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UN History (6:00)
The discovery that the United States spied on the United Nations in the run up to the war seems shocking, but should it be? Host Marco Werman speaks with Burton Hersh, who writes about the history of spying in fiction and non-fiction.
A New Job for Kay
Let him investigate the U.N. Oil-for-Food scam.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
When David Kay recovers from his weapons hunt, there's another Iraq-related quest I'd like to send him on. It's time a top intelligence team went scavenging for the real numbers on the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Program--that gigantic setup through which the U.N. from 1996 through 2003 supervised more than $100 billion worth of Saddam Hussein's selling of oil and buying of goods.
And, no, I am not talking about anything as exotic as the list of alleged bribe-takers from Saddam Hussein, published Jan. 25 by the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada, and now under investigation. I speak simply about the U.N.-supplied numbers on Oil-for-Food's operations. Over the past 18 months, I have periodically tried to get these figures to add up. I am starting to believe the words of an unusually forthright U.N. spokesman, who at one point told me, "They won't."
Basic integrity in bookkeeping seems little enough to ask of the U.N., where officials defending Oil-for-Food have been insisting that it wasn't their fault if Saddam was corrupt. They just did the job of meticulously recording the deals now beset by graft allegations, approving the contracts, and making sure the necessary funds went in and out of the U.N.-held escrow accounts. I'm sure there was some sort of logic to it. Though I have begun to wonder if maybe the same way the U.N. has its own arrangements for postal services and tax-exempt salaries, U.N. accounting has its own special system of arithmetic.
It all added up fairly neatly, of course, in the summary offered by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, when the U.N. turned over the remnants of Oil-for-Food to the Coalition Provisional Authority in November. Oil-for-Food, said Mr. Annan, had presided over $65 billion worth of Saddam's oil sales and in buying relief supplies had used "some $46 billion of Iraqi export earnings on behalf of the Iraqi people." (Keep your eye on those numbers.) In doing so, the U.N. secretariat had collected a 2.2% commission on the oil, which, even after a portion was refunded for relief operations, netted out to more than $1 billion for U.N. administrative overhead. The U.N. also collected a 0.8% commission to pay for weapons inspections in Iraq--including when Saddam shut them out between 1998 and 2002--which comes to another $520 million or so.
The keen observer will see that this adds up to payouts of just under $48 billion from Saddam's Oil-for-Food proceeds, which is about $17 billion less than what he took in. The difference is explained--near enough--by the $17.5 billion paid out of the same Oil-for-Food stream of Saddam's oil revenues but dispensed, under another part of the U.N. Iraq program, by the U.N. Compensation Commission to victims of Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. That gives us a grand total of $65 billion earned, and about $65 billion allocated for payments, all very tidy.
Except the U.N. Compensation Commission states on its Web site that oil sales under Oil-for-Food totaled not Mr. Annan's $65 billion, but "more than US$70 billion"--a $5 billion discrepancy in U.N. figures. A phone call to the UNCC, based in Geneva, doesn't clear up much. A spokesman there says the oil total comes from the U.N. in New York, and adds, helpfully, "Maybe it was an approximate figure, just rounded up."
OK, but in some quarters, if not at the U.N., $5 billion here or there is big money. Halliburton has been pilloried, and rightly so, over questions involving less than 1% of such amounts. One turns for explanation to the U.N. headquarters in New York, where a spokesman confirms that though the U.N. program ended last November, the former executive director of Oil-for-Food, Benon Sevan, is still on contract, still drawing a salary, but Mr. Sevan's secretary explains he is "not giving interviews anymore." The spokesman, also still on salary, answers all requests for clarification with "I don't know," and "You have the Web site."
All right. The Web site brings us a U.N. update issued Nov. 21, 2003, when the U.N. turned over the program to the CPA, which tells us that $31 billion worth of supplies and equipment had been delivered to Iraq, with another $8.2 billion in the pipeline. That comes to $39.2 billion. Again, even if you add in, say, $2 billion for U.N. commissions, that's still about $5 billion short of the $46 billion Mr. Annan says was used for supplies--which might make sense if the program at the end had been swimming in loose cash, except that Mr. Sevan was lamenting toward the end that there was not enough money to fund all the supply contracts he'd already approved.
Returning to the U.N. Web site, nothing there discloses the amount of interest paid during the course of the program on the Oil-for-Food escrow accounts. That should have been substantial, because these U.N.-managed Iraq accounts in the final phases of the program held balances of about $12 billion. Or so we've been told. I first got that number by phoning the U.N. back in September 2002. That was well before Mr. Sevan stopped giving interviews, and I spoke with Mr. Sevan himself. He told me the Oil-for-Food accounts at that point contained balances of about $20 billion. The next day, someone in his office revised that down to about $15 billion. Later that afternoon, someone in the U.N. controller's office revised that down to $9 billion. When I protested that these discrepancies were getting large, we ended up haggling over the phone for a while, and finally settled on an official total of about $12 billion in the Oil-for-Food accounts.
