMs, THAAD forward deployed to intercept missiles of intermediate
range, and perhaps boost-phase systems. This would be designed to defend
against North Korea and Iran and would also provide defense against
Chinese missiles including ICBMs. Depending on its size and design, the
system might also have a capability against some level of Russian attack.
Implications for Northeast Asia
South Korea. The most important near-term justification for U.S.
missile defense is the North Korean effort to develop ballistic missiles and
nuclear weapons. A casual observer might therefore assume that South Korea
would be a fervent supporter of an active defense against a WMD missile
attack. In fact, South Korea has been less interested in missile defense than
the United States, Japan, or Taiwan.
In security terms, South Korea faces a large threat from North Korean
conventional forces near the demilitarized zone. Seoul's proximity to the DMZ
means that it could be largely destroyed by attacks from Pyongyang's 11,500
artillery systems. This vulnerability to attack by existing artillery may reduce
the salience in South Korea of a future nuclear threat delivered by ballistic
missile.18
In addition, South Korean threat perceptions differ from those in
Japan and the United States. An Atlantic Council report based on November
2002 interviews in South Korea concluded that South Koreans do not believe
that Pyongyang has any ``serious plans for aggression.'' They view the
18 Taeho Kim, ``East Asian Reactions to U.S. Missile Defense: Torn Between Tacit Support
and Overt Opposition,'' in Andrew Scobell and Larry M. Wortzel, eds., China's Growing
Military Power: Perspectives on Security, Ballistic Missiles, and Conventional Capabilities
(Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2002), pp. 209-10.
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
342 | Orbis
objective of North Korean WMD/missile programs as giving the North ``some
means to threaten Japan and ultimately the United States, but not as a serious
increase in the threat to South Korea itself.''19
Finally, political dynamics in South Korea emphasize conciliation
with the North rather than constructing elaborate defenses. Its ``sunshine,'' or
``peace and prosperity,'' policy has caused serious tensions with the Bush
administration, and if the policy survives North Korea's current campaign of
saber-rattling, it is likely to perpetuate a climate in which substantial missile
defenses will be avoided.20
While the South Koreans seem unlikely to move toward the limited or
extensive layered systems described earlier, the nuclear boasts of North
Korea may be forcing movement on lower-tier defenses. South Korea should
have no problem with the U.S. deployment of PAC-3 missiles to defend U.S.
bases. Moreover, there are reports that South Korea wants to acquire its own
PAC-3 missiles, presumably to defend high-value political or military targets.
The ROK Ministry of Defense has proposed buying PAC-3, and a report to the
National Assembly argued that ``South Korea needs to secure anti-air defense
capabilities of its own to defend against possible North Korean missile
attack.''21
In light of these South Korean attitudes, it seems unlikely that the ROK
would participate in the Aegis sea-based system. If the United States pursues
boost-phase defense, however, it might seek ROK help, because South Korea
is a logical place to base some of the Airborne Laser planes and support
equipment.22
Japan. Japan's missile defense deliberations are motivated by three
areas of concern. The most immediate threat is from North Korea, whose No
Dong missiles are capable of striking Japan. A longer-range Taepo Dong-1
missile was flight tested over Japan in 1998. North Korea's recent claims about
its nuclear weapons programs have further exacerbated concerns about that
country.
A second area of concern is China. Japanese-Chinese animosity
stretches far back in history. The presence of U.S. forces in Japan means that a
Chinese-Taiwanese conflict in which the United States intervened might
19 Walter B. Slocombe, et al., ``Missile Defense in Asia,'' Atlantic Council of the United States,
June 2003, pp. 16-17.
20 Seongji Woo, ``South Korea's Search for a Unification Strategy,'' Orbis, Summer 2003,
pp. 511-25.
21 ``Seoul to Review Missile Defense System,'' Korea Times, June 19, 2003. This is consistent
with a 2001 statement by ROK Defense Minister Cho Seong-Tae: ``Over the long term, given
the current North Korean missile threat and future battle environment, we are reviewing to
construct a missile defense system suitable to our own [security] environment.'' Quoted in Kim,
``Asian Reactions,'' p. 211.
22 Michael J. Green and Toby F. Dalton, ``Asian Reactions To U.S. Missile Defense,'' National
Bureau of Asian Research Analysis, vol. 11, no. 3 (1999), p. 9.
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 343
involve Japan as well. Finally, Japan remains mindful of the possibility of a
unified Korea in possession of nuclear weapons.23
Japan and the United States agreed to pursue joint research and
development of sea-based BMD technologies in 1999. This was intended to be
a lower-tier system, and Japan was comfortable participating because of the
limited utility and range of the program.24 Pointing to ``a spread of missiles
and a rise in weapons of mass destruction,'' the Japanese cabinet in
December 2003 decided to deploy missile defense using elements of the
Aegis sea-based system (including the SM-3 missile) along with PAC-3.25
As it goes forward with missile defense, Japan will confront several
political and constitutional issues. One of the members of the Liberal
Democratic Party-led coalition currently in power is New Komeito, a
Buddhist party with pacifist leanings. The government will need to maintain
support for missile defense among its coalition parties, including New
Komeito. It will also need to decide where to place missile defense systems
within Japan's defense apparatus and to devise decision rules for authorization
to launch the missiles.26 Lastly, Japan may have to revisit the
constitution's prohibition against defending anything other than the home
islands. This prohibition has precluded participation in ``collective defense.''
An integral part of an operational missile defense system, however, is
cueing--``a battle management function coordinating information between
sensors, control locations, and launchers.''27 The Japanese Aegis system
would be dependant on some U.S. assets in order to function. Would this
constitute ``collective defense''? Couldn't missile defense be used to shoot
down missiles headed for an allied nation? These questions are bound to stir
up conflict within the government.28
The most serious question for Japan, eventually, will be participation
in an Aegis system that has been upgraded to intercept ICBMs, for that system
would make the Japanese partners in a missile defense system that has the
capability to negate the Chinese ICBM force. As the United States works with
Japan on Aegis missile defense, it needs to be sensitive to Japanese concerns
about the future growth of the system.
The missile defense decisions facing Japan must be viewed against
the larger background of U.S.-Japanese relations. Princeton's Gilbert Rozman
has argued that Japan's desire for somewhat greater independence from the
23 Slocombe, ``Missile Defense,'' p. 10, note 13.
24 Patrick M. O'Donogue, Theater Missile Defense in Japan: Implications for the U.S.-China-
Japan Strategic Relationship, Letort Papers, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pa., Sept. 2000;
and Report to Congress on Theater Missile Defense Architecture Options for the Asia-Pacific
Region, U.S. Dept. of Defense, May 1999, at www.dod.gov.
25 ``Japan Go-Ahead on Missile Defense,'' CNN.com, Dec. 19, 2003.
26 Slocombe, ``Missile Defense,'' p. 11.
27 Green and Dalton, ``Asian Reactions,'' p. 5.
28 ``A Joint Research Project Won't Stop An Incoming Missile,'' Asahi Shimbun, June 6, 2003.
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
344 | Orbis
United States is rooted in the Japanese ``quest for national identity.''29 Japan
has been cooperative with the United States since 9/11 and is clearly sobered
by developments in North Korea. Two and a half years after 9/11, if the North
Korean crisis is somehow resolved, it is not clear how committed Japan is to
the long-term deployment of missile defense.
Taiwan. Of all the countries discussed here, Taiwan faces the most
immediate and serious dilemma about what, if any, role it should play in U.S.
plans for missile defense. Taiwan might gain the most from the development
of a system that could protect it from Chinese missiles. But if China perceives
a prospective Taiwanese missile defense as providing sufficient protection to
permit it to move toward greater autonomy, missile defense might provoke a
military confrontation.
The Atlantic Council report suggests that there are two main
Taiwanese views about the feasibility and desirability of missile defense.
The first is that although the 400 Chinese missiles in Fujian, opposite Taiwan,
are a genuine threat, missile defense ``would not give a military security
benefit commensurate with the political costs of the confrontation with the
PRC that a decision to proceed . . . would entail.'' The advocates of this view
are also concerned that the cost of missile defense would prevent Taiwan
from investing in other military capabilities more urgently needed for the next
decade. The second view accepts much of the first but argues that the
``psychological and morale benefits'' of a defense justify having it. To avoid
the provocation of buying an American system, advocates of this view
suggest that Taiwan could instead accept American assistance in building an
indigenous system.30 Despite this debate, at the level of partisan politics
neither the Democratic Progressive Party nor the Kuomintang can afford to
ignore Chinese military threats.31 Thus, missile defense is likely to remain an
active political issue.
Taiwan already possesses upgraded PAC-2 missiles and is moving
toward buying PAC-3. It has expressed interest in buying Arleigh Burke-class
destroyers with the Aegis missile defense system, although the United States
has not yet agreed to the sale. If the United States did provide sea-based
defenses, the Chinese reaction might be severe. The presence of U.S.-
provided interceptor missiles in the waters around Taiwan would reduce the
punitive threat posed by the missiles in Fujian and, in the Chinese view,
might increase the Taiwanese willingness to assert its independence.32 In
addition, the web of electronic relationships required for the Aegis system to
29 Gilbert Rozman, ``Japan's North Korea Initiative and U.S.-Japanese Relations,'' Orbis,
Summer 2003.
30 Slocombe, ``Missile Defense,'' pp. 21-22.
31 Adam Segal, ``East Asian Responses to Theater Missile Defense,'' in Matthew Evangelista
and Judith Reppy, eds., The United States and Asian Security (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Peace Studies Program, Occasional Paper #26, May 2002), pp. 119-20.
32 Kim, ``Asian Reactions,'' pp. 207-8.
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 345
work might raise in the mind of Chinese leaders the specter of a Taiwan-
Japan-U.S. alliance, thereby worsening diplomatic relations in the region or
even precipitating a crisis.33
Much of the U.S.-Taiwanese relationship rests on reciprocal issues of
credibility. Taiwan feels more secure by forging ties that demonstrate greater
American support for its defense. It wants to increase the credibility of the
American commitment in the minds of Chinese leaders. For the United States,
credibility matters too: in the event of an attack, a failure to aid Taiwan ``would
be seen all over Asia as a lack of American resolve and would damage, and
possibly destroy, the United States as a power in the Western Pacific.''34
China. The most important implications of the U.S. decision to deploy
missile defense relate to China, which is America's fourth largest trading
partner but is also viewed as a possible geopolitical rival in the decades
ahead. While Washington does not mention Chinese missiles as a justification
for missile defense, some private analysts do.35
Although the Bush administration no longer distinguishes between
defense of the United States (NMD) and of allies (TMD), the Chinese find the
distinction helpful. The attitude of Chinese officials toward the U.S. NMD
effort is ``one of studied indifference and even scorn.'' The project is
viewed as more of ``a waste of U.S. effort than it is a great problem for
China.''36 While diminishing the significance of NMD on the one hand,
some Chinese officials also believe that an NMD of 100 interceptors would
undermine the Chinese nuclear deterrent. One report characterizes the
majority view among Chinese officials as advocating a moderate, threepronged
response to missile defense: (1) increase the total number of
warheads deployed to a level just beyond the saturation point; (2) develop
MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles that can overwhelm
missile defense); and (3) pursue other effective countermeasures to
defeat the U.S. system. Perhaps the most interesting Chinese reaction to
U.S. plans is the idea that missile defense is ``a trick to convince China
to spend more money on defense, thereby causing the growing economy
to collapse.'' Those Chinese who believe this are determined to avoid the
``overreaction to [Star Wars] which contributed to the downfall of the
U.S.S.R.''37
33 See, e.g., Thomas J. Christensen's conclusion that ``Taiwan's potential inclusion in the
future upper-tier system could contribute to Beijing's sense that it is facing a closing window of
vulnerability or opportunity to settle the Taiwan problem before it becomes more intractable.''
``Posing Problems without Catching Up: China's Rise and Challenges for U.S. Security Policy,''
International Security, Spring 2001, p. 38.
34 Richard Halloran, ``Taiwan,'' Parameters, Spring 2003, p. 33.
35 Larry M. Wortzel, testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mar. 19, 2003.
36 Slocombe, ``Missile Defense,'' p. 24.
37 Joanne Tomkins, ``How U.S. Strategic Policy Is Changing China's Nuclear Plans,'' Arms
Control Today, Jan./Feb. 2003, p. 3.
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
346 | Orbis
While Chinese views of U.S. efforts to defend its homeland are mixed
and even muted, those reactions are stronger and clearer on the prospect of
missile defenses in Northeast Asia. Not surprisingly, China vigorously
opposes extending missile defense to Taiwan and expresses grave concerns
about Japanese participation in missile defense.38
Chinese Concerns About Taiwan. Although Taiwan has already
received defense technology (e.g., PAC-2 and advanced radar equipment)
from the United States, China would like to prevent further missile defense
systems from including Taiwan. Beijing argues that its missiles in Fujian are
``only for deterrence of a Taiwan move toward autonomy, not for use as
weapons.''39 Thus the Chinese argue that missile defense for Taiwan is
unjustified.
The United States would risk China's anger if it sells PAC-3 to Taiwan
or brings Taiwan under the protection of the Aegis program now under
development. Some argue that Chinese military capabilities would be able to
overwhelm a lower-tier system on Taiwan, or one that includes Taiwan in the
footprint,40 while others deem Chinese forces to be so small that they would
be seriously impacted by any missile defense system that would intercept
even some of their missiles.41 Either way, China would certainly oppose a
U.S. decision to extend even lower-tiered systems to Taiwan, both because it
would signal increased military ties between the United States and Taiwan
and because Taiwan's government would ``reap political benefits from TMD
deployment.''42
Taiwan's possession of PAC-3 would not alter the current deterrence
equation. The United States would feel some hesitation to fully support
Taiwan should it ``provoke'' China into attacking and, in turn, China would be
dissuaded from attacking Taiwan both by Taiwan's own military capabilities
and by China's uncertainty as to how vigorously the United States would
defend Taiwan.
Chinese reactions might be much stronger if Taiwan acquires the
Aegis sea-based system, however. China might view this option as a serious
threat undermining its position toward Taiwan. If provocation by Taiwan
occurred between the decision to deploy such a program and its operability,
then China might see a window of opportunity to coerce Taiwan before the
38 ``China Slams Missile-Defense Plans,'' Japan Times, Sept. 4, 2003.
39 Eric A. McVadon, ``Chinese Reactions to New U.S. Initiatives on Missile Defense,'' in
Andrew Scobell and Larry M. Wortzel, eds., China's Growing Military Power: Perspectives on
Security, Ballistic Missiles, and Conventional Capabilities (Carlisle, Pa: Strategic Studies
Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2002), p. 186.
40 Stanley Foundation and Monterey Institute of International Studies, Ballistic Missile
Defense and Northeast Asia (2001), p. 6.
41 Alastair Iain Johnston, ``A Compendium of Potential Chinese Responses to U.S. Ballistic
Missile Defense,'' written transcript of prepared remarks for a conference on Chinese military
capability at Stanford University, Mar. 3, 2000.
42 Ballistic Missile Defense and Northeast Asia (2001), p. 6.
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 347
system was ready. China's temptations to coerce might be further enhanced if
the Taiwanese provocation occurred before U.S. deployment of ground- and
sea-based systems to protect the American homeland. Under this scenario,
the Chinese would hope that the United States would remain on the sidelines
of a conflict with Taiwan due to the deterrent power of China's small ICBM
force.
Chinese Concerns About Japan. Beijing is strongly opposed to Japan's
possession of the Aegis missile defense system, by which Japan ``would be
interlinked with the United States and Taiwan to form a regional ballistic
missile defense system, directed not at North Korea or other `rogue states', but
at China.''43 It is also concerned that U.S. assistance to Japan's missile defense
program will transfer knowledge that will expedite Japan's capability to build
its own ballistic missiles.44
Beijing's possible reactions to limited, layered missile defense could
also have serious consequences for regional security due to the triangular
relations between the United States, Japan, and China. While Japan has
cooperated with the United States in research and development on Aegis
missile defense, Japan is more concerned than the United States over Chinese
perceptions. If China believes that a sea-based system in which Japan is a
participant could be used to protect Taiwan, then relations between Japan
and China could worsen.
China's reactions to the various missile defense scenarios are difficult
to predict. It is moving toward solid-fueled, mobile systems and smaller, more
sophisticated payloads with multiple warheads. In light of the July 2003
American Physical Society report expressing doubt about the feasibility of
boost-phase intercept of solid-fueled missiles, the more likely extensive
layered missile defense may be an Aegis system upgraded to intercept ICBMs.
But China is also focusing on developing countermeasures that will make
interception of ICBMs by the Aegis system more difficult. China may also react
by moving part of its nuclear arsenal to sea, thereby complicating the design
of a U.S. defense. All of this raises the specter of an arms race between China
and the United States.
In addition to the almost certain vertical proliferation that China
would embark on as a result of BMD, it could also respond by retreating from
nonproliferation commitments and selling ballistic missiles to other countries.
Because this course of action would conflict with the Chinese goal of
economic growth through trade, however, it seems less likely than the
modernization of the Chinese ICBM force.
Since the days of Mao, China has believed strongly in the value and
effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. If effective ballistic missile defense
systems become operational, deterrence will become asymmetrical, forcing
43 Slocombe, ``Missile Defense,'' p. 25.
44 McVadon, ``Chinese Reactions,'' p. 18.
FREEDMAN AND GRAY
348 | Orbis
China to reexamine its nuclear and defense doctrine. An increase in Chinese
ICBMs could impact the arms race between China and India. Thus Pakistan too
would feel pressure to increase and improve its nuclear arsenal.
The current Beijing regime bases its legitimacy on economic growth
and renewed nationalism. In the wake of recent personnel changes, there is a
great deal of uncertainty surrounding the top leadership. While Jiang Zemin
has retired from the presidency and Party leadership, he remains chairman of
the military bureaucracy. It is not at all clear whether his handpicked
successor, Hu Jintao, has enough allies in positions of power to challenge
Jiang's behind-the-scenes influence. If U.S. missile defense is perceived as
being aimed at containing China, Hu may feel domestic pressure (both from
the military and from the public) to react strongly. Similarly, if Taiwan is
either included in the footprint of the system that evolves out of cooperation
with Japan or if Taiwan participates more directly in U.S. research and
deployment, then Hu might feel enormous pressure to act decisively before
missile defense is operational. This could mean simply greater military
spending or, in an extreme case, an attempt to coerce Taiwan. The
incomplete transfer of power further complicates predictions of how China
might react to different scenarios.
Conclusion
Given the North Korean threat, the muted international reaction to
American missile defense plans, and strong support within the United States,
we believe it is prudent to continue the missile defense plans outlined by the
Bush administration in December 2002: PAC-3, ground-based interceptors,
and development and testing of an Aegis sea-based system. But we remain
concerned about the ramifications of a future Aegis system that is upgraded
with faster interceptors and enhanced warning and tracking systems to
intercept ICBMs. It is the prospect of a substantial defense against Chinese
ICBMs that is most likely to provoke an arms race.
The United States should provide as much transparency as possible as
it proceeds with missile defense. The Atlantic Council report is optimistic that
such an approach can avert potential problems: ``The long lead times for
developing and deploying missile defenses, combined with the transparency
of programs and regular briefings abroad by U.S. officials, suggest that
deployment of missile defenses in East Asia need not be destabilizing.''45 But
it also warns about the possibility of ``erroneous assumptions about what
kinds of missile defenses may be deployed, where, and in what timeframe.''
A key American objective should be to avoid creating for the Chinese
a window of opportunity wherein they believe they must coerce Taiwan
before missile defenses of a certain magnitude are operational. A second
45 Slocombe, ``Missile Defense,'' p. 29.
Missile Defense
Spring 2004 | 349
objective should be to avoid a Chinese overreaction to a system that the
United States intends to be limited. Let us assume that the United States
deploys limited layered missile defense. Even if Chinese assessments of the
capabilities of that system indicate that it poses little threat to the Chinese
ICBM force, Chinese planners would have to consider the growth potential of
the system. Perhaps additional Aegis-equipped ships in the Pacific would
enable a limited system to become an extensive one that would negate the
Chinese ICBM force.
Problems such as a system's growth potential may test the limits of
transparency. This has led some analysts to recommend other approaches.
Adam Segal suggests that the United States and China ``may be able to
negotiate an informal `rules of the game' for missiles and defenses.''46 Michael
Sheehan proposes an Asian analogue of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.47 The specific approach is less important than
Washington's paying careful attention to the implications for the wider web
of security relations.
Northeast Asia is but a small part of the total picture. The decision to
deploy--and the specific configuration of the systems that are deployed--
will, of course, be based on many factors: whether particular components can
be successfully tested, whether the integrated missile defense system is
affordable in light of other pressing national needs, how the threat
assessment evolves, and whether future leaders and the U.S. public continue
to support this project. Missile defense may have a brighter future
now than ever before, but there are still vital questions that must be
answered before making final deployment decisions.
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Rebuilding Aid Unspent, Tapped to Pay Expenses


