Hydrablog: August 2006 Archives

Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083003011.html
Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A20 [pentagon] [civilan and uniformed leadership] [finally someone is thinking ahead a little] [this is something that should have been begun some 3 years ago] [better late than never?] [************]
U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083003011.html
Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A20 [pentagon] [civilan and uniformed leadership] [finally someone is thinking ahead a little] [this is something that should have been begun some 3 years ago] [better late than never?] [************]
U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.
The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.
The request for bids comes at a time when Bush administration officials are publicly criticizing media coverage of the war in Iraq.
The proposal, which calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, is designed to help the coalition forces understand "the communications environment." Its goal is to "develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals," according to the statement of work that is publicly available through the Web site http://www.fbodaily.com .[*******]
A public relations practitioner who asked for anonymity because he may be involved in a bid on the contract said that military commanders "are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out. [********]
"They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.
The proposal calls for monitoring "Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international and U.S. national and regional markets media in both Arabic and English." That includes broadcast and cable television outlets, the Pentagon channel, two wire services and three major U.S. newspapers: The Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times. [*******]
Monitors are to select stories that deal with specific issues, such as security, reconstruction activities, "high profile" coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are "in the lead." The monitors are to analyze stories to determine the "dissemination of key themes and messages" along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative. [**********] [while I generally agree with the reported effort, when they include US media they are playing with fire!] [*********]
The media outlets would be monitored for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations. That part of the proposal could reflect Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's often-stated concern that the media does not cover positive aspects of Iraq. [*********]
In a speech before the American Legion on Tuesday, Rumsfeld said that a search of leading newspapers revealed that a soldier punished for misconduct was written about "10 times" as often as the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in anti-terrorism efforts.
The proposal suggests a team of 12 to 18 people who would provide support for the coalition military command as well as the Iraqi government leadership.
Prospective contractors are also asked to propose four to eight public relations events per month, such as speeches or news conferences, including "preparation of likely questions and suggested answers, themes and messages as well as background, talking points."
An attempt yesterday to reach the contracting officer for this project was not successful. Bids are due Sept. 6, and the 24-month contract is scheduled to begin on Oct. 28.
The Rendon Group, which has represented organizations such as the Iraqi National Congress, currently holds a much smaller year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq. That contract includes creating an Arabic version of the command's Web site, http://www.mnf-iraq.com .
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Hearings Begin for Marines Accused of Killing Iraqi

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002925.html
Hearings Begin for Marines Accused of Killing Iraqi
By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A11 [military] [marines accused of mistreating and murder] [pre-court martial proceesings have begun] [**********]
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., Aug. 30 -- Military prosecutors submitted maps, letters from Iraq and incriminating statements to military courts Wednesday as they argued that two Marines should be tried in the killing of an Iraqi civilian and its alleged coverup. Defense attorneys said the government's case is thin. [*********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002925.html
Hearings Begin for Marines Accused of Killing Iraqi
By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A11 [military] [marines accused of mistreating and murder] [pre-court martial proceesings have begun] [**********]
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., Aug. 30 -- Military prosecutors submitted maps, letters from Iraq and incriminating statements to military courts Wednesday as they argued that two Marines should be tried in the killing of an Iraqi civilian and its alleged coverup. Defense attorneys said the government's case is thin. [*********]
"At the end of the day, all we have are unreliable, uncorroborated statements and no physical evidence," said Joseph Casas, the civilian lawyer for Pfc. John J. Jodka, 20. "What the government says happened, didn't happen."
Seven Marines and a Navy corpsman are being held in the Camp Pendleton brig on charges that they bound the hands and feet of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, then shot him on April 26 in Hamdaniyah. [*******] Prosecutors say they planted a shovel and AK-47 rifle near his body to make him look like an insurgent. [*******]
Awad's neighbors told The Washington Post that he was known as "Awad the Lame," because he had a metal bar implanted in his leg. They said Marines shot him four times in the face.
Wednesday's proceedings were the first of eight Article 32 hearings -- the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding -- that will be held as prosecutors argue each of the defendants should be court-martialed. [*******]They are charged with murder, kidnapping, assault, larceny, conspiracy, housebreaking and making a false official statement.
None of the evidence prosecutors submitted Wednesday was made public, and witnesses did not testify in open court.
The defendants are among 17 U.S. troops charged since March with killing Iraqi civilians. Three of this group, known locally as the "Pendleton 8," plus four others, are charged with assaulting a civilian in Hamdaniyah on April 10. All of the accused are members of a fire team with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
Beginning in April, when the killings of 24 civilians in Haditha came to light, officers in Iraq have been under orders to investigate every escalation-of-force incident that led to civilian casualties.
Defense attorneys wanted to close Wednesday's proceedings to prevent the open reading of defendants' statements. "To openly discuss the contents [of the statements] will completely pollute the local and national jury pool," Jane Siegel, another of Jodka's civilian attorneys, argued in court. "Some of it is very inflammatory."
At least two statements are confessions, say prosecutors in the case of another accused, Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda, 23. Magincalda is accused of binding Awad's feet and kidnapping him; Jodka is accused of firing on Awad.
The other defendants are Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, Hosp. 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr. and Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington.
All eight defendants had faced the death penalty, but prosecutors decided Tuesday not to seek capital punishment for Jodka. They called the death penalty "inappropriate" for him but did not say why. [********]
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Iraqi Forces Not Ready Yet, U.S. General Says

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq31aug31,1,309592.story?coll=la-headlines-world
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Iraqi Forces Not Ready Yet, U.S. General Says
Troops need a year or more before they will be able to take over from the Americans, Casey says. Meanwhile, the civilian death toll grows.
By Louise Roug and Julian E. Barnes
Times Staff Writers
August 31, 2006 [pentagon] [uniformed military] [general casey opins that Iraqi forces wil be able to handle security in a year or so] [************]
BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces will need an additional year to 18 months before they can take over from American troops, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said Wednesday.

The assessment, which came on a day when at least 79 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, drove home a growing realization that U.S. troops will stay longer and in greater numbers in Iraq than once anticipated by ground commanders and the Bush administration.

"I don't have a date, but I can see over the next 12 to 18 months the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country with very little coalition support," [******] Casey told reporters in Baghdad.

He would not commit to a U.S. drawdown after that date, saying it depended on the security situation in the country.

"We'll adjust that as we go," Casey said, referring to American troop levels in the country. "But a lot of that, in fact the future coalition presence, 12 to 18 months from now, is going to be decided by the Iraqi government."

Last year, Casey said "significant" troop withdrawals could take place soon after Iraqi elections that December. [*******]

Casey and other top commanders said at the time that they were prepared to recommend a drawdown of 30,000 troops by the spring, if the election and training of security forces went well. [*********]

The start of reductions was delayed by an outbreak of civil warfare, but Casey said in May that his "general timeline" was still on track.

In June, Casey predicted "gradual reductions" in U.S. troop levels over the following year. But by last month, generals began shelving plans for troop cuts this year and instead ordered extensions of combat tours as violence worsened. [******]

Retired Maj. Gen. William Nash, who led U.S. Army forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina, said that given the amount of time the U.S. already had spent training the Iraqi military, Casey's timeline was reasonable.

"My point is: By God, I hope we would be getting close by then," [******]Nash said.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he had been told that keeping the current force beyond 18 months would be difficult for the military. [*********]

"Gen. Casey is saying what everyone in the military knows," Biden said. "We cannot sustain 134,000 troops in Iraq. I think everyone in the military knows these guys are stretched." [***********] [I suspect that Casey is gingerly putting the civilian leadership on notice] [**********] [Neither Rummy, nor Cheney, nor President Bush can afford to quash this effort]

This week, the U.S. military called in airstrikes to support besieged Iraqi soldiers fighting Shiite militia members in a fierce 12-hour street battle in the southern city of Diwaniya.

Casey said that confidence in the security forces was key to dismantling the militias. But the Iraqi government has taken few concrete steps to disarm or dismantle them, and their members have infiltrated the security forces, where they have been accused of forming death squads. [*********]

About 8,000 U.S. troops and 3,000 Iraqi soldiers have flooded sections of the capital, including several that had been turned over to Iraqi forces this spring.

Military officials say the increased patrols and searches have lowered the number of killings in Baghdad, which soared to more than 1,800 in July.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki touted the drop in the homicide rate as evidence of "an atmosphere of reconciliation" in an interview with CNN on Sunday. [*****]

But the week that followed showed little reconciliation, and August is now ending on a bloody note. Since Sunday, at least 317 people have been killed nationwide, 126 of them in the capital.

On Wednesday, the worst of the violence again hit civilians in and around the capital. [*********]

Just after 7 a.m., a bomb exploded near an Iraqi army recruitment center in the Shiite-dominated city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, ripping through an ice cream shack.

At least 13 people were killed, said Kadhim Jafari, a Hillah hospital official.

Ali Abdelhassan, 28, was having breakfast when the force of the explosion sent furniture flying in his apartment. He walked outside, where he found severed limbs and torn bodies. Among the wounded were his 8-year-old niece, Shaima, and his nephew, 2-year-old Hussein, both of whom suffered burns, he said.

A few hours later, a bomb tore through a busy wholesale market in the capital, killing at least 24 people and injuring 35, police said.

Forty minutes after the market blast, two bombs exploded near a gas station about two miles away, killing two civilians and a policeman who was trapped in his car, authorities said.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed a manager at the Justice Ministry, her driver and her bodyguard. Near a rug factory, gunmen shot and killed three people on a bus in western Baghdad.