I'm still not sure what to believe, however, given that the U.N. treasurer, Suzanne Bishopric, assured me at the same time, in September 2002, and again in early 2003, that the accounts had been diversified among "five or six" banks, and to date we have still heard mention of only one--a French bank, BNP Paribas. So, in some fit of arithmetic absent-mindedness, did Ms. Bishopric lose track of the number of banks, confusing one with five or six?
It's a little hard to know whether oil sales were actually $65 billion or $70 billion, whether there were five or six banks or just one, whether at least that one bank, BNP, ever paid significant interest on balances that toward the end of the program totaled $20 billion or $15 billion or $9 billion or $12 billion, and whether humanitarian import contracts were funded to the tune of $39.2 billion or $46 billion. Mr. Annan assures us the program has been audited many times, even if it was done in confidence, in-house, backed up by member nations that may have had their own interests to consider, such as one of Saddam's favorite trading partners, France.
If you want to get fancy, you can factor in the allegations that Saddam underbilled for oil and overpaid for goods via the U.N. contracts, in order to piggyback bribes and kickbacks atop the Oil-for-Food program. If true, then the two things we can bank on are that Saddam took in more than the U.N. reported, and the goods the Iraqi people received were worth less.
Which brings us back to Mr. Kay, who in reference to Oil-for-Food noted recently that "a lot of people took part in what was clearly a scam." I start to wonder whether Mr. Kay, given full powers to investigate, might return to report that whatever the U.N. may be reporting, we still don't have a clue about the real numbers.
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.
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Pakistan and the Hunt for Osama bin Laden listen
Pakistan has not done enough to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda militants along the rugged Afghan frontier. Now, Pakistan is beginning a "spring offensive," and high-ranking American officers are sounding confident that Osama bin Laden may be killed or captured before the end of the year. But much depends on Pakistan's President General Musharraf, who's been the target of assassination attempts. Can Musharraf survive an effort to root out Islamic radicals? What's the role of American Special Forces? Are they spread too thin? What would the end of bin Laden mean for the war on terror? We hear from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in the US, the editor of a national Pakistani newspaper, a military analyst and a former State Department official.
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Capture of Al-Zawahri's son unconfirmed
Wednesday 25 February 2004, 15:24 Makka Time, 12:24 GMT
Pakistani officials have refused to comment on reports that the son of Ayman al-Zawahri, a close associate of Usama bin Ladin, is among a group of al-Qaida suspects captured on the Afghan border.
The Taliban and al-Qaida suspects were arrested on Tuesday after hundreds of Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships swooped down on a town in the semi-autonomous South Waziristan tribal region.
The Urdu-language Jang daily, quoting diplomatic sources, said al-Zawahri's son Khalid, was handed over to US custody soon after his arrest and flown out of Pakistan.
"The identities and nationalities of the suspects would be known when interrogation is over," a security official said.
The arrest, if confirmed, would be a major boost to US-led efforts to track down bin Ladin, the alleged architect of the September 11 attacks.
No information
Ayman al-Zawahiri, number two in al-Qaida network, threatened new attacks against the US in a recording attributed to him by Al-Jazeera television channel on Tuesday.
US military spokesman in Kabul said they did not have any information on arrests from the operation carried out by Pakistani authorities in the tribal region.
"We don't have any reports coming out of Pakistan in reference to who they picked up, at least I haven't seen anything yet," Lieutenant Colonel Matt Beevers said.
"The identities and nationalities of the suspects would be known when interrogation is over"
Unidentified Pakistani
security official
"Clearly coalition forces support the Pakistani army's efforts in the federally-administered tribal areas. They continue to do an outstanding job," he said.
Intelligence officials revealed that foreign women were among the detainees, but declined to release any more details.
"Among the men how many are foreigners I cannot comment," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said.
Pakistan had dismissed speculation that Tuesday's border operation targeted bin Ladin, after reports that his location had been pinpointed on a different stretch of the Afghanistan border.
South Waziristan has long been considered a sanctuary for Taliban and Al-Qaida members who fled Afghanistan in late 2001 when US-led forces invaded and ousted the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Pakistani troops have been deployed along the 1600km border for the last two years and Islamabad says it has arrested more than 500 al-Qaida and Taliban suspects.
AFP
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Interrogators squash report on arrest of Zawahiri's son
Islamabad |By Shahid Hussain | 26-02-2004
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While interrogators are questioning more than 20 terrorist suspects arrested from a rugged tribal area on the Afghanistan border, the government yesterday dismissed speculation a son of top Al Qaida leader Ayman Al Zawahiri was among the captured lot.
"It is wild speculation," Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan told a press briefing when asked whether a son, two daughters and wife of Osama bin Laden's deputy had been taken into custody.
The spokesman said investigation was under way to determine the nationalities of the men and some women taken into custody during a military operation on Tuesday in South Waziristan Agency, located about 300 km west of Islamabad.