By Jonathan Weisman and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A01
Seven months after Congress approved the largest foreign aid package in history to rebuild Iraq, less than 5 percent of the $18.4 billion has been spent and occupation officials have begun shifting more than $300 million earmarked for reconstruction projects to administrative and security expenses.
Recent reports from the Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA's inspector general and the U.S. Agency for International Development attest to the growing difficulties of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort. And they have raised concerns in Congress and among international aid experts that the Bush administration's ambitious rebuilding campaign is adrift amid rising violence and unforeseen costs.
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, cited "bureaucratic infighting" and a "loss of central command and control" at a hearing yesterday as he sharply questioned top administration officials: "I have very serious concerns about the pace of assistance in Iraq and the management of those funds."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz pointed to successes in rebuilding and blamed contracting snafus for some of the delays. But Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary at the State Department, which will take over from the CPA this summer, refused to make what he called "excuses."
"Of course we're not satisfied," he said. "We feel the same sense of urgency that Paul feels to get on with it."
Of the $18.4 billion in Iraqi aid approved by Congress in October, just $2.3 billion had been steered to projects through March 24, the CPA told Congress this month. Only $1 billion has actually been spent, the authority's inspector general told congressional aides Monday. In January, the CPA had said it had planned to spend nearly $8 billion during the first six months of this fiscal year.
The first round of rebuilding funds, about $4.5 billion, focused on rebuilding the electricity grid, restoring the flow of oil, Iraq's main source of revenue, and fixing schools and hospitals.
In a report this month, occupation officials warned Congress that security, project management and logistics expenses may "reduce slightly" the level of funding for reconstruction but said they were still working with the Office of Management and Budget to determine how much money would be moved.
So far, occupation officials have reassigned $184 million appropriated for drinking-water projects to fund the operations of the U.S. Embassy after the provisional authority is dissolved June 30. An additional $29 million from projects such as "democracy building" were reallocated to fund the U.S. development agency's administrative expenses.
And more diversions may be coming. Armitage said the State Department still faces a shortfall of $40 million to $60 million in embassy operating funds this year. And embassy construction and operations could consume as much as $2.5 billion in fiscal 2005, none of which has been requested by President Bush.
"The first time there' s talk of a supplemental [appropriations bill], we'll be up here early and often," Armitage told House members yesterday. Until then, he said, State will have to rely on its authority under last year's Iraqi aid law to divert as much as 10 percent of the aid -- $1.84 billion -- into overhead. In addition, the CPA, which was allocated $858 million for operating expenses, can spend up to additional 1 percent of the total funding on itself.
The shift of money has already raised objections from Capitol Hill and fueled worries that it could undermine the U.S. government's position with the Iraqi people.
Aides from both parties told CPA officials this week to find the embassy money somewhere else, said Tim Rieser, chief Democratic clerk for the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee.
"Cutting funds from water and sanitation makes no sense," Rieser said. "Potable water is desperately needed in that country."
Administration officials said the money was taken from drinking-water projects because such projects have been allocated $2.8 billion through 2005, of which only $14 million has been channeled to projects. They said they felt it would be easier to take the full $184 million they were allowed to shift to CPA expenses from one place, rather than siphoning off smaller amounts from various accounts.
"We worked with Congress to develop a package of options to ensure the embassy would have needed resources," said White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton. "We are continuing to work with Capitol Hill as the process moves forward."
Attacks on foreign civilians have also made the CPA reassess its plan for rebuilding the Iraqi security forces. Some $93 million has been reallocated from facilities protection, border enforcement and the Iraqi Armed Forces to build a fortified police training facility in Baghdad, in addition to an $800 million training academy in Jordan. The reason is that international police trainers needed a secure place to work in the Iraqi capital, said Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House subcommittee responsible for aid funding.
Almost since the very beginning, the reconstruction of Iraq has been set back by problems including the widespread looting in the country and competition between various U.S. agencies. "At its worst," Kolbe said yesterday, the infighting "has led to different parts of the U.S. government pursuing different policies in a given country."
The first set of contracts was awarded before the war ended, and occupation authorities reported significant progress in rebuilding schools and power plants by last fall. But turning the new round of congressional funding into visible projects and jobs has been hampered by continuing administrative and security problems.
Shortly after Congress approved the funds in mid-November, senior government officials became embroiled in a debate over who would manage the money and whether proper financial controls were in place. The Pentagon had set up a new entity called the Program Management Office to coordinate between the various contracting agencies. Some officials argued that the idea of the new office was too experimental and that it might be better for USAID or another agency to take over. The result was that the first major group of contracts were awarded in March, instead of February.
The Program Management Office Web site now says $1.5 billion in work is "under way" on 42 projects, and its director, David J. Nash, a retired Navy rear admiral, said in Iraq last week that $5 billion of the funds "will be committed to construction" by July 1.
Meanwhile, the deteriorating security situation has forced CPA officials to change some spending priorities.
USAID spokesman Luke Zahner said the shift of funds from "democracy building," electricity, education and water to agency overhead was a technical adjustment. Limited funds were allocated for operations by Congress because it was unclear last fall which agency would oversee which projects in Iraq, he said.
Most of the reallocation is for security, said Lu'ay Eris, deputy president of Baghdad City Council, which he called a reasonable decision.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Asim Jihad, agreed: "Everything is linked to everything else. If there is no security, it will be impossible to do reconstruction projects."
But, Eris predicted, "taking this money will affect reconstruction. It will lengthen the period."
The CPA's recent report to Congress shows how little of Congress's latest rebuilding allocation has been spent since Oct 1.
Of the $279 million earmarked for irrigation projects, for instance, none has been spent. The same goes for $152 million allocated for dam repair and construction. The occupation government earmarked $240 million for road and bridge construction, of which $20 million has been "obligated" to projects so far. One bridge, at Al Mat, has been rebuilt, another at Khazir is partially reopened.
Some of the programs that generated objections as gratuitous and expensive when debated in Congress last fall also have yet to take hold. The administration's $75 million witness protection initiative got its first team of U.S. marshals on March 25 to begin designing the program.
Congress pared back Bush's $400 million request for two new prisons to $100 million; so far, only "the initial scope of work" has been approved. The Defense Department did shift $15 million from judicial security to prisons to fund 107 contractors "as trainers and mentors."
Special correspondent Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad contributed to this report.


? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Rumsfeld's War, Powell's Occupation
Rumsfeld wanted Iraqis in on the action -- right from the beginning.

By Barbara Lerner

The latest post-hoc conventional wisdom on Iraq is that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld won the war but lost the occupation. There are two problems with this analysis (which comes, most forcefully, from The Weekly Standard). First, it's not Rumsfeld's occupation; it's Colin Powell's and George Tenet's. Second, although it's painfully obvious that much is wrong with this occupation, it's simple-minded to assume that more troops will fix it. More troops may be needed now, but more of the same will not do the job. Something different is needed -- and was, right from the start.




A Rumsfeld occupation would have been different, and still might be. Rumsfeld wanted to put an Iraqi face on everything at the outset -- not just on the occupation of Iraq, but on its liberation too. That would have made a world of difference.

Rumsfeld's plan was to train and equip -- and then transport to Iraq -- some 10,000 Shia and Sunni freedom fighters led by Shia exile leader Ahmed Chalabi and his cohorts in the INC, the multi-ethnic anti-Saddam coalition he created. There, they would have joined with thousands of experienced Kurdish freedom fighters, ably led, politically and militarily, by Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani. Working with our special forces, this trio would have sprung into action at the start of the war, striking from the north, helping to drive Baathist thugs from power, and joining Coalition forces in the liberation of Baghdad. That would have put a proud, victorious, multi-ethnic Iraqi face on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and it would have given enormous prestige to three stubbornly independent and unashamedly pro-American Iraqi freedom fighters: Chalabi, Talabani, and Barzani.

Jay Garner, the retired American general Rumsfeld chose to head the civilian administration of the new Iraq, planned to capitalize on that prestige immediately by appointing all three, along with six others, to head up Iraq's new transitional government. He planned to cede power to them in a matter of weeks -- not months or years -- and was confident that they would work with him, not against him, because two of them already had. General Garner, after all, is the man who headed the successful humanitarian rescue mission that saved the Kurds in the disastrous aftermath of Gulf War I, after the State Department-CIA crowd and like thinkers in the first Bush administration betrayed them. Kurds are not a small minority -- and they remember. The hero's welcome they gave General Garner when he returned to Iraq last April made that crystal clear.

Finally, Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to cut way down on the infiltration of Syrian and Iranian agents and their foreign terrorist recruits, not just by trying to catch them at the border -- a losing game, given the length of those borders -- but by pursuing them across the border into Syria to strike hard at both the terrorists and their Syrian sponsors, a move that would have forced Iran as well as Syria to reconsider the price of trying to sabotage the reconstruction of Iraq.

None of this happened, however, because State and CIA fought against Rumsfeld's plans every step of the way. Instead of bringing a liberating Shia and Sunni force of 10,000 to Iraq, the Pentagon was only allowed to fly in a few hundred INC men. General Garner was unceremoniously dumped after only three weeks on the job, and permission for our military to pursue infiltrators across the border into Syria was denied.

General Garner was replaced by L. Paul Bremer, a State Department man who kept most of the power in his own hands and diluted what little power Chalabi, Talabani, and Barzani had by appointing not six but 22 other Iraqis to share power with them. This resulted in a rapidly rotating 25-man queen-for-a-day-type leadership that turned the Iraqi Governing Council into a faceless mass, leaving Bremer's face as the only one most Iraqis saw.

By including fence-sitters and hostile elements as well as American friends in his big, unwieldy IGC and giving them all equal weight, Bremer hoped to display a kind of inclusive, above-it-all neutrality that would win over hostile segments of Iraqi society and convince them that a fully representative Iraqi democracy would emerge. But Iraqis didn't see it that way. Many saw a foreign occupation of potentially endless length, led by the sort of Americans who can't be trusted to back up their friends or punish their enemies. Iraqis saw, too, that Syria and Iran had no and were busily entrenching their agents and terrorist recruits into Iraqi society to organize, fund, and equip Sunni bitter-enders like those now terrorizing Fallujah and Shiite thugs like Moqtada al Sadr, the man who is holding hostage the holy city of Najaf.

Despite all the crippling disadvantages it labored under, Bremer's IGC managed to do some genuine good by writing a worthy constitution, but the inability of this group to govern-period, let alone in time for the promised June 30 handover -- finally became so clear that Bremer and his backers at State and the CIA were forced to recognize it. Their last minute "solution" is to dump the Governing Council altogether, and give U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, the power to appoint a new interim government. The hope is that U.N. sponsorship will do two big things: 1) give the Brahimi government greater legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people; and 2) convince former allies to join us and reinforce our troops in Iraq in some significant way. These are vain hopes.

Putting a U.N. stamp on an Iraqi government will delegitimize it in the eyes of most Iraqis and do great damage to those who are actively striving to create a freer, more progressive Middle East. Iraqis may distrust us, but they have good reason to despise the U.N., and they do. For 30 years, the U.N. ignored their torments and embraced their tormentor, focusing obsessively on a handful of Palestinians instead. Then, when Saddam's misrule reduced them to begging for food and medicine, they saw U.N. fat cats rip off the Oil-for-Food Program money that was supposed to save them.

The U.N. as a whole is bad; Lakhdar Brahimi is worse. A long-time Algerian and Arab League diplomat, he is the very embodiment of all the destructive old policies foisted on the U.N. by unreformed Arab tyrants, and he lost no time in making that plain. In his first press conferences, he emphasized three points: Chalabi, Talabani, and Barzani will have no place in a government he appoints; he will condemn American military action to restore order in Iraq; and he will be an energetic promoter of the old Arab excuses -- Israel's "poison in the region," he announced, is the reason it's so hard to create a viable Iraqi interim government.

Men like Chalabi, Talabani, and Barzani have nothing but contempt for Mr. Brahimi, the U.N., and old Europe. They know perfectly well who their real enemies are, and they understand that only decisive military action against them can create the kind of order that is a necessary precondition for freedom and democracy. They see, as our State Department Arabists do not, that we will never be loved, in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East, until we are respected, and that the month we have wasted negotiating with the butchers of Fallujah has earned us only contempt, frightening our friends and encouraging our mortal enemies.

The damage Brahimi will do to the hope of a new day in Iraq and in the Middle East is so profound that it would not be worth it even if empowering him would bring in a division of French troops to reinforce ours in Iraq. In fact, it will do no such thing. Behind all the bluster and moral preening, the plain truth is that the French have starved their military to feed their bloated, top-heavy welfare state for decades. They couldn't send a division like the one the Brits sent, even if they wanted to (they don't). Belgium doesn't want to help us either, nor Spain, nor Russia, because these countries are not interested in fighting to create a new Middle East. They're fighting to make the most advantageous deals they can with the old Middle East, seeking to gain advantages at our expense, and at the expense of the oppressed in Iraq, Iran, and every other Middle Eastern country where people are struggling to throw off the shackles of Islamofascist oppression.

It is not yet too late for us to recognize these facts and act on them by dismissing Brahimi, putting Secretary Rumsfeld and our Iraqi friends fully in charge at last, and unleashing our Marines to make an example of Fallujah. And when al Jazeera screams "massacre," instead of cringing and apologizing, we need to stand tall and proud and tell the world: Lynch mobs like the one that slaughtered four Americans will not be tolerated. Order will restored, and Iraqis who side with us will be protected and rewarded.

-- Barbara Lerner is a frequent contributor to NRO.