A U.S. Marine assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Tuesday of wounds sustained during operations in Al Anbar province, the military said Wednesday.

Sixteen bodies were found in two Baghdad neighborhoods, most showing signs of torture. Five other bodies were found floating in the Tigris River about 30 miles south of the capital. [******]

Near Baqubah, a roadside bomb killed five people, including three women and a child, while farther north in Kirkuk, three people were killed and 14 injured in an explosion on a bus.

In the western city of Qaim on the Syrian border, police discovered the bodies of two men who had been tortured and shot, said Ayman Saleh, a local policeman. He said the men had been kidnapped three days earlier. In Fallouja, a kidnapping victim was found slain, police said. In Samawah, one person was killed when rejected recruits clashed with Iraqi soldiers. [*********]
Roug reported from Baghdad and Barnes from Washington. Times staff writers Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:54 AM | Permalink

Bush Team Casts Foes as Defeatist

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083003177.html
Bush Team Casts Foes as Defeatist
Blunt Rhetoric Signals a New Thrust
By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A01 [bush] [white house] [gsave] [upcoming speech] [use psci 469] [*******] [incredibly myopic] [******]
President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, [******] charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions. [*******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083003177.html
Bush Team Casts Foes as Defeatist
Blunt Rhetoric Signals a New Thrust
By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A01 [bush] [white house] [gsave] [upcoming speech] [use psci 469] [*******] [incredibly myopic] [******]
President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, [******] charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions. [*******]
With an appearance before the American Legion in Salt Lake City today, Bush will begin a series of speeches over 20 days centered on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he and his top lieutenants have foreshadowed in recent days the thrust of the effort to put Democrats on the defensive with rhetoric that has further inflamed an already emotional debate. [*********]
Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. [****] [Bush] Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." [veep cheney] [****] And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased." [defense sec Rummy] [****]
Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. [*********]
"A lot of the people who say we need to withdraw from Iraq say we'll be safer, and I don't think that's accurate," said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman,[GOP national chairman Mehlman] [****] a key architect of the party's strategy heading into the fall congressional campaign. Mehlman noted that al-Qaeda leaders and other Islamic radicals have said they want to drive Americans out of Iraq and use it as a base. "We ought to not ignore when they say they're going to do that."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it is reasonable for Bush to presume that Democrats will try to cut off funding for the war if they take over Congress, noting that 54 House Democrats voted against a spending bill for military operations last year. "How would they force the president to withdraw troops?" she asked. "Yell?" [********]
Democrats contended that the statements went too far. "Maybe there are some people in America who do not want to fight the war on terror, but I do not know them," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said yesterday. "We Democrats want to fight a very strong war on terror. No one has talked about appeasement." [********]
The White House strategy of equating Democratic dissent with defeatism worked during the 2002 and 2004 elections, but it could prove more difficult this time. Some Republicans, such as Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), line up with Democrats in seeking a timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq. [*****] When Bush and his allies accuse those favoring such a timetable of "self-defeating pessimism," as Cheney put it this week, they risk spraying friendly fire on some of their own candidates.
In an interview yesterday, Shays said the charges by Cheney and Rumsfeld are "over the top" and unhelpful. [********]"The president should be trying to bring the country together and not trying to divide us," he said. Shays, a longtime supporter of the war who just returned from his 14th trip to Iraq and faces a tough reelection battle, said he plans to outline next month a deadline for replacing U.S. troops doing police-style patrols with Iraqi forces. But he fears the Bush administration might not be supportive.
Other GOP incumbents, such as Reps. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.) and Michael G. Fitzpatrick (Pa.), are also raising serious concerns about Bush's Iraq policy.
But many embattled Republicans remain reluctant to break with the administration's current approach. Rep. Rob Simmons, another Connecticut Republican facing a difficult campaign in a Democratic-leaning district, said he will oppose any effort by Shays to establish a pullout deadline. "I don't think that is a good idea," [****]Simmons said.
Instead, Simmons highlights his military service and initial objections to invading Iraq three years ago. "I am a Connecticut Republican, and the environment in which I operate is quite different from elsewhere in the country," Simmons said. As for the emerging Bush political strategy on terrorism and the war, it "is hard to judge whether it helps or hurts," he said. "It may help candidates elsewhere in the country more than it helps me." [******]
While no Democrat has the powerful platform that the White House affords Bush and Cheney, the complaints about the mischaracterizing of positions on the war flow in both directions. [*******] Many Democrats accuse the president of advocating "stay the course" in Iraq, but the White House rejects the phrase and regularly emphasizes that it is adapting tactics to changing circumstances, such as moving more U.S. troops into Baghdad recently after a previous security strategy appeared to fail. [*******]
"Strategically, we are staying committed to the fact that this is an important mission and one that should be accomplished," said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Democrats, this adviser said, say "we're 'doing the same thing over and over' when that's not the case."
The intensity of the exchanges underscores the power of the issue. Although memories of Hurricane Katrina and disputes over the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast generated heated debate in recent days, strategists in both parties believe that the coming congressional elections will turn in large part on the Iraq war and whether voters believe it is part of the global battle against terrorism or a distraction from it. Bush advisers hope that the legacy of Sept. 11 will rally the public back to the unpopular president and his party, while Democrats are trying to tap into broad discontent with the Iraq war. [*******]
Republicans plan to load the congressional agenda with national security issues, including votes on spending for the military, terrorism-fighting measures and symbolic bills supporting U.S. troops. Democrats plan to force votes on providing more equipment to U.S. troops, implementing the recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission and condemning Bush's Iraq policy.
Bush's speech to the American Legion this morning will launch his third intensive campaign in the past year to address public anxiety over the war. Aides said he will tackle the perception that the world is in chaos and tie together the conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and elsewhere into the common ideological thread of fighting "Islamic fascism." [*******]
The effort will continue with other speeches in Washington and around the country, followed by a whirlwind tour of the Sept. 11 attack sites and a Sept. 19 address to the U.N. General Assembly. During a campaign stop in Arkansas yesterday, Bush denied that the efforts are connected to the election campaign.
“They’re not political speeches,” he said. “They’re speeches about the future of this country, and they’re speeches to make it clear that if we retreat before the job is done, this nation would become even more in jeopardy. These are important times, and I seriously hope people wouldn’t politicize these issues that I’m going to talk about.” [*******]
The Democratic strategy for the next few weeks is twofold: First, [*] punch back every time Republicans challenge their commitment to national security. Yesterday, for instance, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) was among the half-dozen leading Democrats to strike back at Rumsfeld by noontime. "Secretary Rumsfeld's efforts to smear critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy are a pathetic attempt to shift the public's attention from his repeated failure to manage the conduct of the war competently," she said.
[**] At the same time, Democrats plan a series of events in which to condemn Bush's Iraq policy and amplify their charge that Iraq is not a central front in the campaign against terrorism. In a late-morning conference call, Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the Democrats' leading spokesman on national security issues, said only a small minority of those involved in the bloodshed in Iraq are the kind of international terrorists the United States should be hunting down.
Unlike in the past two elections, it is not clear which party benefits most from these debates. Most polls show that the public is essentially split over which party will keep the United States safe from terrorists. Both sides anticipate that Bush and other Republicans will get a slight bump from the Sept. 11 anniversary and the public's renewed focus on terrorism on that day, but that will not end the focus. "Over the next 69 days," Mehlman said, "there will be an important discussion in America over what it takes to make America safe."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:53 AM | Permalink

U.S. Drafting Sanctions as Iran Is Defiant

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/01irancnd.html
August 31, 2006
U.S. Drafting Sanctions as Iran Is Defiant
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition]that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [**************] [see full piece in today’s external] [bush] [white house] [gsave] [upcoming speech] [use psci 469] [*******]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 — With Iran defying today’s deadline to halt production of nuclear fuel, the United States and three European allies are assembling a list of sanctions they would seek in the United Nations Security Council, beginning with restrictions on imports of nuclear-related equipment and material.
. . . .
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Pipe Down, Rummy

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-ed-rumsfeld31aug31,0,326859.story?coll=la-opinion-center
EDITORIAL
Pipe Down, Rummy
Rumsfeld's cranky outburst mangles a historical analogy, bad-mouths legitimate critics, and illustrates once again why the defense secretary should resign.
August 31, 2006 [editorial] [on rumsfeld’s unfortunate insinuiation that anyone who disagrees with him is by definition an appeaser] [***********]
TWO REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATIONS ago, the mantra of conservatives was "Let Reagan be Reagan." Apparently President Bush has decided to let Rumsfeld be Rumsfeld — even when Bush himself is no longer the Bush who taunted Iraqi insurgents with "Bring 'em on!" and posed in front of a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."

In a cranky speech Tuesday to an American Legion audience, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld compared critics of U.S. policy in Iraq to those who sought to appease Hitler before World War II. For good measure, Rumsfeld suggested (echoing Jeane Kirkpatrick's liberal-bashing speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention) that those same critics "blame America first." [**********]

One effect of Rumsfeld's outburst was to serve as a reminder that he is still in office. [******] Once the public face of the war in Iraq, he lately has been AWOL from the administration's public advocacy, ceding the spotlight to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The assumption was that, although Rumsfeld remained fireproof, his cocksure contempt for criticism was out of favor now that Bush has acknowledged that the prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq is "straining the psyche of our country."