A senior official, who did not want to be named, said that the men rounded up in South Waziristan did not include any important Al Qaida figure.
The Urdu newspaper Jang said in a report yesterday that a son of Al Zawahiri, whom it identified as Khalid, had been captured.
The report, quoting diplomatic sources, said Khalid had been handed to US custody and flown out of Pakistan. According to security sources the interrogators were trying to find clues from the arrested people about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his companions.
The operation in the area, which has been under the spotlight as a sanctuary for fugitives from across the border, came after the expiry of a deadline that authorities had set for voluntary surrender by terrorist elements and their local supporters.
"The deadline was not met," the Foreign Office spokesman said, emphasising that the Pakistani forces were engaged in locating and neutralising any terrorist elements hiding in the tribal territory.
"We want to flush out all terrorists and eliminate the terrorist threat."
The military's public relations department has confirmed in a statement that some foreign women were among those arrested in Tuesday's operation.
The statement said the women were taken into custody by female police and were being treated "with due respect".
It also said some houses belonging to those who harbour terrorist elements were demolished in accordance with the established local customs and laws in the tribal territory.
Political authorities in South Waziristan have been pursuing a carrot-and-stick strategy to persuade tribal elders to apprehend foreigners and their harbourers and hand them over to the administration.
Dozens of local tribesmen were turned over to the authorities in recent weeks but many more on the list of those wanted for sheltering foreign elements were still at large, officials said.
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Three women suspects handed over to tribal elders
Islamabad, Feb 26 (DPA) Pakistani authorities have handed over to tribal elders three foreign women who were among 25 suspects captured in a major military operation Tuesday in South Waziristan region, officials said today.
''We handed them (arrested women) over to tribal elders after they insisted upon it because the detention of females is considered odd in the tribal customs,'' Rehmatullah Wazir, deputy administrator of the region, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa today.
However, he made it clear that the tribal elders would be responsible for them and would ensure their appearance before the investigators when it was required. Wazir did not reveal the nationalities of the females nor their relations to their male companions.
During a day-long swoop in South Waziristan Agency, Pakistan's army nabbed five foreign suspects along with 20 locals. Soldiers also demolished a few houses belonging to those suspected of harbouring foreign militants.
A media report had said that a son of Ayman al-Zawahiri, a kingpin of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, was also detained in the operation. However, Pakistani officials had described that as ''wild speculation''.
South Waziristan is one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous regions - each called agencies - that snake along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan's latest operation coincided with a weekend ''swoop'' launched by US and Afghan troops in southern and eastern parts of the country near North Waziristan Agency.
The renewed searches on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border came amid reported claims by Taliban members that Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Egyptian physician Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Taliban Chief Mullah Omar, were still alive in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, a key ally to the United States in its war on terror in Afghanistan, has handed over more than 500 Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives to the US since the fall of the radical Taliban regime in late 2001.
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Reported Capture of Zawahiri's Son and Its Implications
Posted by Ross on Wednesday February 25, 2004 at 5:48 am MST [ Send Story to Friend ]
One of Pakistan's leading newspapers, the Urdu-language Jang, is reporting that a son of Ayman Zawahiri has been captured. The paper cites unnamed diplomatic sources. US officials have not confirmed the report. His daughters and wife apparently were previously killed. The report comes the same day as a Zawahiri tape makes threats of new attacks against the United States. The tape urges President Bush to prepare for new attacks on the US homeland. Coincidentally, CIA Director George Tenet testified yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee that `We see al-Qaeda's program to produce anthrax as one of the most immediate'" threats. While we wait to receive confirmation that his son was captured -- and who even knew he had a son -- it is worth revisiting what is known about Ayman.
Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli, a Senior Analyst of MEMRI's Middle East Economic Studies Program, published a very helpful description of Zawahiri's background in the journal "Terrorism and Political Violence." There was also a fascinating cover story by Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker, in the issue dated September 16, 2002. Given the importance of knowing your enemy, walk in his shoes and come to know the man. It's part of what is known as "Red Teaming."
Al-Zawahiri's family has its roots in a small town in Saudi Arabia "where the first battle between Prophet Muhammad and the infidels was fought and won by the Prophet." Indeed, with 9/11 and the anthrax mailings, he essentially is seeking to recreate the taking of Mecca by a small band. Al-Zawahiri's great grandfather came to the Nile Delta in the 1860s to a city where there is a mosque that still bears his name. His father, who was a professor of pharmacology at Ein Shams University, passed away in 1995. His grandfather on his mother's side was president of Cairo University and the Egyptian ambassador to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. He was known for being pious and nicknamed "the devout ambassador." Two of his sisters are on the faculty at Cairo University Medical School. His uncle was the Dean of Cairo's medical school at one point. Including in-laws, he has 40 doctors of various sorts in his family.