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Profitless Profiteering
Why can't Halliburton make good money in Iraq?
By Daniel Gross
Posted Thursday, April 29, 2004, at 12:47 PM PT

Is it war profiteering if you barely make a profit on your war work?
In March 2003, the KBR unit of Halliburton, the oil-services company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, controversially received huge no-bid contracts to provide a range of services in Iraq--everything from fixing oil fields to delivering fuel to feeding soldiers. For many administration critics, KBR's central role in the reconstruction of Iraq stands as evidence that the war in Iraq was a pretext for crony capitalists to grow fat on borrowed taxpayer dollars.
But here's the funny thing. So far, the Iraq war hasn't proved much of a boon for Halliburton's shareholders. Because of incompetence, the chaos of working in the war zone, and a contract that limits profits, KBR's margins on its hazardous work are pretty marginal.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the Iraq contracts call for KBR to be reimbursed for its costs plus 1 percent. The company can also bill the military for a portion of its administration and overhead and can earn performance bonuses. KBR spends a lot of effort funneling taxpayer money to subcontractors, who may themselves be getting rich off of Iraq-related work. Meanwhile, the Iraq work has required KBR to incur big expenses of its own--higher insurance costs for operating in a hazardous region, recruiting costs for hiring new employees for dangerous duty, and administrative costs for handling a huge amount of new business quickly.
An excellent front-page article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Russell Gold shows that, depending on how you look at it, KBR has either made the best of a horrible situation or has screwed up big time. At times, KBR seems to function more like a dot-com on its last legs than the ultra-efficient logistics unit of a Fortune 500 company. Suppliers don't get paid and invoices are routinely lost. As KBR rushed into Iraq, "Many of its systems, from procurement to billing, got overloaded, creating a breeding ground for potential corruption and more inflated prices--not to mention inefficiency on a huge scale," Gold writes.
When you're a logistics company--and one working on a 1 percent profit margin--inefficiency is a killer. That's why for service companies like Halliburton, landing huge contracts is less than half the battle. Improperly executed, a huge contract can become a gigantic liability. So while KBR may land deals because of its connections and experience, it hasn't shown much ability of late to carry them out profitably.
According to Halliburton's most recent quarterly results, released yesterday, its KBR unit lost $15 million in the first quarter, largely because of a $97 million loss on an ill-fated project in Brazil, even though revenues for the unit doubled to $3.7 billion. Iraq was a fairly dim bright light. "Halliburton's Iraq-related work contributed approximately $2.1 billion in revenues in the first quarter 2004 and $32 million in operating income," the company reported. That's a margin of 1.5 percent.
The previous quarter, KBR reported $2.2 billion in Iraq-related revenues and operating income of $44 million--a 2 percent margin. And in the third quarter of 2003, KBR had $900 million in Iraq revenues and operating income of $34 million--a 3.7 percent margin. As time goes on, in other words, KBR's profits in Iraq are shrinking in both real and proportional terms. Worse, for KBR, this may be as good as it gets. Even though it received a $1.2 billion contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue working on the Restore Iraqi Oil program in January, the unit's backlog of work has shrunk.
What's more, KBR may ultimately pay the price for its success in monopolizing Pentagon business in Iraq. Halliburton and the Pentagon have become dependent on each other, and that may be bad for both of them. It would be extremely difficult for the Pentagon to switch master contractors in the middle of a war. And for Halliburton, the Pentagon may prove to be a capricious, highly demanding, and unpredictable client.
KBR is now under criminal investigation by the Pentagon over claims it overcharged for fuel delivered from Kuwait. The Pentagon is also looking into dining-hall contracts allegedly awarded without competitive bids. And annoyed at repeated billing screw-ups, the Pentagon is withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to KBR. Any of these conflicts could further erode KBR's margins.
KBR hasn't lost money on its sweetheart Iraq contracts--yet. It has made a small profit. But the amounts are nothing to write home about--and they're certainly not worth starting a war over.


Daniel Gross (www.danielgross.net) writes Slate's "Moneybox" column. You can e-mail him at moneybox@slate.com.

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>> YELLOWCAKE JOE?

Book Names Iraqi in Alleged '99 Bid to Buy Uranium

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A16
It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.
That's according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.
That knowledge has not altered Wilson's much-expressed view that the Bush administration distorted intelligence on Iraq's weapons capabilities to help make the case for going to war. Wilson maintains that someone in the administration retaliated against him by disclosing to columnist Robert D. Novak that his wife was a CIA operative, a leak now the subject of a grand jury investigation. The revelation about Sahhaf, contained in "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity," adds an odd bit of detail to the uranium saga.
Sahhaf was dubbed "Baghdad Bob" and "Comical Ali" by the Western news media for his often farcical televised pronouncements about how Iraq was winning the war last April even as U.S. troops were rolling into Baghdad. "Those Iraqi fighters are slapping those gangsters on the face, and then when they flee, they will kick their backsides," he asserted at one point.
Sahhaf, now a broadcast correspondent in Abu Dhabi, could not be reached for comment yesterday. He was interviewed when the U.S. military took control if Iraq but was not held. "He wasn't wanted for anything. Unfortunately, being a bad spokesman is not a crime," a U.S. official said.
Sahhaf's role casts more light on an aspect of Wilson's report to the CIA that was publicly disclosed last summer. On the heels of Wilson's public criticism that intelligence was exaggerated and his statement that his trip to Niger had turned up no uranium sales to Iraq, agency Director George J. Tenet took the blame for allowing President Bush to make assertions about the Iraqi quest for nuclear material in his 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet said the intelligence had been too "fragmentary" to merit inclusion in the speech.
Tenet's statement noted that Wilson had reported back to the CIA that a former Niger official told him that "in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
In his book, Wilson recounts his encounter with the unnamed Niger official in 2002, saying, he "hesitated and looked up to the sky as if plumbing the depths of his memory, then offered that perhaps the Iraqi might have wanted to talk about uranium." Wilson did not get the Iraqi's name in 2002, but he writes that he talked to his source again four months ago, and that the former official said he saw Sahhaf on television before the start of the war and recognized him as the person he talked to in 1999.
Much of Wilson's book recounts the events surrounding the disclosure that his wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. A grand jury investigating the disclosure has been highly active in the past seven weeks, suggesting that it may have reached a new stage, people familiar with the probe said. Plame was a covert operative. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is illegal to knowingly disclose the name of a covert CIA employee.
FBI agents and prosecutors have interviewed some current and former White House officials repeatedly, people involved in the case said. Several administration officials testified before the grand jury in recent weeks.
Staff writer Linton Weeks contributed to this report.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company


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Saddam regime may have planned insurgency before it fell

By John J. Lumpkin
Associated Press
Anti-U.S. violence in Iraq comes from multiple directions and sources, but Pentagon intelligence officials believe they have divined the most sophisticated: a group of Iraqi intelligence and security officers who dispersed around Iraq, preparing for guerrilla war, even as Saddam Hussein's regime fell.
Figuring out the enemy in Iraq has been a key struggle for the U.S. military ever since Saddam was toppled. And it has come to a head as American officials try to deal with an entrenched insurgency in Fallujah.
The insurgents fighting in Fallujah are thought to be a mix of several groups, Marine Maj. Gen. John Sattler, director of operations for the U.S. Central Command, said this week.
"We believe that there's a combination of former Baathist, some foreign fighters, some extremists, a combination of some Iraqi Republican Guard elements that were out there in the vicinity of Fallujah, some terrorists who have moved in from outside the country," he said.
Other groups are capable of almost as much violence as the group of Iraqi intelligence and security officers that U.S. officials have identified. Those others include supporters of Jordanian extremist Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Ansar al-Islam extremist group, and various militias that have emerged since the fall of Saddam, American officials say.
Attributing particular acts to specific groups is often difficult without a full investigation or a cooperative prisoner. But some patterns in attacks have emerged.
The group of Iraqi intelligence officers come from the Directorate of Special Operations and Antiterrorism, known as M-14, according to defense officials at the Pentagon who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That was a part of Iraq's intelligence service, the Mukhabarat -- the same organization the U.S. government says tried to assassinate former President Bush in Kuwait in 1993.
Officials said they think members of the organization are working independently and probably in little communication with one another. The officials cited a recent report by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency.
The nature and extent of their connection to other violent groups in Iraq is unclear, although officials said their specialty is to train, fund and plan operations by others willing to carry them out.
Interviews with prisoners provided some information on M-14. But defense officials said another clue to its operations comes from similarities in certain bomb designs found around the country.
They also suspect some of these security officers are agitating in Fallujah, where Marines face an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 insurgents. Military officials say they see the insurgents using Soviet-style defense-in-depth military tactics, instead of the hit-and-run ambushes favored by Islamic mujahideen who fought in Afghanistan.
That suggests leadership by former members of Saddam's Soviet-style military, instead of foreigners, officials said.
The DIA report also blames the group for an April 14, 2003, attack that killed three U.S. soldiers, the official said. It said the group probably is working with other anti-U.S. groups and individuals to conduct some of their attacks.
Some reports put Zarqawi, an associate of Osama bin Laden, in Fallujah, as well.
Beyond Fallujah, intelligence and military officials suspect, in particular, that he is behind attacks in other regions of Iraq that appeared aimed at causing violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and others aimed at driving U.S. allies, such as Italy, out of Iraq.
Officials cite an intercepted letter of his as evidence of his goals.
However, Zarqawi is thought to be more interested in bombings than in firefights.
"To what extent, if any, he is involved in Fallujah fighting is unclear," one counterterrorism official said.
Another active group is Ansar al-Islam, which officials also associate with Zarqawi. Members of the group, formed in the Kurdish parts of Iraq, have served as fixers for other Sunni Muslim extremists entering Iraq, U.S. officials believe. They also have experimented with chemical weapons in the past, and defense officials worry they could try such an attack inside Iraq.
Defense officials say the threat of violence from various militias is on the rise. The best known is the al-Mahdi Army, made up of followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric holed up in Najaf.
Still another group is Mohammed's Army, which is believed to be composed of former security and military officials from Saddam's regime.
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Syria's Assad backs Iraqi resistance
Admits in interview his belief in insurgents fighting U.S.
Posted: April 30, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
? 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called radical Islamic insurgents fighting coalition troops in Iraq a legitimate resistance.
"Certainly, what has happened on the popular level gives legitimacy to the resistance and shows that the major part of what is happening is resistance," Assad said in comments aired on the Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite channel al-Jazeera.
The interview will be broadcast in full Saturday on an "open dialogue" program.
It was the first time Assad publicly admitted his view of the Iraqi resistance, said the exiled opposition group Reform Party of Syria.
The party, based in Washington, D.C., said "Middle East experts" regard the president's remarks as a "declaration of war" because Damascus has sent Syrians to fight the U.S. in Fallujah.
Relations between Syria and the U.S. already are tense with Damascus on the State Department's list of terrorist-sponsoring nations and pressure from Washington to curb terrorism in the region.
The U.S.-led forces are battling threats from both Sunni Muslim guerrillas in Fallujah, near Baghdad, and Shiite fighters in the south.
"You are talking now about resistance which is against the occupation forces," Assad said in the interview.
Asked if the resistance was legitimate, he said: "Well, of course, it's understood that way."