Maybe Rumsfeld never got the memo, or, if he did, he crumpled it up. His speech was vintage Rumsfeld. It was also unfair and, in places, inane. [*******]

Take the suggestion that critics of Bush's Iraq policy are the moral equivalent of those who refused to stop Hitler. [*****] There's a reason why high school debaters are warned away from Nazi analogies: They're almost always disproportionate. Even Bush, who recently raised eyebrows by identifying "Islamic fascism" as America's enemy, stopped short of referring to critics of his policies as latter-day Neville Chamberlains.

Even more offensive is Rumsfeld's "blame America first" canard. Who exactly has been pushing what he called "the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world's troubles"? Certainly no one in mainstream American political discourse, not even those members of Congress who want to set a date for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. [******] Their argument, right or wrong, is that Iraq is descending into civil war and that the U.S. presence there is unavailing and a drain on resources better expended elsewhere, including on counter-terrorism at home. [*******]

The Bush administration can and should respond to that argument without recourse to overheated analogies and straw men like the "blame America first" crowd. Rumsfeld is obviously unwilling to step down. Could he at least pipe down?

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Rumsfeld's Enemy: It's Us

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/08/rumsfelds_declaration_of_war_o.html
Early Warning
William M. Arkin
[August 31, 2006]
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Rumsfeld's Enemy: It's Us
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered a fire-and-brimstone speech at the American Legion's annual convention yesterday -- after acknowledging young soldiers serving in Iraq and giving the boy scouts a shout-out, the secretary wove an elaborate picture of an enemy made up of terrorists, morally misguided Westerners, disagreeable military strategists, and a cynical news media. [************]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/08/rumsfelds_declaration_of_war_o.html
Early Warning
William M. Arkin
[August 31, 2006]
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Rumsfeld's Enemy: It's Us
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered a fire-and-brimstone speech at the American Legion's annual convention yesterday -- after acknowledging young soldiers serving in Iraq and giving the boy scouts a shout-out, the secretary wove an elaborate picture of an enemy made up of terrorists, morally misguided Westerners, disagreeable military strategists, and a cynical news media. [************]
Rumsfeld stated there could be no appeasing the enemy and any "any moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere."
The "who" Rumsfeld is talking about is himself. [**********]
Rumsfeld is the "who" that is right, and everyone who disagrees is not only wrong, but a danger to freedom. [*******]
Within minutes of the conclusion of Rumsfeld's speech yesterday, I received an e-mail from Thayer C. Scott, the secretary's speechwriter, serving up talking points. [*******]
The Defense Department then took the unusual step, usually reserved for its broadsides against Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, of issuing a statement saying that the Associated Press coverage of Rumsfeld's Salt Lake City remarks mischaracterized them. [***********]
Either Rumsfeld has delivered one of the most important speeches of the modern era, or he's gone crazy.
I think the latter, not just because I think the secretary is wrong on his intellectual characterization of terrorism, and not just because he is wrong about the media and its intentions, and not because he is so pugnacious, or because he has been wrong so many times before. [***************************]
Rumsfeld is so wrong about America. His use of World War I history and the specter of fascism and appeasement, and his argument about moral weakness or even treason in any who oppose him, is not only polarizing but ineffective in provoking debate and discussion about the proper course this country must take to "fight" terrorism. [********]
This is not the first time that Rumsfeld has shown himself to be so out of touch, so contemptuous of America. [******] Rumsfeld as secretary of defense has displayed a contempt from long before 9/11 for anyone who disagrees with him, particularly in his initial wars against those in the uniformed military.
Moreover, Rumsfeld's declaration of war yesterday follows from his basic view that the Defense Department has to do it all: He has created an intelligence bureaucracy because he is distrustful and contemptuous of the CIA and all others. [******] He has built up a secret army and covert capabilities in special operations forces because he wants to control and to rely only upon his own warriors. [******] He has created a homeland security apparatus that looks over the shoulder of the Department of Homeland Security and is the ultimate arbiter of security. [*******] He has created his own FBI in the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), and fought to ensure that the NSA stays under Pentagon control. [*******]He has created his own law and his own human rights policy. He has subverted Congress through unexamined supplemental budgets and super-secret programs. [*******]
Even as a military strategist, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld pushed a losing strategy in Afghanistan. This is not just because he went to war with an initially small force. After all, the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda began just weeks after 9/11 and that was what could be mobilized in that short period. The tragic error was that Rumsfeld continued to think that the terrorist threat existed in the form of a small army to be routed by his fabulous "transformed" warriors. [********]
It is Rumsfeld who declared "mission accomplished" long before President Bush stepped on to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Rumsfeld has been wrong in fighting and too quick to declare victory thereafter.
Rumsfeld declared victory in Afghanistan, in addition, because he was twitching to move on to the next enemy, and the next and the next. But even when the weaknesses and problems became apparent about how the Afghanistan war had been fought, Rumsfeld still pushed an identical military strategy in Iraq, brushing aside any criticism as naïve and appeasing and out of touch with the new gathering storm of weapons of mass destruction. [*********]
And even as Iraq has become one of the biggest hornets' nests in history, the secretary has convinced himself over and over that progress is being made and victory is just around the corner. [*******] America, Rumsfeld says, is not to blame, conflating a just war with a preemptive American strike. America is not to blame and therefore Rumsfeld is not to blame: no missteps, no errors of judgment. The secretary just wants his soldiers to believe now that he anticipated all along that the enemy was totalitarian and fascist and that Iraq was part of the big plan.
If I were the conspiratorial type, I'd say Rumsfeld was a particular menace to America because in his view of a monolithic and totalitarian terrorist enemy, and in his analysis of the weakness of American society, he can only come to the messianic conclusion that he indeed needs to takeover the country in order to save it. [******] And this might even be worth speculating about were it the case that Rumsfeld reflected the views of those in the military leadership, or were it the case that Rumsfeld could actually engineer such a coup.
But alas, the secretary would get the intelligence wrong, employ too few troops and send tank columns on thunder runs through Manhattan and Hollywood, prematurely declaring victory and then being befuddled about the American desire to recover and preserve its way of life, which is not the Rumsfeld way. [**********]
"Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America -- not the enemy -- is the real source of the world’s troubles?," Rumsfeld asked yesterday.
This has got an easy answer: World troubles? Rumsfeld is the source of troubles much closer to home.
By William M. Arkin | August 30, 2006; 8:01 AM ET
Previous: Michael Brown: Go Away |