Born June 1, 1951, he grew up in Cairo's Al-Ma'adi neighborhood. He graduated cum laude from Cairo University's medical school in 1974 with an MD degree. He received a master's degree in surgery in 1978 and was married the next year to to Izzat Ahmad Nuwair who had graduated with a degree in philosophy from Cairo University. His wife and children were killed in a bombing raid in Afghanistan and an obituary mourning their loss appeared in Cairo. He has a younger brother Hassan, an engineer, and had an older brother Muhammad. (Muhammad, was in Al Qaeda until being extradited to Egypt and executed pursuant to a death sentence imposed in the "Albanian returnees" case; Hassan was once extradited but released). Without his family, Zawahiri is a now a fanatic guided only by his faith and his literal interpretation of a book written many years ago.
In his youth, Zawahiri was influenced by Sayyid Qutb, one of the spiritual leaders of Islamic religious groups. After a two year stay in the United States where he gained a contempt for American culture, the secular writer Qutb returned to his religious roots and wrote extensively supporting violence against Christians and Jews, and even muslim leaders deemed infidel. Zawahiri traces the origin of the modern islamist movement to the hanging of Qutb in 1966. After joining a cell in 1974 at the age of 16, and then becoming its leader, he formed a military wing under the guidance of Al-Qamari, an Egyptian army officer. Known for their extreme secrecy, "[t]o aid their secrecy the group avoided growing beards like most Islamists, and hence they were known as "the shaven beards." It would remain his tactic to recruit members of the Egyptian army because of their training and expertise. In his book, Al-Zawahiri as I Knew Him, Attorney Al-Zayyat maintains that after his arrest in connection with the murder of President Sadat, Al-Zawahiri was tortured by the Egyptian police, and disclosed where his close friend and ally Al-Qamari was hiding. Zawahiri has burned with bitterness over the humiliation ever since. In the long run, torture merely leads to more terrorism.
During the 1975-1979, radical but not revolutionary study groups spread quickly through the Cairo, Ayn Shams and al-Azhar universities and elsewhere. Al-Jihad began as such a student organization. The student groups were one of the main targets of Sadat's crackdown in 1979. Hundreds were arrested and their campus groups dissolved. The revolutionary ideas of Qutb that influenced these student groups, which were known as jam'iyat. Courses of study in Egyptian universities are narrow, preventing many from acquiring a liberal education as they acquire technical skills. Thus, many fundamentalists are highly educated in technical fields yet do not have a broader educational background. Life as a student in Egypt is hard and job prospects are poor. In the late 1970s, an estimated 85% of al-Jihad's members were students.
In 1979, while working at the Muslim Brotherhood Al Sayyeda Zaynab clinic, Al-Zawahiri was asked if he wanted to go Afghanistan and he jumped at the opportunity. Even then, Afghanistan represented a possible secure base from which to wage jihad. He would later write: "It is as if 100 years were added to my life when I came to Afghanistan." He spent 4 months in Peshawar, Pakistan.
300 al-Jihad activists were arrested after Sadat's assassination. Almost all of those arrested were between the ages of 20 and 28 and most were medical, law or pharmacy students at either the Universities of Asyut or al-Minya. Of those prosecuted for Sadat's assassination, five were sentenced to life, twelve were given long prison terms and two were acquitted, including the blind shiek, who had purported to authorize the assassination on the basis of Islamic doctrine.
Zawahiri was imprisoned for a few years after Sadat's assassination in 1981 and allegedly tortured. "They don't seem to understand the cult of pain they're creating," al-Zayat has said. After being released from prison in 1984, he went to Saudi Arabia in 1986, returning to Pakistan by the next year. This time he worked as a surgeon for the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Hospital, which years later would be his cover when he traveled in the United States under the alias Moaz. In the late 1980s, there was a dispute in Peshawar between followers of the Egyptian Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Accused of misappropriating funds, Zawahiri was cutoff from aid by Saudi Arabia and turned to Iran instead.
When Bin Laden's spiritual leader Azzam was assassinated, al-Zawahiri assumed the role. Zawahiri's philosophy is decidely anti-democratic. He thinks democracy must be overcome through violence. He knows best based on words written many years before. Although soft-spoken and outwardly calm, he is a fanatic. The humiliation he felt upon betraying al-Qamari still rages within him. He is not constrained by what most would view as ethical limits. Beware the quiet, deep thinker who thinks he knows best, particularly after you've killed his wife and children. In Bitter Harvest, he was very critical of the Muslim Brotherhood for its growing accommodation of secular rulers, though he softened his views somewhat in Prophets under the Banner.
In the mid-1990s, Al-Zawahiri sought to coordinate the activities of the various Islamic terrorist movements to carry out sabotage activities against the United States. A series of meetings included representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah. In a meeting held in Khartoum in April 1995, one direction Al-Zawahiri charted was to develop the effectiveness of the Islamic networks in London and New York, especially Brooklyn. The representatives agreed that Al-Zawahiri should visit the U.S. to see first hand the modus operandi of the Islamic networks there.