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Some on Hill Seek to Punish Syria for Broken Promises on Iraq
By Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 30, 2004; Page A24
Syria has failed to fulfill key promises to cooperate on Iraq, particularly to close down the traffic of foreign fighters, smugglers and others across its border, which is triggering new congressional efforts to impose tougher U.S. restrictions on Damascus, according to U.S. and congressional officials.
President Bashar Assad has also not returned to Iraq $3 billion from Saddam Hussein's government held in Syrian banks, or closed offices of Islamic extremists and Palestinian radicals in the Syrian capital, as he promised Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in talks a year ago, U.S. officials said.
At the time, Powell told Assad that if he wanted to avoid sanctions contained in a bill proposed in Congress, he needed to take action to satisfy U.S. concerns. But Syria often failed to live up to administration expectations. While Hussein's money was frozen, for instance, the Syrian government then used it to pay claims to Syrians who said they were owed money by Iraq, reducing the amount left, U.S. officials said.
The White House last fall lifted its objections to the bill, known as the Syrian Accountability Act, and now pressure is mounting on the Bush administration to finally impose the sanctions it outlines. The administration was expected to select from a list of possible sanctions more than six weeks ago, but has repeatedly deferred action.
Congressional sources said the administration intended to impose penalties in stages, to see if a gradual unrolling would prod the Syrian government to reverse course. The law requires the administration by June 12 to ban export to Syria of any dual-use goods that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction -- though some exemptions will be made for products such as communications gear -- and then pick at least two of six punitive measures listed in the legislation.
But some House lawmakers said they were tired of waiting and intend to introduce a new Syria-Lebanon liberation act, modeled to some extent on the Iraq Liberation Act, that would mandate broader sanctions against Syria than are called for in the current law and, by implication, support government change.
"My patience has run out," said Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), one of the co-sponsors.
U.S. officials said the Bush administration is also frustrated, in part because the Syrian government has been either unable or unwilling to stop the traffic across the 400-mile border that it originally encouraged or facilitated, despite repeated pledges of action.
"It's a mixed bag at best. On occasion they are cooperative when they're motivated to do so. They could do a lot more on the borders of Iraq and hint that they will, but we'd like to see more evidence of it," said a U.S. official familiar with the discussions. "There's not a lot of progress on stopping people going through or the money. They're reluctant to be excessively helpful, and there's no good explanation why -- maybe solidarity with neighbors or not wanting to be seen to collaborate with the Americans."
Because Syria does not require visas for Arabs, the Syrian border has been the main route into Iraq for foreign fighters, many of whom are now fighting in Fallujah, officials say. In the early days of the U.S.-led intervention, the Syrians helped arrange logistics and transportation for anyone interested in crossing into Iraq, U.S. officials say.
Under pressure from the United States, Syria has repeatedly promised to end its direct help, but has been unable or unwilling to cut off the infrastructure it put in place, the officials say.
Part of the problem is that the Syrian government does not totally control the border. In some cases, tribes along the border have facilitated cross-border travel because of bribes or disinterest in heeding the message from Damascus; in others, Syrian border guards have looked the other way for bribes, the officials say. Over the past year, traffic across the border has become good business. Many Syrians do not agree with government policy or any move that is seen to assist forces occupying an Arab country, U.S. officials say.
Many Syrians are among the fighters who have shown up in hospitals or in custody, another reason Washington has continued to pressure Damascus, U.S. officials say.
But the U.S. official called Syria's failure to comply over the past year "a missed opportunity," adding that the administration had not been surprised by the failure to follow through on its promises.
State Department officials said that the White House has not put into effect the provisions of the original sanctions law because it did not want to overshadow the scheduled Arab League summit last month or embarrass Egyptian and Jordanian leaders, who had just held talks with Assad, during their visits to Washington this month. But the Arab League summit and the visit of the Jordanian king have been postponed until May, further delaying White House actions, State Department officials add.
But congressional officials say the administration is divided on whether to sanction Syria when the United States needs cooperation. "There is obviously an internal debate going on pitting some inside the NSC [National Security Council] and Defense against State and [CIA director George J.] Tenet," said a senior congressional aide familiar with the conversations between Capitol Hill and the White House. "Tenet is the voice, saying, 'Slow down, slow down, no matter how big a trickle [of cooperation there] is, at least it is a trickle.'"
The State Department's annual report on terrorism, released yesterday, said Syria has cooperated in fighting al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and has discouraged signs of public support for al Qaeda within Syria. But it was faulted for continuing to provide "political and material support to Palestinian rejectionist groups." The report said that a number of groups continue to operate from Syria, "although they have lowered their public profiles since May, when Damascus announced that the groups had voluntarily closed their offices."


? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Globalizing terror -- Khaddafy outsourced?

By John Metzler
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Friday, April 30, 2004
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a terrorist weapons ban barring individuals, countries and states from trafficking in chemical, biological and nuclear arms. The resolution would punish "non-state actors" for possessing and selling weapons of mass destruction.
The resolution addresses the very real but growing role of non-State players in organized violence. The identifiable countries which long hosted terrorists -- Libya, Iraq, Islamic Iran -- are now fewer or under very close scrutiny. Thus while this unanimously backed resolution is a major victory for American diplomacy, somehow I don't feel the bad guys are running scared.
In parallel to economic globalization there's been a globalization of terrorism too -- the usual suspects have outsourced their grisly business to offshore entities from Yemen to the southern Philippines, Morocco and into the historic heart of Europe. Let us not forget that the German city of Hamburg hosted some key Al Qaida cells as much as did London and Paris.
In one sense business globalization -- easy communication, simple cross border movement and cash transfers -- indirectly abets the terrorists. Crossing European Union frontiers is quite easy with few exceptions. Beyond the positive benefits, naturally this facilitates illegal immigration, crime syndicates, and clandestine terrorist cells.
Beyond the horrific attacks on American September 11th and on Madrid March 11th, one finds that the grisly path has taken many curious turns from Istanbul to Jerusalem to Madrid.
Naturally those who instinctively know better will assure us that the problem remains for the most part -- somewhere else or somehow our fault. They refuse to acknowledge that America's once lax border controls and domestic surveillance in the 1990's allowed these militants to meticulously construct scores of sleeper cells in U.S. cities which were out of the reach of law enforcement. While our War on Terror has successfully rolled up many terrorist cells since September 11th, we must realistically assume many others have not been.
Now there's a nagging dimension which is also distinctly different. A recent upsurge in violence across the Middle East where Islamic fundamentalists have tried to create a spectacular chemical weapon attacks in the Jordanian capital but were thwarted, bombs in Saudi Arabia, and of course Iraqi militants continue to harasses coalition forces in Iraq. Moderate Arab governments from Morocco to Jordan feel the venomous hatred of fundamentalists. Even Syria, who hosts many militants, saw recent attacks. The violence in Damascus could be the fury from fundamentalists who were long suppressed by Assad's regime, or a provocation by the Syrians to crack down on rumbling dissent.
Interestingly Libya's leader Col. Khaddafy, longtime alleged patron saint of international terrorism, appears to have gone cold turkey. Given Khaddafy's genuine fear that his chemical weapons and nuclear research programs were putting him in the cross-hairs of the Bush Administration, the Libyan leader came clean. Not only has he surrendered some weapons nobody even knew he possessed, but he now has played an awkward political charm offensive with politicos from Tony Blair to the European Union's supremo Romano Prodi.
The images are surrealistic -- Blair posing with Khaddafy outside a Bedouin tent in the Libyan desert -- camels as the exotic backdrop. Khaddafy goes to Brussels and gets glad-handed by the Euroclass. Khaddafy's past terror has been outsourced. Maybe the mercurial Libyan Colonel is just too 1970's and 80's. Move over Moammar -- Osama Bin Laden is the new chief.
There are notable exceptions. Islamic Iran's President Mohammed Khatami stated recently, "Hizbullah are the pride of the Muslim and Arab world, the pride of Iran." Indeed this Teheran sponsored terrorist group has long been the bane of Lebanon and Israel.
Formal state sponsorship of terrorist groups, once a mainstay of militants from Tripoli to Teheran, is being outsourced to the shadowy Al Qaida network which lives among the target groups and countries. Realistically any regime who openly sponsors terrorists, knows it's on the Pentagon's short list for action. Such targets are too tempting in the post-September 11th world. America won't allow them.
Thus the terrorists are essentially outsourcing their operations and in many cases are now living among us.


John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

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>> SAY WHAT?


Annan urges Arafat to crack down on terror
By JPOST.COM STAFF
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Yasser Arafat on Friday to give Israel's Gaza pullout plan a chance, saying Palestinians should crack down on terrorists to help revive a broader peace effort, Reuters news agency reported.
In unusually tough language, Annan - in a letter obtained by Reuters - also criticized the Palestinian Authority Chairman for failing to meet obligations under the road map plan including security reforms and putting an end to suicide bombings.
He said Israel must carry out its road map requirements to dismantle Jewish settler outposts and freeze construction in larger, established settlements.
"You are aware...that the Palestinian side too has obligations it has not fulfilled," Annan told Arafat. "The Palestinian Authority should immediately start taking effective measures to curb terrorism and violence."
"Decisive actions on your part would help the international community ensure that any withdrawal from Gaza is part of the implementation of the road map and not a substitute for it," he wrote.
Reuters reported that Annan's letter was a response to Arafat's written complaint on April 15 about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral "disengagement" plan and President Bush's endorsement of it.

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Abu Mazen calls for PA reforms to counter Sharon
By JPOST.COM STAFF
The Palestinian leadership should begin reforms to counter Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his unilateral disengagement plan, former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) told Reuters on Friday.
Abbas, who resigned in September after his reform program, backed by Washington, was blocked by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, said that the PA could take on Sharon and regain relevance in US eyes by tackling reforms.
Abbas called on the crumbling Authority to "unite the many security organs, control the armed and non-armed factions, make (democratic) reforms and then go to the Arabs and the world for backing.
"Israel and America will continue to have the upper hand if we don't work to activate the Palestinian Authority and prove we are partners, carrying out our duties, despite the occupation," Abbas said.

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MI5 goes online to detail UK terror threat
By Mark Huband, Security Correspondent
Published: April 30 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: April 30 2004 5:00
MI5, the security service, has emerged further into the public eye with a new website launched on Friday that outlines details of the threat of terrorsim and gives advice on how to prepare for attacks.
The website service, is directed mainly at businesses, signals a significant raising of MI5's public profile and comes partly in response to demands from companies that information from the security service be made more widely available.
Whitehall officials hope that by putting the MI5 stamp on the information, company boards will be more encouraged to implement the suggested security measures. The website will, for the first time, give the public access to MI5's assessment of the terrorist threat facing Britain.
"The most important part of the service will be the security advice," said a senior Whitehall official. "It will give more detail on the threat in the UK and the threat internationally. But it will also give advice on what to do about the threat, which will be intended to make people think about the measures they are taking. The emphasis will be on planning for staff security and business continuity."
MI5 has restricted its advisory role to utilities that form the critical national infrastructure. This was recently expanded to include food and chemicals companies, but is now seen as appropriate to all sectors. www.mi5.gov.uk
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DEPUTIES GIVE INITIAL APPROVAL TO BILL UNDERCUTTING GENERAL STAFF...
The Duma approved on 29 April a bill on the management of the military, Russian media reported. The bill amending the law on defense was approved in its first reading, with 424 votes in favor and one against, Interfax reported. If adopted, the bill will significantly reduce the role of the General Staff in managing the operations of the Russian armed forces. The draft stipulates that the defense minister, working through the Defense Ministry, exercises control over the Armed Forces. According to gazeta.ru, under Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's plan for reforming military administration, the General Staff will become the "brain" of the army, an "intellectual center for the military-administration system." The website also reported that Ivanov has clashed repeatedly with General Staff chief General Anatolii Kvashnin since Ivanov took over the Defense Ministry. Kvashnin, who was a close associate of former President Boris Yeltsin, also had public conflicts with former Defense Minister Igor Sergeev. JAC

...OKAYS BILL EASING ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS...
Also on 29 April, legislators approved in their first reading amendments to the law on government, Russian media reported. The bill, which was sponsored by the presidential administration, was supported by 425 legislators, with one vote against, RIA-Novosti reported. Presidential envoy to the State Duma Aleksandr Kosopkin explained that the bill gives the government the right to redistribute functions within executive bodies during reforms of government structure. It also updates legislation to reflect the new names of various federal agencies. The Duma's next plenary session will be on 12 May. JAC