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:51 AM | Permalink

We're Not Winning This War

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002730.html
We're Not Winning This War
Despite Some Notable Achievements, New Thinking Is Needed on the Home Front and Abroad
By John Lehman
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A25 [oped by former 9/11 commissioner] [and former navy sec] [muddling iraq with gsave] [*************] [use psci 469]
Are we winning the war? The first question to ask is, what war? The Bush administration continues to muddle a national understanding of the conflict we are in by calling it the "war on terror." [*******] This political correctness presumably seeks to avoid hurting the feelings of the Saudis and other Muslims, but it comes at high cost. [*********] This not a war against terror any more than World War II was a war against kamikazes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002730.html
We're Not Winning This War
Despite Some Notable Achievements, New Thinking Is Needed on the Home Front and Abroad
By John Lehman
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A25 [oped by former 9/11 commissioner] [and former navy sec] [muddling iraq with gsave] [*************] [use psci 469]
Are we winning the war? The first question to ask is, what war? The Bush administration continues to muddle a national understanding of the conflict we are in by calling it the "war on terror." [*******] This political correctness presumably seeks to avoid hurting the feelings of the Saudis and other Muslims, but it comes at high cost. [*********] This not a war against terror any more than World War II was a war against kamikazes.
We are at war with jihadists motivated by a violent ideology based on an extremist interpretation of the Islamic faith. This enemy is decentralized and geographically dispersed around the world. [*********]Its organizations range from a fully functioning state such as Iran to small groups of individuals in American cities.
We are fighting this war on three distinct fronts: the home front, the operational front and the strategic-political front. [*******]Let us look first at the home front. The Bush administration deserves much credit for the fact that, despite determined efforts to carry them out, there have been no successful Islamist attacks within the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. This is a significant achievement, but there are growing dangers and continuing vulnerabilities. [*********]
One of the most deep-seated of these problems is the U.S. government's tendency to treat this war as a law enforcement issue. Following a recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission, Congress sought to remedy this problem by creating a national security service within the FBI[*******] to focus on preventive intelligence rather than forensic evidence. This has proved to be a complete failure. As late as June of this year, Mark Mershon of the FBI testified that the bureau will not monitor or surveil any Islamist unless there is a "criminal predicate." [********] Thus the large Islamist support infrastructure that the commission identified here in the United States is free to operate until its members actually commit a crime. [************************]
Our attempt to reform the FBI has failed. What is needed now is a separate domestic intelligence service without police powers, like the British MI-5. [another call for a domestic intell service] [*********]
The Sept. 11 commission catalogued in detail how our intelligence establishment simply does not function. We made priority recommendations to rebuild the 15 bloated and failed intelligence bureaucracies by creating a strong national intelligence director to smash bureaucratic layers, to tear down the walls preventing intelligence-sharing among agencies, and to rewrite personnel policy with the goal of bringing in new blood not just from the career bureaucracy but from the private sector as well. This approach was completely rejected by the Bush administration, which decided instead to leave this sprawling mess untouched and to create yet another bureaucracy of more than 1,000 people in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It was the exact opposite of what we had recommended.
The greatest terrorist threat on the home front is, of course, the use of weapons of mass destruction by Islamists. [********] Here the president has moved to establish a national counter-proliferation center to share and act on intelligence, and he has recently initiated a cooperation agreement with Russia and our allies to work together in preventing nuclear materials from getting into the hands of the Islamists and to undertake joint crisis management if such an attack takes place. These are real accomplishments. [********]
Turning to the operational front, our objectives are to destroy the capability of Islamist organizations to attack us and to deny them geographic sanctuaries in which they can recruit, train and operate. [*******]
The post-Sept. 11 threat demanded preemptive attack against Islamist bases, and this was done without delay in the invasion of Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban government, [******] its ally and supporter. It was a brilliantly executed operation in which all our armed forces and CIA operatives combined in a ruthlessly efficient victory. In the succeeding years, however, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been able to regroup, rebuild and re-attack because they enjoy a secure sanctuary largely free from attack within the border areas of Pakistan. [finally someone with some gravitas has said it] [**********]
The next military operation of the war was, of course, the invasion of Iraq. [*****]Here again the combined military operations of the United States and Britain were brilliantly successful in defeating Iraqi forces and removing Saddam Hussein and his regime. But in the aftermath of that victory, grave blunders were made. There was a total misunderstanding of the requirements for successful occupation. [*******]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was proved right in his keeping the initial invasion force small and agile, but desperately wrong in disbanding all Iraqi security forces and civil service with no plan to fill the resulting vacuum. Certainly it is hard now to understand the logic of that decision. [*********]
The military occupation in Iraq is consuming practically the entire defense budget and stretching the Army to its operational limits. This is understood quite clearly by both our friends and our enemies, and as a result, our ability to deter enemies around the world is disintegrating.
This brings us to the third front, the strategic-political. [******] The jihadist regime in Iran feels no reservation about flaunting its policy to go nuclear, and it unleashed Hezbollah, [******] its client terrorist organization, to attack Israel. [actually that’s far from clear] [it is as plausible that the Hezbollah tail was wagging the Iran dog] [******] In Somalia a jihadist group has seized control of the government. In Pakistan, Islamists are becoming more powerful, and attacks within India are increasing. Governments in Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Algeria and Jordan are under increasing Islamist pressure. In the Pacific, North Korea now feels free to rattle its missile sabers, firing seven on America's Independence Day. China is rapidly building its 600-ship navy to fill the military vacuum that we are creating in the Pacific as our fleet shrinks well below critical mass. [*****] [all true] Not one of these states believes that we can undertake any credible additional military operations while we are bogged down in Iraq.
The indoctrination and recruiting of jihadists from Indonesia, South Asia and the Middle East are carried out through religious establishments that are supported overwhelmingly by the Saudi and Iranian governments. [*******]Even in the United States, some 80 percent of Islamic mosques and schools are closely aligned with the Wahhabist sect and heavily dependent on Saudi funding. Five years after Sept. 11, nothing has been done to materially affect this root source of jihadism. The movement continues to grow, fueled by an ever-increasing flow of petrodollars from the Persian Gulf.
There is no evidence that the administration has ever raised this matter with the Saudi government as a high-level issue, and -- just as damaging -- it has never acknowledged it as an issue to the American people. [*******]Thus Rumsfeld's question -- are we killing, capturing or deterring jihadists faster than they are being produced? -- must be answered with an emphatic no.
In reviewing progress on the three fronts of this war, even the most sanguine optimist cannot yet conclude that we are winning or that we can win without some significant changes of policy.
The writer was secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration and later served as a member of the Sept. 11 commission. This is a condensed version of an article that appears in the September issue of the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:51 AM | Permalink

The High Price of Friendship

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31weitsman.html
August 31, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The High Price of Friendship
By PATRICIA WEITSMAN
Athens, Ohio [oped] [multilateralism in USFP] [*********]
ACCORDING to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States has engaged in more multinational operations since the end of the cold war than it did in the preceding 90 years. Relying on one’s partners to fight wars makes sense. After all, it is better to fight with your friends at your side than alone, right? [********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31weitsman.html
August 31, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The High Price of Friendship
By PATRICIA WEITSMAN
Athens, Ohio [oped] [multilateralism in USFP] [*********]
ACCORDING to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States has engaged in more multinational operations since the end of the cold war than it did in the preceding 90 years. Relying on one’s partners to fight wars makes sense. After all, it is better to fight with your friends at your side than alone, right? [********]
Wrong.
When waged for the wrong reasons, coalition warfare is more costly and less effective than fighting alone. [******] Coalition warfare requires a high degree of joint planning, consultation and cooperation. The presumption is that this loss of autonomy is more than compensated by having coalition partners provide additional troops on the ground and share the burden of fighting. [*******]
Are these in fact the reasons the United States has been using coalition warfare to prosecute wars in the contemporary era? Not exactly. Rather, the United States has used its partners to garner legitimacy for its foreign policy objectives. [********]
This partnership has come at a price. At President Bush’s request, in May 2005 Congress created a $200 million Coalition Solidarity Fund that supports coalition partners in Afghanistan and Iraq. [*****] For example, Estonia received $2.5 million in Coalition Solidarity Fund money to support its troops — about 40 in Iraq and 80 in Afghanistan. Albania, with its 120 or so troops in Iraq and 35 or so in Afghanistan, received $6 million, as did the Czech Republic, which has roughly 100 troops in Iraq and 60 in Afghanistan. (The Czechs are expected to withdraw their troops from Iraq by the end of the year while sending approximately 100 new troops to Afghanistan.)
Last year, the United States paid to airlift Poland’s 2,400 troops to Iraq, built their camps and provided equipment. Poland also received $57 million in solidarity funds, although this has not stopped it from drawing down its troops in Iraq. [******] (While Poland recently added 50 troops to its force of 100 in Afghanistan, it may completely withdraw its military from Iraq in 2007.) Mongolia’s contribution of roughly 180 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan earned the country its first presidential visit and a possible free trade agreement.
In addition to the roughly 130,000 American and 7,500 British forces, there are approximately 12,000 coalition troops in Iraq now. We should be grateful to countries that have agreed to sacrifice their soldiers’ lives in pursuit of the administration’s foreign policy objectives in Iraq. But aren’t we paying a high price for the right to call the war multinational? (Should we even be in the position of paying countries to be our partners?)
It’s not as if our investment is yielding great returns. In Iraq, our coalition has neither increased the likelihood of victory nor reduced costs. [*********]
What’s more, the resources devoted to our coalition have done little to help the United States gain legitimacy. According to a recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, few people worldwide believe that the United States pays attention to the interests of others when making policy decisions. In the international community, the perception of America as unilateralist is pervasive. [**********]
Once the United States — and its remaining coalition partners — emerge from Iraq, we would do well to re-examine our growing reliance on coalition warfare and develop benchmarks to help us determine whether building a coalition makes sense.
While we cannot legislate the circumstances under which coalition warfare should be used, Congress must find a way to keep a more watchful eye on coalition size and side payments to our partners. For states whose participation is largely symbolic — those with troop deployments of less than one percent of the total war effort — subsidies should be limited.
Yes, wartime situations are fluid and troop deployments are not the sum total of partners’ contributions. But a new standard shouldn’t be hard to discern: the United States should use coalition warfare when it reduces the costs of prosecuting war, not when it greatly increases them. If a coalition is to serve any function other than augmenting one’s war-fighting capacity, we should think twice before forming it.
Patricia Weitsman, a professor of political science at Ohio University, is the author of “Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:50 AM | Permalink

Stars in Their Eyes

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31thu1.html
August 31, 2006
Editorial
Stars in Their Eyes
[editorial] [recent announcments about missile defense] [still considerable technical problems to overcome despite the air force general in charge and his optimistic assessments] [rummy less optimistic] [************]
In a rare moment of candor this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that he’s not sure if the United States missile defense system is ready to work. [******] When asked if the shield could protect the United States from a North Korean missile attack, Mr. Rumsfeld said he’d need to see a full test of the system “end to end” before he could answer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31thu1.html
August 31, 2006
Editorial
Stars in Their Eyes
[editorial] [recent announcments about missile defense] [still considerable technical problems to overcome despite the air force general in charge and his optimistic assessments] [rummy less optimistic] [************]
In a rare moment of candor this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that he’s not sure if the United States missile defense system is ready to work. [******] When asked if the shield could protect the United States from a North Korean missile attack, Mr. Rumsfeld said he’d need to see a full test of the system “end to end” before he could answer.
Mr. Rumsfeld, we suspect, may have been trying to lower expectations as the Pentagon prepares for its first significant test of the troubled system in 18 months. [*******]But his comments should invite a serious discussion on Capitol Hill about what the country is getting for the nearly $9 billion it is spending this year to develop ballistic missile defenses and the $9 billion it is likely to spend next year. [*********]
The once highly public debate over missile defense has gone quiet since President Bush pulled out of the ABM treaty and — as missile defense hawks like to point out — the Russians did not counter with a new arms race. [*********]
But talk to Russian and Chinese officials about why they are so relaxed and they will tell you that they don’t believe the technology is anywhere close to working. (As it turns out, the Pentagon is right when it says each failed interception is a learning experience.) [*******]
Just in case, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, told Mr. Rumsfeld when they met this week that he’d like more “transparency” about the program, [******] a fine idea for all.
Mr. Rumsfeld got his job in good part by raising alarms about the ballistic missile threat. The 1998 bipartisan commission he headed warned that Iran and North Korea could deploy missiles capable of hitting the United States within five years. [*********]
Eight years later, there is no question that both countries are eager to belatedly live up to that prediction. The issue is how fast they’re getting there and whether the Pentagon’s rush to put interceptors into the ground, rather than spend more time at the drawing board, makes sense. North Korea’s most recent test of a long-range missile was, thankfully, a total fizzle.
Stopping a ballistic missile in midflight is a very hard thing to do. So is switching technologies or killing off a bad system when you’ve already sunk billions into hardware. What’s needed here is an honest assessment of whether the current system has any chance of working and how much more will have to be spent before it does. [*****]
As the Pentagon prepared to launch a target missile from Alaska and an interceptor from California this week, defense contractors and Pentagon officials were insisting that the goal was not to shoot anything down, just to make sure the “kill vehicle” could find what it was looking for. [*******]No matter how that turns out, we’re hoping that Mr. Rumsfeld’s sudden candor about the program starts to catch on.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:49 AM | Permalink