What does his son -- if he indeed had a son Khalid who was captured -- know about Zawahiri's decade long quest to weaponize anthrax for use against US targets?
Those that say that the "known facts" do not point to Al Qaeda as responsible for the anthrax attacks do not know the facts known by Khalid.
CIA Director Tenet, in contrast, may know Al Qaeda is responsible but wisely be following the advice of Lao-Tzu: "To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty."
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Iran denies engagement in P2 nuclear centrifuge research
www.chinaview.cn 2004-02-26 16:17:57
TEHRAN, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran said Wednesday that it is unnecessary to report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) outcome of its research on centrifuge P2, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The IRNA quoted Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Hassan Rowhani as saying that Tehran does not have the centrifuge,and was only conducting related research or designing a prototype.
Rowhani was responding to an IAEA report issued Tuesday that indicated the discovery of an advanced P2 centrifuge that Iran could use to enrich uranium for a weapon.
The report, however, said Iran has agreed to suspend its enrichment and centrifuge testing program.
"Iran is engaged in other types of research but has not reported to the IAEA and does not deem it necessary to report to the UN," the IRNA quoted Rowhani as saying.
Also on Wednesday, Iran responded to the reported finding in Iran by the IAEA of traces of polonium-210, a radioactive element that can help trigger a nuclear chain reaction.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Hamid-Reza Asefi described it as a misunderstanding that "will be verified by the agency in the near future."
In a related development, the US envoy to the IAEA, Kenneth Brill, said Iran needs to demonstrate to the IAEA and international community that it has totally given up the nuclear program other than for civilian use.
IAEA board of directors is expected to discuss the report on Mar. 8 to decide whether Iran has kept its commitment related to the nuclear issue. Enditem
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Justice on trial
Feb 26th 2004 | THE HAGUE
From The Economist print edition
The long, slow trial of Slobodan Milosevic, former Yugoslav president, is raising questions about international courts
IT HAS been neither as short nor as salutary as believers in international justice had hoped. Moreover, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, ex-president of Yugoslavia, has run into many practical snags. This week, just as the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was preparing, at long last, to wind up its case, the 62-year-old defendant, whose illness had already interrupted proceedings a dozen times, fell ill yet again. And the presiding judge, Britain's Richard May, announced that he was to step down, also for health reasons.
The tribunal's American head, Theodor Meron, says that Mr May's departure should "not have an unduly disruptive effect on any proceedings". But Mr Milosevic may now be able to demand a retrial. And that could conceivably mean abandoning two years' worth of hearings, involving nearly 300 witnesses and 30,000 pages of evidence.
Under the ICTY's rules, a replacement judge can be appointed if one of the three-judge panel dies or resigns in mid-trial. So Mr Meron could order the continuation of proceedings--but only if the defendant agrees. If Mr Milosevic, who has always refused to recognise the authority of the court anyway, will not agree, the two remaining judges could still decide to continue the trial if it would "serve the interests of justice". They probably will. But Mr Milosevic would have a right of appeal, causing yet more cost and delay.
Charged with 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide during the Balkan wars in the 1990s, Mr Milosevic is the first head of state since the second world war to have to answer for such atrocities. At the trial's opening, Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor, declared that it was "the most powerful demonstration that no one is above the law." Human-rights groups predicted that it would set a "new benchmark". Nobody wants to throw all that away, especially at a time when the very concept of international justice is under fire.
The ICTY, set up in The Hague in 1993, was the first international court of its kind since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals after the second world war. In the years since, ad hoc war-crimes tribunals have been set up for Rwanda, East Timor, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Cambodia. Hopes were high that they, together with a new permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, would end any notion of impunity for the chief perpetrators of atrocities--and so help to deter future ones.
But as the proceedings have lengthened and the costs have risen, disillusion has set in. The long American campaign against the ICC (not to be confused with the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague) has not helped. Last August, the UN imposed a "completion strategy" on both the Yugoslav and the Rwandan tribunals, requiring them to end all trials by 2008 and appeals by 2010. Financing (some $120m for the ICTY this year alone) will then cease.
Some criticisms of the ICTY are justified. All pioneers make mistakes, and the Yugoslav tribunal is no exception. But other shortcomings are inherent to international courts. The ICTY has had to harmonise different legal traditions, cope with multiple languages (of judges, lawyers, perpetrators and victims), and translate mountains of documents. Most of the cases before it are hugely complex, involving dozens of charges and hundreds of witnesses. Those convicted have a right of appeal against both conviction and sentence, which they always seem to exercise.
Evidence for war crimes is generally hard to come by, and suspects can be more elusive still. International tribunals do not have police powers: they cannot send in sheriffs to make arrests. They rely on the co-operation of foreign governments, which is not always forthcoming. The ICTY was lucky to have NATO and UN forces in Bosnia to help. But 20 of its chief suspects are still on the run, including Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, and Ratko Mladic, the general who allegedly organised the massacre of 7,500 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. Mrs del Ponte has accused Serbia of giving these suspects a "safe haven", and of failing to hand over vital evidence.