...AND LAUNCH INTERNAL CORRUPTION COMMISSION
A 15-member commission to investigate corruption within the Duma will begin operating soon, "Rossiiskaya gazeta" reported on 29 April (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 22 April 2004). Among the issues the commission is expected to probe is lobbying by large corporations that have allegedly purchased influence by financing legislators' election campaigns. The case of former Duma Deputy Leonid Maevskii (Communist), who purchased a 25.1 percent stake in the mobile-phone company Megafon while he was chairman of the Duma Communications and Information Subcommittee, is one example of the activities the commission will examine, according to the daily. Unified Russia faction deputy head Mikhail Bugera recently sent an inquiry about Maevskii to the Prosecutor-General's Office, the daily reported. Maevskii was expelled from the Communist Party faction last year after charging that self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovskii was financing the party in full (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 20 November 2003). JAC

CHUBAIS CALLED TO ACCOUNT FOR EES PR SPENDING
Unified Energy Systems (EES) CEO Anatolii Chubais will have to account to the EES board for the company's spending for "public relations" and "government relations," "Vedomosti" reported on 29 April. EES board member and Base Element holding company Vice President Devid Dzheovanis has asked EES board Chairman Aleksandr Voloshin to include Chubais's report in the agenda for the next board meeting. "We have read in the media that the company is paying journalists to write well of EES. We have also heard that the company financed a recent press campaign against Rusal," Dzheovanis told the daily. "We want to know if this is true. And if it is, we want this practice stopped." Another ESS board member, who asked not to be named, told the paper that "it is simply comic when Base Element accuses someone else of paying off journalists." Last year, the Yabloko party accused Chubais and EES of financing a public relations campaign aimed at discrediting the party and Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 6 and 8 August and 16 September 2003). RC

COURT DENIES REQUEST TO COMBINE KHODORKOVSKII, LEBEDEV TRIALS
Moscow's Meshchanskii Raion Court on 29 April denied a defense motion to combine the trials of Menatep Chairman Platon Lebedev and of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii, Russian media reported. The defense argued that since Lebedev and Khodorkovskii are charged in connection with identical alleged crimes, the cases should be tried together, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on 30 April. Prosecutors countered that it was still uncertain when Khodorkovskii's case would be transferred to the courts, since the defendant is still reviewing the case materials (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 26 April 2004). Lebedev's lawyers said they will continue to seek the unification of the two trials and on 29 April they submitted an appeal to the court asking that Lebedev's trial be postponed until Khodorkovskii's case is submitted to the courts, the daily reported. RC

DID PROSECUTORS QUESTION POTANIN?
A spokeswoman for the Interros holding on 29 April denied media reports that Interros President Vladimir Potanin was questioned earlier that day by the Prosecutor-General's Office, ITAR-TASS reported. Ekho Moskvy, newsru.com, and "Russkii kurer," all citing unnamed Interros sources, reported the interrogation, adding that Potanin left Russia for Israel immediately after being questioned. The Prosecutor-General's Office refused to comment on the reports. Interros shares fell by 6.5 percent on 29 April on the strength of the rumors, strana.ru reported on 30 April. However, "Gazeta" reported, citing unnamed Interros sources, on 30 April that Potanin was indeed questioned, perhaps in connection with the 28 April murder of former Federal Bankruptcy Service Director Georgii Tal (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 29 April 2004). Tal headed the bankruptcy agency during a 1998-1999 conflict between Interros and the Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) over the firm Sidanko. In 1998, Interros was the major shareholder in Sidanko, but after a three-year battle in which TNK succeeded in having two Sidanko subsidiaries declared bankrupt, Interros sold its Sidanko stake to TNK in 2001. Less than a year later, TNK announced a major merger deal with British Petroleum (BP). RC

DRUG AGENCY WANTS TO CLEAN UP THE UNIVERSITIES?
The Federal Antinarcotics Agency has put forward a proposal under which all students at state institutions of higher learning would have to undergo drug testing or face expulsion, "Izvestiya" reported on 30 April. The initiative reportedly came from the agency's Primorskii Krai Directorate and has been approved by the agency at the federal level. "Institutions of higher education have the right to demand of their students -- no drugs," Federal Antinarcotics Agency Deputy Director Aleksandr Mikhailov told the daily. "Either you inject, or you study." Mikhailov, however, told newsru.com that the "Izvestiya" report is not true. "No such initiative from the agency has been put forward or could be put forward," Mikhailov was quoted by the website as saying. Moscow lawyer Mikhail Lyabakh told "Izvestiya" that it is illegal in Russia to divulge publicly the results of drug tests, meaning that it would not be possible to expel students who failed them. RC
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CHIEF JUSTICE SAYS IRAN HAS NO POLITICAL DETAINEES
Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi said in Tehran on 29 April that "we have no political prisoners in Iran" because Iranian law does not mention such offenses, IRNA reported that day. His statement contradicts President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami's earlier admission that dissidents have been jailed (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 April 2004). "The world may consider certain cases, by their nature, political crimes, but because we do not have a law in this regard, these are considered ordinary offenses," IRNA reported. The judiciary, he said, has sent to parliament a bill governing political offenses, but it was rejected as "incomplete," IRNA reported. The judiciary believes a similar bill presented by parliament and the Interior Ministry "has a legal problem, because the law stipulates that it is the judiciary's duty to draft a [political offenses] bill." Shahrudi said the judiciary will soon propose a bill to downgrade financial offenses from criminal to civil offenses, and is drafting a bill on "electronic offenses" governing Internet use, IRNA reported. VS

IRANIAN PRESIDENT SAYS IRAN THE BEST ENERGY-TRANSIT ROUTE
President Khatami in Neka on 29 April stressed that Iran is the "cheapest, easiest and most secure" transfer route for Caspian Sea energy resources "to the world's free waterways...and there can be no doubt about that," IRNA reported that day. Speaking at the inauguration in northern Iran of the first phase of a project to pipe oil from Caspian littoral states to Iranian refineries, he criticized "inappropriate strictness and pressures" on Iran by the United States, which has opposed Iran as an energy transfer route. These "hostile policies have failed," he said. The project will allow an increase in swap deals, with Caspian oil flowing to Iranian refineries and Iran delivering Iranian oil to set clients from Persian Gulf terminals, the "Tehran Times" cited Reza Kazayizadeh, the head of a state oil-engineering firm as saying on 28 April. Oil Minister Bizhan Namdar-Zanganeh stated at the inaugural ceremony that Iran can now drill for oil in deeper waters of its section of the Caspian Sea, with the delivery of floating drilling platforms to support the drills, Farsnews.com reported on 29 April. VS

STATE DEPARTMENT NAMES IRAN AS TOP TERROR SPONSOR
The U.S. condemned Iran on 29 April as the leading "state sponsor of terrorism" in 2003, accusing it of fomenting terror attacks in the Mideast, AFP reported the same day. The State Department's annual report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," stated that Iranian intelligence agents and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps have participated in the planning or supporting of terrorist acts, and that Iran has not honored pledges to confront the Al-Qaeda terrorist group or hand over Al-Qaeda suspects, AFP added. Iran, the report stated, has also had a "high-profile role in encouraging anti-Israeli activity" by such groups as Hamas or the Lebanese Hizbullah, which the U.S. has listed as terrorist groups but Iran considers legitimate resistance groups. The report also suggests that Iranian elements have stoked discontent among Iraqi Shi'ites and helped terrorists evade coalition forces, AFP added. Iranian officials habitually describe Iran as a victim of terrorism and have stated that the country supports global efforts to fight terrorism. VS

IRAN EXPORTS MORE FOOD PRODUCTS
Iran saw a 21.5 percent year-on-year rise in food exports in the year ending 20 March 2004, earning just over $210 million, Mehr News Agency reported on 29 April. Exports included chocolate, cookies, pasta, rose water, vinegar, mineral water, and soft drinks, the agency cited Ahmad Qasemi, head of exports at the Ministry of Mines and Industry as saying. The export of chemical products in the same period, worth some $147 million, jumped 48.1 percent year-on-year, and petrochemical exports, worth $434.3 million, rose 12.4 percent, Mehrnews.com cited Qasemi as saying. Separately, the EU has given Iran 40 days to act to resolve a fungal infection of pistachios, a key export that earned Iran $800 million in the year ending 20 March 2004, AFP reported on 29 April. The fungus can cause cancer, AFP added. VS
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THE NATIONAL PULSE


SPREADING THE MONEY AROUND
Changes to Campaign Financing Laws Boost Legal Profession as Biggest Donor
BY SUSAN KOSTAL
The Olympics and presidential elections have at least two things in common: They occur every four years, and they set new records.
But when it comes to contributions and spending, this year's campaign looks to be another gold-medal winner of all time.
George W. Bush has shattered fund-raising records, and is already sitting on more than $100 million. The John Kerry campaign expects to raise $80 million by the July convention, observers say. Other federal elections are also expected to garner huge sums.
And once again, lawyers as a group are not only the largest donors of any single profession tracked, they are also the most consistent, campaign watchers say. As of March 1, when the latest Federal Election Commission figures were available, the legal profession had contributed more than $65 million to federal campaigns since Jan. 1, 2003, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The campaign cycle runs through Dec. 31, 2004.
That puts the profession well on its way to topping the 2000 presidential election year figure of $112 million, and keeps it in first place among industries, including health care, insurance and pharmaceuticals, according to the Washington, D.C.-based CRP.
"Lawyers are so much more civically engaged than most parts of society because of what they do," says Washington, D.C., attorney William Canfield, chair of the ABA's Standing Committee on Election Law. "It shouldn't come as any surprise to pick up a random FEC disclosure statement and see how many lawyers are contributing. Law is what they do."
This year, the legal profession is expected to play an even bigger role, especially with higher individual contribution levels and the loss of soft money--funds given to state organizations as a way of bypassing federal election regulations.
"It looks like lawyers are making a strong effort to make up for the lack of soft money," says CRP spokesman Steve Weiss.
Lawyers tend to be "well-to-do, aware and politically active," Weiss adds. And, he says, they are pragmatic. "Donations are an investment, and they want to spread [the money] around." Lawyers, he says, "are just trying to score as many points as they can."
There will likely be increasing political activism from individuals, partnerships and partnership political action committees, says Washington, D.C., attorney Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman and current co-chair of the ABA Administrative Law Section's Elections Committee.
Potter and other experts also cite a closely divided electorate and the candidacy of former trial lawyer John Edwards as motivators for attorneys' contributing.
SMALL CONTRIBUTIONS MEAN MORE NOW
And then there's the bipartisan campaign reform Act, also known as the McCain-Feingold legislation, which last year was upheld almost in its entirety by the U.S. Supreme Court. The BCRA, which Potter helped to craft, prohibits soft money contributions and corporate and labor funding of issue ads that refer to federal candidates and run close to elections. The consequence is that donors feel it's a more level playing field and that their money will go further.
"Campaign finance reform democratized the process to a degree no one" anticipated, says John Merrigan, chairman of Piper Rudnick's federal affairs and legislative practice group in Washington. "There will be a lot more people contributing and participating in this process than ever before."
Merrigan should know. He is treasurer of the firm's PAC, the largest of any law firm and the second-most lucrative industry contributor, at more than $576,000, according to the CRP. Only the Association of Trial Lawyers of America PAC tops it, at $1.2 million.
All these changes in campaign finance law mean funds from individual donors are more valuable than in past cycles.
"For those who are active givers, who are known commodities to campaign committees, it's getting more expensive," says Canfield, a partner with Williams & Jensen.
"The system is so insatiable," says Joel Jankowsky, chairman of the public law and policy department with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington. "We barely have enough money to participate in the congressional process."
Akin Gump ranks No. 5 in campaign contributions thus far, according to the CRP. Like Piper Rudnick, the firm's PAC does not participate in presidential elections, leaving that to individual attorneys.
Nevertheless, PACs are the vehicles of choice for most large law firms, especially those with large Washington practices. Formed to raise and spend campaign money, most PACs are affiliated with business, labor or ideological interests. They must be registered with the FEC, and they are allowed to give up to $5,000 to a candidate's committee, and up to $15,000 to a national party.
"PAC funds are the cleanest political money out there," says Richard Gold, a partner at Holland & Knight's Washington office and treasurer of the firm's PAC, which ranks number nine on the list of law-profession donors. "It's all reported damned near instantaneously, and it's pretty clear who the money is going to."
Most Washington, D.C., firms with active legislative practices have active federal PACs, Gold says. "You have to have a PAC to have an active Capitol Hill practice," he says. "These folks are working really hard on client issues that are relevant to you. The only way to interact with them and be of help to them is on the fund-raising side. Until the public decides it wants to be taxed to run campaigns, this is how things work."
Adds Canfield: "More lawyers than you would suspect give money in Washington because so many of the law firms here have a lobbying component. Becoming friendly with various members of Congress is a method by which clients can achieve what they want."
At Piper Rudnick, the firm PAC requires lawyers to put up a 25 percent match. If Merrigan, for example, asks for $1,000 for his favorite senator, the PAC cuts a check for $750 and Merrigan writes a personal check for $250. "It's a way to gauge the seriousness of people's requests," Merrigan says.
While participation isn't universal within the firm, it is high. According to FEC records, Piper Rudnick donors gave 1,030 contributions of $200 or more to the firm PAC since January 2003. Some 30 attorneys--Merrigan is one--donated the maximum $5,000.
Not all firms have PACs--yet. Philadelphia's Blank Rome, the third-largest political contributor behind Piper Rudnick, does so completely outside a PAC. Chairman David Girard-diCarlo says his firm is considering forming both state and federal PACs. "Apparently there is a benefit to getting your name out there via a federal PAC. We may very well go down that path," Girard-diCarlo says.
Not that Girard-diCarlo has ever had trouble getting his fund-raising prowess noticed. He's a longtime friend of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, an early supporter of President Bush, and chairman of the president's fund-raising committee in Pennsylvania. He's also one of the president's coveted Rangers, fund-raisers who have pledged to raise $200,000 by soliciting donations from others, a process known as bundling.
According to the CRP figures, Blank Rome gives heavily to Republicans, who get 73 percent of the firm's contributions. Other firms follow different allocation standards. And ATLA swings toward the Democrats, who get 90 percent of the association's funds.
On the other hand, Piper Rudnick's PAC disbursements track the political makeup of the House and Senate: 52 percent of the money goes to Republicans, and 48 percent to Democrats. Merrigan predicts Piper Rudnick PAC giving to Republicans will increase as Republican power increases in both chambers.
For Merrigan, the firm's PAC helps balance the mixed marriage most firms find themselves in, with partners passionately active in both parties. Merrigan raises money for Kerry, while other partners are working for Bush. "You have to respect your partners' pursuits," he says.
But experts expect the change in campaign laws to keep the contests cleaner. "The absence of soft money in the national party fund-raising scheme is a big step forward," Potter says. "Corruption comes from huge contributions, not from a large war chest of small contributions."