Venezuelan Seeks Another Anti-U.S. Ally in Syria

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31chavez.html
August 31, 2006
Venezuelan Seeks Another Anti-U.S. Ally in Syria
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Venezuela] [chavez] [another poke in the eye for the bush administration] [surely he has more pressing things to do for his country?] [yet he always finds time to needle the bushies] [************]
DAMASCUS, Syria, Aug. 30 — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela received a hero’s welcome on Wednesday in Syria, where he said the two countries would “build a new world” free of domination by the United States and vowed to “dig the grave of U.S. imperialism.” [***********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31chavez.html
August 31, 2006
Venezuelan Seeks Another Anti-U.S. Ally in Syria
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Venezuela] [chavez] [another poke in the eye for the bush administration] [surely he has more pressing things to do for his country?] [yet he always finds time to needle the bushies] [************]
DAMASCUS, Syria, Aug. 30 — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela received a hero’s welcome on Wednesday in Syria, where he said the two countries would “build a new world” free of domination by the United States and vowed to “dig the grave of U.S. imperialism.” [***********]
Thousands of Syrians waved banners and Venezuelan flags along Mr. Chávez’s route to a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.
His visit was the latest in a series of international stops where he has emphasized his opposition to Washington’s global influence and advanced what he calls a multipolar vision of world affairs. His trips also coincide with Venezuela’s push to win a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council despite opposition from the United States. [******]
Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, is consistently among the top sources of imported oil to the United States. But Mr. Chávez has cultivated close ties with Iran, Syria and Cuba, [********] while his relations with the Bush administration have grown more tense.
On Wednesday he against emphasized the role that cooperation between Venezuela and Syria, which is under increasing pressure from the Bush administration, could play in curbing ambitions by the United States.
“No matter how strong the American empire becomes and no matter how much force it uses, it will be defeated,” he said. “We and Syria as well as other countries will be an army of tigers, struggling and strong.” [*********]
Speaking at the airport shortly after Mr. Chávez arrived, President Assad said the two countries shared a common stand, “rejection of international hegemony,” Syria’s official news agency said.
Mr. Assad expressed support for Venezuela’s bid to obtain the Security Council seat. The United States is supporting Guatemala. [*********]
Mr. Chávez also called for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanon and demanded the lifting of the Israeli blockade against Lebanon. [*******]
The Venezuelan leader has compared Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon to the Holocaust, [*****] and earlier this month withdrew his country’s top diplomat from Israel to protest those attacks and Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians.
Mr. Chávez and Mr. Assad met for two and a half hours at the presidential palace in Damascus. With the two leaders looking on, delegates from the two countries signed 13 political and economic agreements. Mr. Chávez also said Venezuela was willing to help construct an oil refinery that Syria is considering, with a capacity of 200,000 barrels a day.
An audience of students and dignitaries applauded Mr. Chávez’s 10-minute speech after he received an honorary doctorate in international relations. [*******]
Asked about the visit to Syria, a spokesman for the United States State Department, Tom Casey, said Mr. Chávez should remind Damascus about preventing Hezbollah from receiving weapons.
“We think what’s important for anyone having discussions with the Syrian government to do, is to emphasize the need for Syria to meet its international obligations,” he said.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:48 AM | Permalink

War Exhibit Further Strains German-Polish Relations

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/europe/31berlin.html
August 31, 2006
Berlin Journal
War Exhibit Further Strains German-Polish Relations
By MARK LANDLER [german-polish relations] [since late 1930s they have been, understandably bad; now getting worse] [********] [the N in TNT] [*******]
BERLIN, Aug. 30 — To say there is baggage in the German-Polish relationship does not begin to account for the scars left by the war, bloodshed, persecution and humiliation of the last century — a stream of abuse that Germans acknowledge has flowed mainly from west to east. So it is perhaps no surprise that a new exhibit here, devoted to the suffering of more than 12 million Germans expelled from Poland and other countries at the end of World War II, has touched a raw nerve with Poles, [*******] straining a relationship that had already fallen into disrepair.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/europe/31berlin.html
August 31, 2006
Berlin Journal
War Exhibit Further Strains German-Polish Relations
By MARK LANDLER [german-polish relations] [since late 1930s they have been, understandably bad; now getting worse] [********] [the N in TNT] [*******]
BERLIN, Aug. 30 — To say there is baggage in the German-Polish relationship does not begin to account for the scars left by the war, bloodshed, persecution and humiliation of the last century — a stream of abuse that Germans acknowledge has flowed mainly from west to east. So it is perhaps no surprise that a new exhibit here, devoted to the suffering of more than 12 million Germans expelled from Poland and other countries at the end of World War II, has touched a raw nerve with Poles, [*******] straining a relationship that had already fallen into disrepair.
“Nothing good will come out of it for Poland, Germany or Europe,” said the Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who marked the exhibit’s opening this month by visiting the site of a Nazi concentration camp in Poland.
True, he said, ethnic Germans who were driven from their homes in Eastern Europe endured great hardship. But it is important to remember “who was the perpetrator and who was the victim,” [*******]he added.
Such talk has been common during this summer of suspicion. From a dispute last month over a satirical article in a German newspaper about Mr. Kaczynski and his twin brother, [*******] Lech, who is Poland’s president, to a spat last week over German naval maneuvers that encroached on Polish waters, [******]Poland and Germany cannot seem to avoid antagonizing each other.
“Ordinary Poles feel more resentful and suspicious toward Germany,” Marek Ostrowski, an editor at the weekly magazine Polityka, said. “The Polish government has put this issue high in people’s minds.” [******]
German officials say they have tried to take the high road, but privately they express deep frustration with Warsaw, which they contend is exploiting anti-German sentiment to fuel a new wave of Polish nationalism. [*********]
While there are a few genuine conflicts between these neighbors — Poland was outraged by Germany’s deal with Russia to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland — the friction between Berlin and Warsaw is mostly about how to treat their painful shared past. [***********]
In Germany, many people defend the exhibit as part of an overdue effort to honor the wartime suffering of their grandparents. In Poland, however, some see a shift in the German national conscience, away from an acceptance of unqualified culpability for the evils of that time.
The privately financed exhibit, called “Forced Paths,” does not seem intended as a provocation. Its organizers say it is designed to offer an overview of the phenomenon of expulsion in 20th-century Europe.
In addition to focusing on dispossessed Germans, it documents the plight of Poles and Jews deported by the Nazis, Armenians slaughtered by Ottoman Turks, Greeks and Turks displaced by the conflict in Cyprus, and Muslims and Croats persecuted by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. [************]
Critics in Poland contend that this equal-opportunity approach suggests a moral equivalence between the methodical persecution undertaken by the Nazis and the woes of Germans in a war they started.
In such a toxic atmosphere, what could have been a civilized debate has degenerated into a tiff. The mayor of Warsaw, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a former prime minister, canceled an unrelated visit to Berlin, saying his presence would have been misconstrued and exploited. [*****]
Polish institutions that lent artifacts to the exhibit demanded them back, under pressure from their government. The most prominent is a bell recovered from the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German liner that sank in the Baltic Sea in January 1945 after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine.
At least 9,000 people, most of them German refugees, were killed in what ranks as the deadliest maritime disaster in history. [********]Günter Grass, the Nobel laureate, memorialized the tragedy in his 2003 novel “Crabwalk.” The bell, which has not been returned, had sat in a Polish seafood restaurant until it was lent to the exhibit.
A Warsaw museum asked for and obtained the return of a book taken from a Polish family by a German soldier, and an identification card issued to a child by the Polish authorities.
“It frightens me that in a modern European Union country, independent cultural institutions can be intimidated in this way by their government,” Wilfried Rogasch, the curator of the exhibit, said.
Mr. Rogasch and his colleagues said that after some initial resistance, they had received good cooperation from Polish institutions while they were researching the exhibit. They said they took suggestions from the Poles on how to bolster the Polish section of the exhibit.
“We’ve reached out to Poland with both hands,” said Erika Steinbach, the leader of the Federation of Expellees, a group that lobbies for Germans forced out of Eastern European territories and that sponsored the exhibit. “That’s why I don’t understand the Polish reaction.”
The involvement of Ms. Steinbach, however, is a major part of the problem. Her ultimate goal is to establish a permanent research center in Berlin devoted to victims of expulsion. Many Poles fiercely oppose the idea because they fear it would further muddy the issue of responsibility.
The German government has said it is open to Ms. Steinbach’s proposal. She has a seat in Parliament and belongs to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Mrs. Merkel has brushed aside Polish criticism of the exhibit, saying, “Germany is aware of its historical responsibility.” [**********]
Domestic politics play at least as big a role in Poland’s sulfurous reaction. The Kaczynski brothers, analysts say, are exploiting antipathy toward Germany to shore up their still shaky government.
When the German paper Die Tageszeitung published a column lampooning the twins as “young Polish potatoes,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski demanded that Berlin crack down on it. Lech Kaczynski then skipped a summit meeting with Mrs. Merkel and the president of France, Jacques Chirac. [*********]
With local elections this fall, “it will be relatively easy for them to play this anti-German card,” Mr. Ostrowski, the editor from Polityka, said. “They will say they were not personally offended, but that the Polish people were offended.”
Amid the chill, there were a few signs of a thaw. Poland sent the speaker of its Parliament to meet his German counterpart this week. Polish leaders also resisted a tempting target: the recent disclosure by Mr. Grass that as a young man he had joined the military branch of the SS. [*********]
“They have been silent about this,” said Adam Krzeminski, a columnist for Polityka. “That already means something.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Israeli Raid Kills 9 in Gaza; Tunnel Is Found