Based in The Hague, operating only under international law, and with no judges from former Yugoslavia, the ICTY has been criticised for its distance from the scene of the crimes, for making victims feel irrelevant and for leading the Serbs, who make up the great majority of defendants, to talk of "victors' justice". Some even blame the court for the nationalists' revival in Serbia--both Mr Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj, a radical nationalist awaiting trial in The Hague, played a part in the elections in December and the political manoeuvring since (see article).
But the ICTY deserves praise as well as criticism. After an admittedly slow and shaky start, it has streamlined its operations and scored some notable successes. Between four and six trials are now being held in shifts every day, in the tribunal's three chambers. Of the 94 accused who have so far appeared before the court, half have been convicted, including Milan Babic, the former Croatian Serb leader. Eight are still on trial, including Momcilo Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb leader accused of masterminding the Serbs' ethnic-cleansing campaign--the darkest chapter in a war that left some 100,000 Bosnians dead and forced a further 2m from their homes. Another 25 await trial; five have died after being charged; and five have had their charges withdrawn. Only five have so far been acquitted.
The prosecution has now agreed to rest its case forthwith, forgoing two days that had been allocated to it. The court has suspended its hearings until June 8th, so as to allow Mr Milosevic the extra time that he had requested to prepare his defence. This will also give time for a substitute judge for Mr May to get abreast of the proceedings. The court has given Mr Milosevic 150 days to complete his defence. Given a rhythm, on doctor's orders, of around three court days a week, proceedings could last well into 2006.
Will Mr Milosevic agree to a simple continuation of the trial? Officials suggest he has nothing to gain by prolonging things. But if he faces a life sentence anyway, he has nothing to lose either. More grandstanding on a public podium may be far more appealing than rotting quietly in a prison cell for the rest of his days.
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Yasser's Suicide Bombers
By HonestReporting.com
HonestReporting.com | February 26, 2004
On Feb.22 a suicide bomber on a Jerusalem bus killed 8 Israelis ? including two teenagers on their way to school ? and injured over 60.
The attack was perpetrated by a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. While it is generally accepted that this terrorist group is connected to Yassir Arafat's Fatah party, most major news agencies continued to downplay that relationship in today's reports:
? Associated Press: "The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group loosely affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Mohammed Zool, 23, from the village of Hussan near Bethlehem."
? Washington Post: "Hezbollah television station Al-Manar reported that the bombing was carried out by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the militant group that associates itself with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement..."
? CNN: "The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades ? the military offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement ? claimed responsibility for the blast in a statement."
? Agence France Presse: "The bombing, claimed by the radical Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement..."
DIRECT CONNECTION
The evidence, however, clearly indicates that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade is not some "loose offshoot," but rather has a direct and ongoing bond to the Fatah party, which holds a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament. The Palestinian government, therefore, bears direct responsibility for the group's heinous terrorist acts:
▪ In November, 2003 a BBC investigation found that up to $50,000 a month was funneled by Fatah directly to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. When BBC reported on today's attack, their terminology was consistent with these findings ? unlike the outlets above, BBC described the relationship between Fatah and the terrorists in an entirely accurate manner:
The militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.
▪ Documents captured by the IDF in 2002 indicated Fatah's "systematic, institutionalized and ongoing financing" of the Al Aqsa Brigades, including a special allocation to the Bethlehem branch of the organization (the very group that dispatched today's bomber). After inspecting these documents, President Bush called for Arafat's removal in June, 2002.
▪ The leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarm told USA Today on March 14, 2002: "The truth is, we are Fatah, but we didn't operate under the name of Fatah...We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasser Arafat himself."
▪ Last week, British MP Jenny Tonge went to visit Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades' Bethlehem branch. BBC's Radio 4 carried a report in which the terrorists themselves admit they are "part of Fatah...the militant part." (Click here to hear the report ? the statement regarding Fatah is about 2:50 in.)
HonestReporting calls on other media outlets to follow the BBC's lead and specify the integral connection between Fatah and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM
High school students mourning a classmate
This is not merely a semantic matter. The close ties that bond the Fatah-led PA to terrorist groups are the fundamental problem that prevents progress toward peaceful reconciliation. The dominant political party in the PA remains a direct sponsor of ongoing terrorism ? the ruling politicians and the terrorists are one and the same.
If media outlets fail to convey this, their readers and viewers certainly can't understand Israel's position in the raging debate over the security fence, which tomorrow reaches the world court at The Hague.
One paper that clearly doesn't "get it" is The Chicago Tribune, which published today three op-eds (1,2,3) railing against the security fence, all under the theme "Build Bridges, Not Walls."
Israel has been attempting to build bridges with her Palestinian neighbors for over fifty years. But as a terror-free Palestinian leadership has never emerged, and Israeli families continue to be torn apart by senseless terrorist murder, no other option currently exists. Until there's a Palestinian partner who forsakes terrorism, Israeli citizens deserve the protection of an imperfect wall.