?2004 ABA Journal
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Analysis: Medco Deal Lifts Secrecy Veil
Posted April 27, 2004
By Ellen Beck

A $29 million settlement outlined yesterday between the nation's largest pharmaceutical benefit-management (PBM) company and state and federal officials could begin to lift a veil of secrecy surrounding rebates and discounts paid to companies that will play a major role in the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit.
Medco Health Solutions of Franklin Lakes, N.J., agreed to settle allegations by a 20-state task force and partly resolve a federal whistle-blower lawsuit stemming from the common PBM practice of switching patients from one drug to a therapeutically equivalent, but different, medication. One example: A patient taking Celebrex for arthritis might be given Vioxx instead.
PBMs have argued such switches are necessary to help control drug costs, but state and federal officials claim a two-year investigation has shown such deals -- which resulted in higher rebates or discounts for the PBMs -- do not necessarily reduce prices for patients, health plans or employers.
David B. Snow Jr., Medco chairman and president, told reporters during a conference call the litigation had created an "unfair perception" of the company and the "business interests of our clients or investors of our company are best served through a settlement."
Medco, which provides drugs for some 62 million people, did not admit to any wrongdoing. It agreed to pay $20.2 million to the states, either in cash or through free prescription medications targeted for the low-income, elderly and disabled. It will pay another $6.6 million to the states to pay their investigation costs. And it will establish a $2.5 million fund to reimburse patients $25 for any additional testing costs or follow-up visits to their physician because of a medication switch.
The states included in the settlement are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. Ohio and West Virginia are in litigation with Medco, while Tennessee has expressed an interest in pursuing negotiations with the PBM.
The whistle-blower case, brought by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, was settled from a business-operation perspective, with the same terms as the states' deal, but Medco and the feds still are negotiating monetary damages.
"Much of this industry's business practices are cloaked in secrecy," Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe told reporters in a separate teleconference. He called PBM drug switching an "intricate card trick" that the settlement "ends now, and all cards must be laid on the table."
PBM business practices are closely held secrets, as noted by General Accounting Office (GAO) investigations into how much savings PBMs provide to consumers and health plans. The GAO noted that although PBMs can save from 18 percent to more than 50 percent for consumers, depending on how a prescription is filled -- e.g., retail or mail-order pharmacy -- it is difficult to discern how much of the total rebates and discounts PBMs negotiate with pharmaceutical companies and others are passed along.
A January 2003 GAO report said therapeutic interchanges encouraged the "substitution of less expensive formulary brand-name medications considered safe and effective for more expensive nonformulary drugs within the same drug class." Two PBMs studied -- in an overall report that included Medco -- disclosed their savings ranged from 1 percent to 4.5 percent in addition to other rebates and discounts.
Medco is required by the settlement to inform physicians and patients the minimum or actual cost savings for health plans and the difference in copayments made by patients when switching medications. It must disclose its financial incentives for drug switches, advise physicians on differences in side effects between prescribed drugs and proposed drugs, reimburse patients for costs of drug switch-related health care, obtain permission from a doctor for all drug switches, tell patients they may decline drug switches and receive the initially prescribed medications, monitor the health effects of drug switches, and adopt a code of ethics and professional standards.
The settlement prohibits Medco from making drug switches when the net cost of the proposed drug exceeds the cost of the currently prescribed drug, when the prescribed drug has a generic equivalent and the proposed drug does not, when a change is made to avoid competition from generics, or if the change comes more than once in two years within a therapeutic class of drugs.
Snow said most of the operational changes stipulated in the agreement already are in practice and would help Medco become the "most transparent company in our industry." He said the deal would ensure a consistent standard of performance for Medco. He added that first-quarter 2004 earnings, which are to be announced today, would not be changed by the settlement.
Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said Medco has paid that state an additional $5.5 million to drop its plans to join the federal whistle-blower suit. "This is a vitally important case," he said, because Medco is expected to be one of the major players as a vendor of the upcoming Medicare prescription-drug discount card, which begins in June, as well as in the delivery of the formal prescription-drug coverage beginning for seniors in 2006.
"There is no framework for governing PBM practices," Reilly said. "We have begun to set standards to protect patients -- not just now but in two years when PBMs" begin to play a critical role in Medicare.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said requiring the PBM to disclose total revenues and rebates on a macro level "opens up the ability to negotiate over those important issues that haven't been disclosed or have been negotiated" in the past. "We're very hopeful we've changed the course of an industry here," Miller said. "The potential for beneficial change here is high."
Snow called the settlement a "constructive approach to resolving issues raised by the attorneys general and the Justice Department" and said it "serves the interests of our company and our customers -- extending across our book of business elevated standards of practice that are designed to help our clients, and their employees or members, better understand and trust the value delivered through their pharmacy-benefit program."
Ellen Beck is the health-policy editor for UPI, a sister news organization of Insight magazine.
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U.S. confirms insurgents have SA-16 anti-aircraft missile

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, April 29, 2004
BAGHDAD -- U.S. military commanders said Sunni insurgents in Iraq have obtained the SA-16 surface-to-air missile. The SA-16 is a modified version of the older SA-7 and represents a greater threat to U.S. and coalition aircraft.
The SA-16 anti-aircraft missile.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of military operation, said a U.S. military raid netted a range of Soviet-origin anti-aircraft missiles. He said they included the SA-16 and SA-14 missiles.
"The operation resulted in the capture of one enemy personnel, and also confiscated were an SA-16 missile, an SA-14 missile, two 82-millimeter systems, 31 rocket-propelled-grenade rounds, and a large quantity of small arms and ammunition," Kimmitt said.
The SA-16 has a range of five kilometers and is guided by a infrared and optical seekers, Middle East Newsline reported.
The SA-16 is a man-portable air defense system and was believed to have been fired against U.S. aircraft in Iraq. About 16 U.S. helicopters have been downed in Iraq since May 2003 by such weapons as surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Iraqi version has a red front end missile seeker, the first such a coalition was seen on an infrared missile, the London-based Jane's Defence Weekly said. The modification was believed to have been conducted by Russia or another republic of the former Soviet Union.

Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.
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South Korea: The weak link

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See the Sol Sanders Archive

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By Sol Sanders
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
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April 29, 2004
Volatility is increasing on the Korean Peninsular whatever Vice President Cheney accomplished in his recent visit to the area. It requires more attention from the Bush Administration, mired down in defending its Iraq policies and amidst an increasingly bitter presidential election campaign.

Having chosen aligning North Korea's neighbors to halt a go-for-broke nuclear weapons race in East Asia, it now faces some uncomfortable realities. Not the least is the increasing alienation of South Korea from its U.S. alliance.

It has not been a sudden process. Despite close ties to the American media and the Clinton Administration, Washington views of former President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" had come a cropper long before he left office. Under the table payments to meet North Koreans, failed private and public sector economic schemes, Pyongyang's continued archetypical propaganda and infiltration provocations - all indicated how foolish were hopes the 50-year-old ultra-Stalinist regime could be "bought off". The failure of President Clinton's "framework" to end North Korea's weapons program [notwithstanding former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's dance party with Dictator Kim Jong-il] was the culmination.

The Bush Administration [with its famous denunciation of "the axis of evil"] turned its back on this policy. When it looked for alternatives, given the vulnerability of Seoul's third of South Korea's population under the barrels of North Korean artillery, and its preoccupation with Islamic terrorism, Bush chose to try to build an alliance by those threatened. It was argued, logically, a nuclear-clad North Korea was not only a threat to Japan [threatened by a missile overflight in 1998], Russia [tenuously holding on to its Siberian territories], to China [which had to see, logic held, it had built a Frankenstein on its doorstep], as well as American interests in East Asia for peace and stability.

Most of all, logic would hold, it was North Korea's former victim, the South, that had most to lose. But not only did South Korea's Kim hang on his bankrupt clich?s, but he promoted a successor who believed even more fervently in a compromise with the North. Erratic, amateurish, churlish [he made a totem of the fact he had never visited the U.S.], Kim's successor, President Kim Roh Moo-huyn has compounded his predecessor's foibles.

In one of history's bad sociological jokes, Roh and his Taliban advisers [as one of the Korean government professionals called them] have just won a massive electoral victory based on appeals to the new youth culture in South Korea. He pushes even harder for accommodation with the North whatever the price. But unlike his more na?ve young followers [unemployed often because they refuse to dirty their hands], there is a cynical but fallacious calculation. Roh shares the view of his Chinese interlocutors, namely the greater threat is the implosion of the economic and intellectually bankrupt North Korea. For China, it would mean greater difficulties in its northeast "rust belt". Already the amazingly entrepreneurial three million ethnic Koreans there [with some quarter of a million refugees from across the border] have become restless. Beijing recently replaced its People's Armed Police [increasingly the dumping ground for demobilized People's Liberation Army "surplus"] there. PLA military had to police a breakdown in the "security organs" which saw North Korean refugees bound into diplomatic cantonments from Shenyang to Chieng Mai and shoot-outs between Chinese police and North Korean military black marketeers.