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31gaza.html
August 31, 2006
Israeli Raid Kills 9 in Gaza; Tunnel Is Found
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Israel’s perspectives] [meanwhile, the other front, the Palestinian one] [in Gaza] [another tunnel and more violence] [********]
JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 — A continuing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip killed nine people on Wednesday, [*******]including four civilians, one of them a 14-year-old who had gathered with his friends to watch the fighting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31gaza.html
August 31, 2006
Israeli Raid Kills 9 in Gaza; Tunnel Is Found
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Israel’s perspectives] [meanwhile, the other front, the Palestinian one] [in Gaza] [another tunnel and more violence] [********]
JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 — A continuing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip killed nine people on Wednesday, [*******]including four civilians, one of them a 14-year-old who had gathered with his friends to watch the fighting.
Since early Sunday, the Israelis have been looking for smuggling tunnels and explosives in northern Gaza City. Palestinian officials said 19 people had been killed in airstrikes and fighting, [******]most of them militants.
On Wednesday, the Israelis announced that they had discovered a large tunnel stretching about 150 yards from a house toward the Karni cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel. The crossing has been closed by the Israelis much of the time in recent months because of security alerts — since Aug. 16 in the latest round. [*****] When the crossing is shut, it is very difficult to move goods into or out of Gaza.
The tunnel began in a building about half a mile from the border fence, apparently so the digging would not be visible. In a statement, the Israeli Army said, “The tunnel was intended to be used for a large-scale terror attack, apparently against the crossing itself.” [*******]
On June 25, Palestinian militants used a long tunnel near Rafah to enter Israel, kill two Israeli soldiers and capture another, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who remains in captivity. Three days later, Israeli forces entered Gaza for the first time since withdrawing last August and have been fighting there since then, to try to gain the release of Corporal Shalit, throughout the 34-day second-front war in Lebanon. [front one before the 2-front war began] [************]
The United States has proposed strengthening security at Karni by placing 90 international monitors on the Palestinian side and constructing better facilities there. Israel says it will consider the proposal only after Corporal Shalit is freed.
The American proposal would expand Karni, a lifeline for Gaza and the main point of entry or exit for goods, and the foreign monitors, probably European like those at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, would oversee the work of the Palestinians. An American official said that contrary to early reports, no American monitors would be involved.
In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, called on Palestinian militants, as he has before, to stop firing rockets into Israel. Mr. Abbas said that too many Palestinians were dying in Gaza, as Israel responded to the attacks. “What is happening in Gaza as a result of rockets fired in vain must stop right now because there is no interest in this continuing,” he said. [interestingly, a couple of days ago the PM (Hamas leader) said same thing] [********]
Mr. Abbas, of Fatah, was speaking to nearly 3,000 Palestinian civil servants protesting the failure of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority to pay their salaries, while a smaller, similar rally took place in Gaza City, with 200 children of civil servants protesting outside the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of Hamas. On Tuesday, 300 unemployed Palestinian workers surrounded the parliament building and scuffled with the police.
Mr. Abbas is scheduled to go to Gaza City on Thursday for more conversations with Mr. Haniya about the formation of a national-unity government that might persuade Israel and Western nations to lift their freeze on aid money that helps support the Palestinian Authority. The freeze was imposed soon after Hamas won Palestinian elections in January. Hamas has rejected demands that it recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Mr. Abbas met Wednesday with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan. At a joint news conference, Mr. Annan said, “The suffering of the Palestinian people must not be forgotten as we strive to bring peace to the people of Lebanon.” He added: “Over 200 Palestinians have been killed since the end of June. This must end immediately. [******]
“I have made my feelings known in talks with Israeli officials,” he said. “Beyond preserving life, we have to sustain life. The closure of Gaza must be lifted, the crossing points must be opened, not just to allow goods in but to allow Palestinian exports out as well.”
Mr. Annan said he had also spoken to Mr. Abbas about the continuing efforts to secure the release of Corporal Shalit, the need to end Palestinian attacks on Israel, and the long-running issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Yuval Diskin, the chief of Israel’s Shin Bet [******]security agency, said in testimony before Parliament on Wednesday that Palestinian militants were smuggling large amounts of weapons, including rockets, through as many as 20 tunnels dug under the Gaza-Egypt border.
The border is supposed to be controlled by Egypt and the Palestinians, with Europeans monitoring the formal crossing terminal at Rafah. But the Europeans are not responsible for patrolling the border itself.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:47 AM | Permalink

Lebanon Offers Aid for Rebuilding

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002933.html
Lebanon Offers Aid for Rebuilding
Premier's Plan Comes on Eve of International Donor Conference
By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A18 [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Lebanon’s perspectives] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Europeans have steped up with the “backbone” of the ceaefire forces] [it is both a source of Euro pride—they are seen as great powers—and concern—they worry (justifiably) that another Lebanon 1983 situation where they are in lose-lose situation] [********]
BEIRUT, Aug. 30 -- Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Wednesday unveiled a $33,000 compensation package for Lebanese whose homes were destroyed in the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. [********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002933.html
Lebanon Offers Aid for Rebuilding
Premier's Plan Comes on Eve of International Donor Conference
By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A18 [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Lebanon’s perspectives] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Europeans have steped up with the “backbone” of the ceaefire forces] [it is both a source of Euro pride—they are seen as great powers—and concern—they worry (justifiably) that another Lebanon 1983 situation where they are in lose-lose situation] [********]
BEIRUT, Aug. 30 -- Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Wednesday unveiled a $33,000 compensation package for Lebanese whose homes were destroyed in the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. [********]
The announcement came on the eve of a donor conference in Stockholm aimed at raising $500 million to jump-start Lebanon's recovery. Siniora said the money would be used to rebuild roads and vital infrastructure damaged in southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of Beirut during the 33-day conflict.
Siniora said he would ask countries represented at the conference to sponsor the rebuilding of villages hardest hit by Israel's military action, which followed Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12. The small, oil-rich state of Qatar, for example, already has pledged to rebuild the southern town of Bint Jbeil, where entire neighborhoods were destroyed in intense shelling, bombing and rocket attacks.
The European Commission said Wednesday that it would add about $53 million to its pledge of $64 million for emergency relief and to assist Lebanese businesses. Kuwait has pledged $800 million, Saudi Arabia $500 million and the Bush administration has promised to earmark $230 million in aid to Lebanon. [*******]
The Lebanese government's compensation plan comes amid domestic and regional criticism for what some say has been a slow response to the needs of the people, and three days after Hezbollah's leader, Hasan Nasrallah, suggested that the government was not meeting the expectations of the Shiite Muslim community. [*****]
Days after a Aug. 14 cease-fire took effect between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shiite militia began giving $12,000 in cash to Lebanese who had lost their homes. The assistance raised concerns in Lebanon and abroad that an already indebted government would not be able to match Hezbollah's largess. [********]
Analysts have warned that the public's frustration with the government's lagging efforts, when compared with Hezbollah's swift delivery of stacks of U.S. $100 bills, could lead to instability.
In Bint Jbeil, huge yellow signs in the name of the municipality thanking the emir of Qatar compete with yellow Hezbollah banners taped to slabs of wrecked buildings.
One Hezbollah sign reads: "Your Democracy, USA," an apparent reference to the destruction caused by U.S.-supplied Israeli weaponry. "You destroyed the bridges. We crossed through people's hearts," reads another yellow banner, taped across the debris of collapsed bridges and overpasses knocked down by the Israeli bombing.
Hani Hammoud, an adviser to parliament member Saad Hariri, said that Hezbollah had informed government officials that it could not afford to finance a comprehensive rebuilding effort, as initially promised. Hariri is also the son of a former prime minister who was assassinated last year.
"The government is simply doing its duty," Hammoud said. "It is not the fault of ordinary citizens if an armed group did something foolish, and it is not their fault if someone promised money that is not going to come."
"What is needed is far more than what they expected, and they simply don't have it," he added.
Last weekend, Nasrallah said that if the government compensated those whose homes were damaged or destroyed, he would pay them whatever else was needed for reconstruction. [********]
The governor of Lebanon's Central Bank, Riad Salameh, said 10 days ago that the banknotes Hezbollah was distributing had not gone through the Lebanese banking system and that they must have been transported across the border by land. "This is a customs problem, not a Central Bank issue," he said at the time.
Lebanese officials have vowed that border controls would be tightened. Siniora told a group of foreign journalists Tuesday that the government had deployed 8,600 soldiers along its eastern border.
Four days ago, a truck was seized in Janta, just west of the Syrian border in the western Bekaa region, security officials said. The truck was loaded with more than 1 1/2 tons of explosives, and its target was unknown.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Israel Says Blockade of Lebanon Will Continue