In reporting on today's attack, did your local paper indicate the direct connections between the perpetrators of the horrific attack and Yassir Arafat's ruling Fatah party? If not, write a letter to the editor, using the talking points above, and stressing the significance of accuracy on this particular issue ? which cuts to the heart of the entire conflict.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
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Maple Leaf Terror
By Stephen Brown
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 26, 2004
An American courtroom just witnessed the first conviction ever of a Canadian citizen in the War on Terror.
Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, 21, originally from Kuwait, pleaded guilty to several charges of planning attacks against American interests outside the United States. The charges include conspiracy to kill US nationals, destroy US property abroad with weapons of mass destruction, kill American employees while on duty, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. The WMD, in this case, was dynamite. According to Canadian newspapers, Jabarah was tried secretly at an undisclosed location in New York state.
Jabarah came to Canada with his family at age 12 and attended a Catholic high school in St. Catherines, Ontario. However, he returned summers to his native Kuwait where he and his older brother fell under the influence of Muslim extremists. After high school, the Canadian Islamist went to
Afghanistan, where he underwent guerrilla and explosives training at an al-Qaeda camp, rising up in the terrorist organization due to his proficiency in English and his Canadian passport. Jabarah eventually became a member of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard unit, coming into frequent contact with the al-Qaeda leader.
The day before 9/11, the Canadian terrorist, whose code name was "Sammy", was given $10,000 and sent to Southeast Asia to liaison with Islamist terrorist groups there and to organize strikes of his own. He is known to have met with Hambali, the mastermind of the Bali bombing in Indonesia, and is believed to have had a role in its planning. Jabarah himself became the ringleader of a plot to blow up Western embassies in Singapore with truck bombs.
Fortunately, the plot was uncovered in time, causing Jabarah to flee to Oman, a Persian Gulf state. Arrested there, he was returned to Canada, where, after a meeting with Canadian intelligence officials, he was persuaded to walk across the border at Niagara Falls to talk with American authorities. The Americans, happy to have such a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative walk into their arms, spirited their intelligence find away to a secret location, presumably a military facility in Brooklyn, New York.
While in American custody, Jabarah's older brother, Abdul Rahman, continued to carry the family flag in the sick and twisted world of Islamist terrorism. Last May, he and 18 other al-Qaeda Islamists fought a gun battle with security forces in Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda then struck one week later with suicide truck bombers who killed 34 people and wounded hundreds more in housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital. However, the older Jabarah's career path as Islamist terrorist was cut short last July when Saudi authorities killed him.
Unfortunately, the younger Jabarah was not the only Canadian Islamist on trial in the United States this month. Mohammed Warasame, 30, a Somali-Canadian, is facing a charge in a Minnesota courtroom of providing support to a terrorist organization. According to an FBI affidavit, Warasame, a former Toronto resident, wired money to people he met in Taliban training camps in Afghanistan where he taught English to al-Qaeda members and saw combat in a Taliban military unit. He once sat next to Osama bin Laden at a meal and had asked the al-Qaeda leader for money to move his family to Afghanistan. Instead, bin Laden, whom Warasame described in the affidavit as "very inspirational", gave him an airplane ticket back to North America and $1,700 in traveling money.
Moreover, another Canadian citizen returned recently from a stint as a guest of the US government in Guantanamo Bay. Abdurahman Khadr, 21, a Toronto resident whose family comes from Egypt, had trained at a Taliban camp in Afghanistan, where he fell into American hands. Khadr has the dubious honor of belonging to Canada's first family of terrorism. His younger brother, Omar, is still interned in Guantanamo Bay, charged with killing an American soldier with a grenade in a firefight in Afghanistan. Khadr's father, Ahmed Said, was killed in a shootout with security forces in Pakistan last fall, while still another brother, 14-year-old Abdul, was wounded in the same fight and now lies paralyzed in a Pakistani hospital. Only the oldest Khadr son, Abdullah, who once ran a Taliban training camp, is still at large.
Opportunely, a US Library of Congress report also appeared this month in Canadian papers, accusing Canada of becoming a haven for Islamist terrorists and a liability in the War on Terror. Called 'The Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism', the document, compiled last fall by the US Congress's research division and the Central Intelligence Agency's Crime and Narcotics Center, takes America's northern neighbor to task for its loose security environment. The report blames Canada's "...generous social welfare system, lax immigration laws, infrequent prosecutions, light sentencing, and long borders...", among other factors, for making it a favorite destination for terrorist and criminal groups, which are "increasingly using Canada as an operational base and transit country en route to the United States."
While these findings are nothing new, as US governors, intelligence officials and Canadian conservatives have constantly pointed them out, their results continue to emerge in American courtrooms and, it appears, will unfortunately do so for the foreseeable future.