That's why the horrendous railway disaster on the North Korean-Chinese border takes on new meaning. If it were, indeed, only a stupid accident as Pyongyang, Seoul, and Washington publicly are insisting, then it is another indication Pyongyang's lifeline is shredding. None of the several explanations indicate anything less than a virtual collapse of rail traffic management on the most important lifeline bringing in the 80 percent of North Korea's fuel and food from China. If, on the other hand as there is considerable circumstantial evidence, it was a failed attempt to blow Kim Jong-il right out of his caviar and French sweets into the anonymity of history's tyrants, it is more evidence how fragile the situation is on the peninsular: Chaos in one of the surviving Communist states with primitive nuclear weapons?

Some of Roh's advisers have said they fear a North Korean implosion more than they fear a nuclear-armed neighbor. Certainly, they are traumatized by the possibility of inheriting what they fear would be an economic black hole [like the former reunited East Germany ]. They had rather fantasize Kim is moving toward liberalization [by permitting the starving to swap vegetables in local markets] - or that "the China boom" which has made Beijing its No. 1 trading partner is going to rescue their still unreformed economy.

Whatever these pipe dreams, as the U.S. tries to put together an alliance of like-minded to pressure Pyongyang - with the threat of UN sanctions, an embargo, even eventual military action - it now has as a principle obstacle the South Korean leadership.

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.

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>> SEE JIANG'S SMILE/GRIMACE? CAN YOU TELL? NO! ITS A SMILE...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&ncid=731&e=4&u=/ap/20040429/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear


Nations to Hold Talks on N. Korean Nukes
Thu Apr 29, 4:16 AM ET

By SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea - The six nations negotiating the North Korean nuclear standoff will hold low-level meetings on May 12 in Beijing to lay the groundwork for the next round of talks, South Korea (news - web sites) and China said Thursday.
Reuters
Slideshow: North Korea
The apparent breakthrough comes as the United States reportedly prepares to upgrade its estimate of North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear arsenal to at least eight atomic weapons, from its long-standing estimate of "possibly two."
The report, disputed by Seoul, is being prepared by U.S. intelligence officials to account for strides North Korea has made since last year, when it restarted its nuclear reactor and plutonium reprocessing facility in Yongbyon, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing unnamed officials involved in the estimate overhaul.
The officials have also concluded that a separate uranium-based nuclear program will be operational by 2007, producing enough material for as many as six additional weapons a year, the report said.
An upgrade would be seen as upping pressure on other participants in the six-nation negotiations to back Washington at the table. U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli called the report "speculative."
In Seoul, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck quoted U.S. authorities as saying that the Washington Post report was "groundless."
Lee said that an estimate of eight nuclear bombs is based on the assumption that the communist state has reprocessed all its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods.
The rods, if chemically treated, can yield enough plutonium for several bombs. North Korea says it has reprocessed all and is already increasing its "nuclear deterrent." Speaking at a news conference, Lee said: "There is no scientific proof that the North has reprocessed all the 8,000 rods."
South Korea believes the rival North has enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.
Lee said that the six nations involved in resolving the dispute -- the United States, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan -- are scheduled to begin working level talks May 12 in the Chinese capital.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry (news - web sites) spokesman Kong Quan said the "fundamental goal" of the so-called working-group meetings was to prepare for a third round of six-party talks to be held by the end of June.
Lee said South Korea, the United States and Japan would consider giving the North energy aid if it freezes all its nuclear facilities, including those for power generation, with the condition that it will eventually completely dismantle them.
"As we go into these talks, our principal position remains the same and unchanged, that North Korea should dismantle its nuclear facilities completely and that we cannot tolerate North Korea possessing nuclear weapons," Lee said.
The nuclear standoff began in October 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.
North Korea says it will dismantle its nuclear weapons facilities only if the United States provides economic aid and makes a nonaggression pledge. The United States demands that North Korea first scrap all its nuclear facilities.
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South Korean Ship Brings Aid to N. Korea
Wed Apr 28, 3:29 PM ET

By HANS GREIMEL, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean ship brimming with instant noodles, blankets and bottled water sailed Wednesday for North Korea (news - web sites) as an international effort intensified to help thousands injured or left homeless in last week's deadly train explosion.
AP Photo
AP Photo
Slideshow: DeadlyTrain Explosion in N. Korea
Seoul also moved closer to approving a controversial North Korean plea for millions of dollars in additional aid, including 50 color television sets. The request came a day after impoverished North Korea rejected Seoul's offer to send doctors, saying it already had enough medical help.
North Korea, meanwhile, lauded the "heroic deaths" of four people killed after running into collapsing or burning buildings after the explosion to retrieve portraits of leader Kim Jong Il and his late father, national founder Kim Il Sung.
"The Korean people's spirit of guarding the leader with their very lives was fully displayed," the North's official KCNA news agency said, adding that teacher Han Jong Suk, 56, "breathed her last with portraits in her bosom."
The leaders are objects of a pervasive personality cult in the communist North, with father-and-son portraits hanging in every home and building.
North Korea likened Thursday's train blast in Ryongchon, a town of 130,000 near the Chinese border, to "100 bombs, each weighing one ton" going off at the same time.
The death toll stood at 161, with 370 victims still hospitalized. About 250 of the hospitalized victims were children.
KCNA also said the explosion left many victims "deaf and blind" and destroyed at least 8,100 homes and more than 30 public buildings.
Many suffered severe burns and eye injuries from the blast's shock wave of glass, rubble and heat, and about 20,000 rescuers were on the scene, it said.
North Korea estimated the damage in Ryongchon at $356 million, and KCNA warned Tuesday that "the damage is unexpectedly gaining in scope."
International aid agencies have put no price tag on reconstruction. The North's damage estimate far outweighs what donors have promised, fueling speculation that Pyongyang is trying to gain as much aid as possible.
The North's rejection of Seoul's offer to truck supplies overland, across the heavily fortified no man's land separating the rivals, riled some south of the border. The refusal meant supplies that could have been sent in the same day would now arrive by ship late Thursday at the earliest, a week after the disaster.
Pyongyang's insistence that it already had enough doctors also generated an incredulous response.
"Given the reality in the North, who would believe that?" the JoongAng Ilbo daily said Wednesday in an editorial. "North Korea needs to learn how to accept a genuine offer of help for what it is."
Hospitals lack basic supplies, like intravenous drips needed to treat burn patients. The World Health Organization (news - web sites) listed antibiotics, eye drops and burn kits as the greatest needs.
Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor who worked in the North before communist authorities expelled him in late 2000, said doctors there use ordinary razor blades for surgery and empty beer bottles for intravenous drips.
"North Korea blocks trucks with South Korean aid at the inner Korean border while desperate children die," he said.
Pyongyang "does not care about human lives, burned children are kept as hostages to ask for foreign money," he said.
During a Tuesday meeting with South Korean officials, North Korea reportedly asked for 50,000 tons of cement, 10 bulldozers, 10 steam shovels, 500 tons of diesel oil, 500 tons of gasoline, 1,000 tons of steel beams, 1,500 sets of school desks and chairs, 50 blackboards, 10,000 tons of foods and 50 television sets.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that Seoul was likely to provide the assistance, which could cost up to $29 million.
Thousands of people were living in tents without adequate sanitation or water, and a team of foreign aid workers visited Ryongchon on Wednesday to assess the situation.
Relief workers described people struggling to rebuild with their bare hands.
The United States, China, Australia, Japan and Singapore are among nations that have offered aid, and Germany said it would donate $119,000 to buy food and building materials. KCNA said Wednesday that a first installment of Russian relief aid valued at roughly $472,000 arrived -- including medicine, tents and blankets.
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China's rising power shortages cause anxiety
By Richard McGregor in Shanghai and Alexandra Harney in Beijing
Published: April 28 2004 12:03 | Last Updated: April 28 2004 12:03
China's growing power shortages are causing rising anxiety among foreign investors and prompting criticism that city and local governments are not providing clear and timely information about shutdowns to factories.
Power is already being rationed in and around Shanghai and Guangzhou, the heartland of foreign investment in China, and shutdowns are expected to increase when demand rises over the summer.
City officials in Shanghai have had a number of meetings with multinational executives, but have yet to provide them with any schedule for when factories will lose power.
"They are yet to come out with a plan that will make most people happy," said Sydney Chang, a Shanghai-based executive who convened the meetings.
The government has decided to increase tariffs during the daytime peak periods to encourage a change in usage and may also close down all schools and universities over summer to further reduce power consumption.
But Peter Borger, an executive vice-president in Shanghai for Siemens, one of China's largest foreign investors, said he did not think that the city could make up a shortfall of about 4m megawatts of power, which is equal to about 20 per cent of total consumption in the area.
"In our [12] factories, we need a lot of advance notice of when it is happening," he said.
Power supply in the southern province of Guangdong, home to the Pearl River Delta manufacturing hub, is tightening as well, raising the cost of doing business there.
In the capital city of Guangzhou, authorities are forcing 4,000 local companies to shut off their electricity two days a week to prevent an overload of the power grid.
Another 100-odd companies are being asked to lower power consumption by 10-20 per cent, according to official media.
One Guangzhou factory manager said the government had been shutting off its power supply for two days a week since February as part of a programme of rolling blackouts.
In industries such as technology, where even a few hours delay can mean the loss of a customer, single-factory generators are already essential.
In the garment industry, managers are shifting production out of cities where the shortages are most severe into factories in areas with relatively reliable supply, putting pressure on new parts of the power grid.
Many factories around Shanghai in Jiangsu province have been installing generators as well, which in turn has resulted in shortages of diesel fuel
"One of my factories has a person whose sole job is to look for diesel fuel," said Diane Long, a vice-president for Liz Claiborne, the US apparel company, in Shanghai.
Shanghai will be bringing extra power on line gradually over the next few years, and has pledged to double generating capacity by 2010.
But executives say they expect shortages to continue until at least 2006, a problem that may slow further foreign investment into China.

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Diesel Fouls Marsh Near San Francisco

Apr 29, 7:26 PM (ET)
By TERENCE CHEA
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A pipeline that pumps petroleum from refineries in the San Francisco Bay area ruptured, gushing diesel fuel into a marsh that serves as a key nesting ground for migratory birds and prompting an emergency cleanup effort Thursday.
The exact amount spilled into Suisun Marsh, about 25 miles northeast of San Francisco, won't be known until the pipe is fixed and refilled, officials said. A worst-case scenario put the damage at 1 million gallons, said Mark Merchant, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency.
However, the spill may involve only a few hundred gallons, said Dana Michaels, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game, and was limited to a diked area of roughly 600 acres, so that the fuel can't escape to the rest of the marsh.
About 50 workers from state and federal agencies were using containment booms and absorbent pads to clean up the spill, which left a sheen atop the water, said Jerry Englehardt, a spokesman for Kinder-Morgan Energy Partners, which owns the pipeline. He described the spill as "relatively small."
The pipeline, which carries fuel from San Francisco Bay area refineries to Reno, Nev., ruptured sometime Tuesday. Kinder-Morgan noticed a drop in pipeline pressure around 6 p.m. Tuesday night and shut down a section of the pipeline, Michaels said.
Environmental officials were told about it Wednesday, and the leak was expected to be repaired late Thursday.
The Suisun Marsh is considered the state's second-largest natural marsh, according to Greg Green, a biologist for Memphis, Tenn.-based Ducks Unlimited, a wetlands conservation group. But it's also a highly managed area, with large sections diked off to control the flow of water.
"It's an important area for biological purposes," Green said. The marsh covers 57,000 acres and is frequented by about 700,000 birds, including migratory shorebirds and raptors.
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