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31nations.html
August 31, 2006
Israel Says Blockade of Lebanon Will Continue
By WARREN HOGE [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Israel’s perspectives] [Kofi Annan has asked Israel to stop blockading the harbors and so forth] [Israel says it can’t until a force that can keep Hezbollah from rearming is in place] [********]
AMMAN, Jordan, Aug. 30 — Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, rebuffed a request on Wednesday from Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations for even a partial lifting of the seven-week-old blockade of Lebanon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31nations.html
August 31, 2006
Israel Says Blockade of Lebanon Will Continue
By WARREN HOGE [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Israel’s perspectives] [Kofi Annan has asked Israel to stop blockading the harbors and so forth] [Israel says it can’t until a force that can keep Hezbollah from rearming is in place] [********]
AMMAN, Jordan, Aug. 30 — Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, rebuffed a request on Wednesday from Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations for even a partial lifting of the seven-week-old blockade of Lebanon.
Mr. Annan told Mr. Olmert in a breakfast meeting at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem that while he would prefer that Israel completely lift its blockade of air, sea and land traffic into Lebanon, he wanted Mr. Olmert at least to allow Beirut’s airport to resume normal operations. [******]
But Mr. Olmert rejected that idea. In doing so, he referred to Mr. Annan’s previous insistence that all parties to the United Nations-brokered cease-fire on Aug. 14 abide by all of its provisions. [*********]
Speaking at a joint news conference, Mr. Olmert recycled for his own purposes the same metaphor Mr. Annan had used moments before to say the cease-fire resolution was not a smorgasbord.
“As far as we are concerned,” Mr. Olmert said, “we entirely accept that it is a fixed menu and that everything will be implemented, including the lifting of the blockade, as part of the entire implementation.” [**********]
Therefore, he said, Israel cannot lift the blockade, imposed to prevent the smuggling of arms to Hezbollah, on one part of Lebanon and not on others.
Mr. Annan argued that reopening the airport carried particular importance “not only because of the economic effect it is having on the country, but it is also important to strengthen the democratic government of Lebanon, with which Israel has repeatedly said it has no problems.” [*********]
On arrival in Amman on Wednesday night, Mr. Annan said through a spokesman that he was not discouraged by Mr. Olmert’s rebuff. “The secretary general remains optimistic that the Israeli authorities will reconsider his appeal for the lifting of at least the airport blockade as a first step,” [*****]said the spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi.
Mr. Olmert’s domestic popularity has suffered from widespread dissatisfaction with his handling of the war, which failed to achieve the broad goal he set at its outset: dismantling or at least disarming Hezbollah.
Mr. Olmert reiterated his call for the United Nations force to be posted not just in southern Lebanon but also along the border with Syria, a deployment that the United Nations resolution makes dependent on a request from the Lebanese government. [******]
Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, said Monday that he had stationed 8,600 soldiers along the Syrian border, but that he would not authorize foreign troops there.
Mr. Olmert also rejected a request by Mr. Annan that Israeli troops withdraw completely from southern Lebanon once the United Nations force there reaches 5,000, rather than waiting for its full planned strength of 15,000.
“Israel will pull out of Lebanon once the resolution is implemented,” Mr. Olmert said.
From Jerusalem, Mr. Annan went to Ramallah on the West Bank, where he met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Mr. Annan noted that the continuing conflict in the Palestinian areas had been overshadowed by the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. [********]
Mr. Annan’s stop in Israel and the West Bank was part of a Middle East trip that began with a two-day visit to Lebanon and continues with a meeting here on Thursday with King Abdullah II and includes talks in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad and in Tehran with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel. [***********]
An Israeli questioner at the news conference at Mr. Olmert’s residence challenged Mr. Annan on why he was meeting with a man who had proposed the elimination of another United Nations member state. [********]
“As secretary general of the United Nations, I have no other means of influencing people except through dialogue, through persuasion and through honest discussion,” Mr. Annan said. “And if I am not allowed to see them and talk to them, how do I do this? How do I explain that Israel is a state that is a member state of the U.N. and that there should not be any incitement against Israel?” [***********]
Mr. Annan said he had told Mr. Olmert that his talks with Lebanese leaders had convinced him that they were serious about enforcing an embargo on illegal arms to Hezbollah and dedicated to seeking a lasting peace.
Mr. Olmert said: “I would like to emphasize that Israel has no conflict with the people or the government of Lebanon. I would hope that conditions would change rapidly in order to allow direct contact between the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon in order to hopefully soon reach an agreement between the two countries.” [*******]
But Mr. Siniora dashed that idea in a news conference in Beirut.
“Lebanon will be the last Arab country that could sign a peace agreement with Israel,” he said. “There will be no agreement with Israel before there is a global peace deal that is just and lasting.” [*******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:46 AM | Permalink

Israel Says Syria, Not Just Iran, Supplied Missiles to Hezbollah

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hezbollah31aug31,0,383186.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Israel Says Syria, Not Just Iran, Supplied Missiles to Hezbollah
By Peter Spiegel and Laura King
Times Staff Writers
August 31, 2006 [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Israel’s perspectives] [Israel is openly accusing Syria of aiding the Hezbollah by sending them rockets and other war materiels] [previously, Syria has only be identified as trans-shipment gateway from Iran’s stockpiles] [thus this is an escalation of rhetoric] [clearly there is a reason behind it but as of now it’s not clear what the reason might be] [******]
WASHINGTON — New postwar intelligence indicates that the militant group Hezbollah had broader access to sophisticated weaponry than was publicly known — including large numbers of medium-range rockets made in Syria, [*****]said U.S. and Israeli government officials and military analysts.

The size of the Hezbollah arsenal and the direct role of Syria in supplying it will complicate the daunting task of keeping Hezbollah from rearming, [****]the officials said.

Before the war, Hezbollah's access to weapons supplied by Iran and shipped through other countries was well documented. So was Syria's political support for Hezbollah and its role in allowing shipments of arms into Lebanon from Iran. But Washington thought Syria for the most part was not supplying munitions directly. [******]

The new weapons data indicating a broader Syrian role were gathered by Israel largely by examining debris left by shells that hit the country during the conflict. The examination uncovered the serial numbers and other defining characteristics of the weapons. [******] Israel's postwar forensics have shown some of the rockets were manufactured by the Syrian munitions industry, [*******]military sources said.

Hezbollah fired between 3,700 and 3,800 rockets at Israel during the 34 days of fighting. [****]The rockets, which landed across northern Israel and killed 43 civilians, were the most sustained attack on Israeli towns and cities since the war that greeted the country's founding in 1948, and highlighted a significant vulnerability for the Jewish state.

The disclosures about Syria's role in supplying Hezbollah dovetail with postwar diplomatic strategies. [********]

Israel, backed by the Bush administration, would like to see international peacekeepers deployed along the Syria-Lebanon border — a step it says is needed to prevent arms shipments to Hezbollah. Lebanon, backed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has resisted that idea, as have the Syrians. [********]

Syrian officials would not confirm or deny the reports.

"These are just accusations," said a spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in Washington, who requested anonymity because only the ambassador was allowed to discuss official Syrian policy. "If they have evidence, they should make it clear."

U.S. and European plans for stabilizing Lebanon rest heavily on preventing Hezbollah from rearming. Although a U.N. peacekeeping force still being formed will not be asked to disarm the militia, it will try to prevent flows of new arms to militants. [which is wishful thinking to be frank] [********]

Israel asserts that in the weeks since the cease-fire, Iran and Syria have tried to resupply Hezbollah, primarily via Syria's long border with Lebanon. Iran is seeking to send in long-range rockets but has been hampered by Israel's sea and air embargo, Israeli officials said. Syria's attempts to send in shorter-range rockets via land routes may prove more successful because of the porousness of the frontier, the officials said.

"There's a limit to what we can do in response to this," said Miri Eisen, a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The forensic evidence from shell debris bolstered what Israeli officials said they had long known about Syria's role in helping to arm Hezbollah.

"Syria has been a direct supplier of rockets, as well as a safe haven and weapons conduit," Eisen said.

"The short- to medium-range rockets that hit Tiberias and Haifa turned out to have been directly supplied by Syria — just as we said all along," Eisen said, referring to the northern Israeli cities targeted by Hezbollah. [*******]

Analysts said Syria's role in directly arming Hezbollah marked a shift in Damascus' strategy toward Lebanon. Syria was forced to withdraw its military from Lebanon last year after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. [**********] [the valentine assassination in 2005]

"I don't believe these kinds of technologies passed to Hezbollah under the regime of Hafez al Assad," Syria's longtime leader who died in 2000, said David Schenker, a former Pentagon official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Referring to Assad's son and successor, Bashar Assad, Schenker said, "The father saw Hezbollah as a tool; Bashar sees them differently."

In addition to evidence of Syrian-made weapons, Israel also said it found evidence that Hezbollah used advanced, Russian-made Kornet antitank weapons. Israeli intelligence contends that serial numbers found on spent Kornets show they were originally supplied by Russia to Syria, although others may have come from Iran.

Russia has disputed the claims, saying it keeps tight restrictions on reshipments. [******]

The U.S. and Israel in recent weeks have pressured nations that sell weapons to Iran and Syria to tighten restrictions on their transfer to third parties, an effort aimed at curtailing Hezbollah's arsenal. China, which has substantial economic interests in the region, is considered unlikely to stop its shipments, experts said, though the lobbying may have more effect on Russia.

"The Russians are probably not pleased their Kornets got into the hands of Hezbollah," said one former administration official familiar with Russian thinking. [*******]

Even without stepped-up involvement by Syria and Iran, military experts said, the ability of United Nations and Lebanese troops to track and halt arms shipments was likely to be limited.