Stephen Brown is a journalist based in Toronto. He has an M.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies. Email him at alsolzh@hotmail.com.
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EU, US trumpet 'win-win' accord in satellites row
26 February 2004
European Union and US officials trumpetted Thursday a "win-win" accord resolving a transatlantic row over rival satellite systems, saying it will create a new world standard of radio-navigation.
The two sides said they hope to clear up final details of an accord on Europe's planned Galileo satellite system in time for an EU-US summit in Ireland in June, to be attended by US President George W. Bush.
The agreement on all but a few "legal and procedural" issues was struck Wednesday after two days of talks, following previous negotiating rounds in the Netherlands and Washington which had failed to make headway.
"All in all we have achieved what was always our objective, a win-win outcome. We still have some details to work out but the major principles ... are now in place," said senior US official Ralph Braibanti.
EU commissioner Loyola de Palacio said: "This is another very important step for the Galileo project, which recognises both sides as equal partners and creates the optimal conditions for the development of the European system.
"This agreement will allow all users to use in a complementary way both systems with the same receiver: it creates indeed the world standard of radio-navigation by satellite," she added.
The US offer came after the Europeans agreed late last year to modify the modulation of Galileo signals intended for government use so they would not disrupt encrypted GPS signals to be used by the US military and NATO.
The United States has been watching the development of Galileo warily for the past two years, fearing it could compromise US and NATO military operations which rely on the GPS system for navigation and combatant location.
At one point, Washington suggested that the Galileo was an unnecessary rival to GPS that merely duplicated the US system.
But Europe has forged ahead with the project and Galileo is set to be operational by 2008 with 30 satellites encircling the globe in medium orbit.
EU official Heinz Hilbrecht, a director at the European Commission, added that: "Our objective is to have everything ready for the EU-US summit" scheduled to be held on June 25-26 in Ireland.
According to the joint statement, the two sides agreed on key points including:
- a common signal structure for so-called "open" services, and a suitable signal structure for the Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS).
- a process allowing improvements, either jointly or individually, of the baseline signal structures in order to further improve performances.
- confirmation of interoperable time and standards to facilitate the joint use of GPS and Galileo.
Braibanti added that the accord was a welcome example of US-European cooperation, at a time when differences ranging from Iraq to an ongoing series of trade spats have soured the transatlantic mood.
"We've succeeded in converting issues that would have driven a wedge between the US and Europe into a situation where satellite navigation now clearly appears to be an area that is going to clearly add to the strengthen of the transatlantic partnership," he said.
Earlier this month the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, shortlisted three groups as possible operators of the Galileo system.
Consortiums led by Eutelsat, Inmarsat/EADS/Thales and Alcatel Space/Vinci will go into a final process of competitive negotiation to win the contract, it said.
GALILEO - further information
Text and Picture Copyright ? 2004 AFP. All other copyright ? 2004 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.
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Rumsfeld: 'Close doesn't count' in bin Laden hunt
Defense chief notes Pakistan's renewed moves against al Qaeda
Thursday, February 26, 2004 Posted: 2:48 PM EST (1948 GMT)
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's military has stepped up its hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda operatives -- including Osama bin Laden -- near the Afghan border, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday after arriving in Afghanistan.
However, Rumsfeld said the forces tracking bin Laden were no "closer or farther at any given moment" from capturing the al Qaeda leader.
"Close doesn't count," he said at a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "I suspect that we'll find that it is accomplished at some point in the future, and I wouldn't have any idea when."
U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan reportedly are planning a spring offensive against the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters remaining in Afghanistan.
Earlier Thursday, Rumsfeld visited reconstruction teams in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar before heading to the capital, Kabul, where he met with Karzai.
The defense secretary praised Afghanistan's progress since U.S. forces ousted the Taliban regime in 2001.
"This country has gone in a short period from a haven for terrorists to a coalition ally in the war against terrorism," Rumsfeld said. "Freedom is clearly taking root in this country, and Afghanistan is on a path to become a model for freedom and moderation in the Muslim world."
In recent days, the defense secretary has spoken on the record about Pakistan's military operations in its border areas, which could be an indication of improved U.S. intelligence on al Qaeda movements.
On Tuesday, Pakistani government sources said their forces launched a military operation based on new intelligence, arresting at least 25 people. (Full story)
Government sources had said earlier that the Pakistani army was ready to conduct a major campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Wana area, where bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar are believed to be hiding.
Five aid workers killed in attack
On the eve of Rumsfeld's arrival, five aid workers in Afghanistan were shot dead near Kabul late Wednesday, the United Nations said.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said unknown assailants fired on the workers in a village about 15 miles (25 kilometers) north of the capital.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan called the attack "absolutely unacceptable."
Also Wednesday, a U.S. soldier was killed and another injured in a single-vehicle accident along a main road, U.S. Central Command said. The accident is under investigation.
CNN's Barbara Starr in Kabul contributed to this report.
Posted by maximpost
at 10:52 PM EST