The U.S. has identified nine Syrian border crossings that it thinks are large enough to ship medium- and long-range rockets.

Knowing likely shipment routes may not be enough to block them, analysts said, pointing to U.S. failure to prevent arms shipments to Iraqi insurgents from Iran and Syria — or, in an earlier conflict, to the Viet Cong along the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail from Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

"The bar is set very low, but it's still a very difficult bar to reach," said a U.S. defense official, referring to U.N. interdiction goals. "That border is still very porous."

Experts said Hezbollah retained significant weaponry even after the monthlong Israeli bombardment. Israeli intelligence officials think they destroyed a large number of Hezbollah's longer-range missiles, but do not know how many remain. The number of medium-range rockets in Hezbollah's possession also is unclear.

In addition to the 3,700 to 3,800 rockets fired by Hezbollah, the Israeli military said it destroyed about 1,600. Together, that would account for fewer than half of the rockets that Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials think Hezbollah had at the start of the conflict. [*******]

Israel said it had underestimated the number of Hezbollah fighters. The military said it killed about 500 Hezbollah guerrillas, a figure that the militia has not confirmed. [*****]Some of the fighters who were killed or captured were using sophisticated equipment, including sniper rifles and night-vision goggles.

"At most, if you take the most dramatic claim we heard, they probably got about 15% of Hezbollah strength, and that includes wounded as well as killed in the forward area, which is not a decisive type of battle," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. military analyst who recently returned from meetings with Israeli military and intelligence officials.

"If anything, you now have very large numbers of very experienced combat people who have spent more than six weeks in active engagement with the [Israeli military] and have, if not won, learned enough so they will be a far more serious problem in the future."
Spiegel reported from Washington and King from Jerusalem.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:45 AM | Permalink

Violence in Iraq Kills 60 As Market, Recruits Hit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083000584.html
Violence in Iraq Kills 60 As Market, Recruits Hit
U.S. Troops, Shiite Militia Fight in Eastern Baghdad
By Amit R. Paley and Saad Sarhan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A16 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [see today’s govt where US general says –iraqi forces will be ready in a year’s time to handle job themselves] [ditto] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Aug. 31 -- The Yogurt Father hawks his gloopy snack every day in the city's biggest market. No exceptions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083000584.html
Violence in Iraq Kills 60 As Market, Recruits Hit
U.S. Troops, Shiite Militia Fight in Eastern Baghdad
By Amit R. Paley and Saad Sarhan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A16 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [see today’s govt where US general says –iraqi forces will be ready in a year’s time to handle job themselves] [ditto] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Aug. 31 -- The Yogurt Father hawks his gloopy snack every day in the city's biggest market. No exceptions.
So when an enormous bomb exploded Wednesday 20 yards away from him at Shorja market, the largest and oldest bazaar in Baghdad, and killed 27 people, including several of his friends, he spent only a half-hour tending to the wounded and clearing debris. Then he washed the blood off his hands and resumed selling yogurt.
"We are used to seeing blood and death. It's routine now," said the 50-year-old Iraqi, who is known to customers as Abu Leben -- Yogurt Father -- and to friends and family as Abu Ali -- Father of Ali, his eldest son. He stirred a big vat of curdled milk as people nearby frantically sifted through blood-soaked rubble mixed with bits of human tissue. "I helped move some bodies," he explained, "but the only thing that I care about is how to get money for my family."
He scooped out a glass of yogurt for a customer. "If I don't die today, I might die tomorrow," he said.
The bloodshed in Iraq has become so common that it barely registers for some, even on a day like Wednesday, when violence across the country killed at least 60 people despite heightened efforts by the U.S. military to clamp down on sectarian strife.
The day's first major attack occurred in the southern city of Hilla, where a bicycle rigged with explosives detonated at 8 a.m. across the street from an Iraqi army recruiting center, killing 17 recruits and wounding 39, said police Capt. Muthanna Ahmed. The bicycle exploded next to a shack that sells biscuits and soda, a hangout where dozens of recruits gather every day before they are allowed to enter the army facility.
Bloody sandals and shoes and bits of fabric littered the road. An old woman searching for her child stopped in her tracks when she apparently recognized a piece of his pajamas.
"Oh, my son, my son!" the woman wailed as she pounded her face.
The explosion sparked chaos as looters, including a number of Iraqi army recruits, ransacked cars after drivers fled in fear of further attacks, said Basim Zien of the Hilla traffic police. The police eventually shot at the looters to stop the pillaging, he said.
Police and several recruits blamed the Iraqi army for making the recruits wait outside the base to register instead of allowing them in. Hassanien Jasim, a 24-year-old recruit, said no one enlisting for the army during the rule of Saddam Hussein had to wait in the street the way recruits do now. He said he held apathetic politicians responsible for Wednesday's violence.
"Is it too much for them to take us inside so they can protect us, when though they know that the Iraqi army is targeted?" Jasim said as he lay on a stretcher in the main hospital in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, while doctors removed ball bearings from his chest. "They don't care about the people."
In Baghdad, the bomb in Shorja market detonated at about 9:45 a.m. in front of a kebab restaurant, killing 27 people and wounding 35, said Brig. Gen. Abdul Wahid Saleh of the Interior Ministry.
On the sidewalk, the blood of Hussam Abdul Kareem, 25, who was a married father of two, mixed with the peanuts and pistachios he had been selling. The henna and oil lamps sold by Um Satar, a widow responsible for 12 children, lay buried in rubble. The Yogurt Father said both were killed instantly.
"Shouldn't there be some part for the government to play in reducing these explosions?" asked Nuri Hammed, a 40-year-old teacher, after he bought a small cup of yogurt for 250 dinars, less than 20 cents. He complained that politicians promised reconciliation but didn't take effective measures to reduce violence. "This government is carrying a rose in one hand and a knife in the other hand."
Later in the day, in Baghdad's Karrada section, a bomb exploded at a gas station as a police patrol passed. "Run away from your cars! Leave the gas station!" shouted Abu Hamza, the gas station manager, as people flocked to restaurants across the street. As they did, a car parked there earlier by two men exploded, said Alaa Hussein, who owns two of the restaurants.
The explosions killed two police officers and a gas station security guard and wounded nine people, hospital officials said.
Wednesday night in Baghdad, intense clashes broke out in neighborhoods east of Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum controlled by radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Witnesses in the nearby Obaydi and Kamaliyah areas reported as many as seven loud explosions at about 9:30 p.m., followed by the sound of U.S. helicopters and fighter planes overhead. Then shooting broke out. Some streets were filled with members of the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by Sadr, residents said.
" Allahu akbar !" blared loudspeakers on mosques in some areas after the shooting began. "God is great!"
Mohammed al-Askari, an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, said Iraqi and U.S.-led forces carried out a raid in those neighborhoods and were shot at, but he would not provide any other details.
Early Thursday morning, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad also confirmed a significant operation in the area but would not elaborate.
A U.S. military official said the operation involved American forces and gunmen believed to be members of the Mahdi Army. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In Najaf, police Lt. Muayed Shuker said a rocket fired from a neighborhood dominated by Sadr loyalists struck a nearby U.S. military base. A U.S. military spokesman said he had no information about such an incident.
The U.S. military also said Wednesday that a Marine assigned to the 1st Brigade of the Army's 1st Armored Division died Tuesday in Anbar province, a volatile stronghold for Sunni insurgents.
Despite the violence, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said he hoped Iraqi forces could take control of security in the country as early as next year without substantial help from the U.S. military.
"I don't have a date," Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said in Baghdad. "But I can see -- over the next 12 to 18 months -- I can see the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country with very little coalition support." [see today’s govt for full story] [**********]
Sarhan reported from Hilla. Special correspondents K.I. Ibrahim and Naseer Nouri and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:45 AM | Permalink

Violence Grows, Killing 52 Iraqis, in Face of Security Plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html
August 31, 2006
Violence Grows, Killing 52 Iraqis, in Face of Security Plan
By DAMIEN CAVE [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [see today’s govt where US general says –iraqi forces will be ready in a year’s time to handle job themselves] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 30 — Shootings and hidden bombs at a market, a gas station and an army recruiting center killed at least 52 Iraqis on Wednesday, continuing a wave of sectarian violence that has defied stepped-up efforts to halt its spread. [*****]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html
August 31, 2006
Violence Grows, Killing 52 Iraqis, in Face of Security Plan
By DAMIEN CAVE [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [see today’s govt where US general says –iraqi forces will be ready in a year’s time to handle job themselves] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 30 — Shootings and hidden bombs at a market, a gas station and an army recruiting center killed at least 52 Iraqis on Wednesday, continuing a wave of sectarian violence that has defied stepped-up efforts to halt its spread. [*****]
In the deadliest attack, a bomb inside a vendor’s cart exploded just after 10 a.m. in the Shorja market, Baghdad’s oldest and largest bazaar, killing at least 24 civilians and wounding 35, Interior Ministry officials said.
Earlier, just south of the capital, in Hilla, a bicycle rigged with explosives blew up near an army recruiting center, killing at least 12 people, the authorities said. A car bomb near a gas station in Baghdad also killed two civilians and wounded 21 people, including five policemen, who had rushed to the scene in response to a blast a few minutes earlier.
Gunmen in Baghdad killed a senior Justice Ministry official, Nadiya Muhammad Hasan, her driver and a guard. The motive was unclear, but senior officials have frequently been targets of killings in recent months. [*****]
The authorities also found 13 other bodies in various locations in the city. With at least 11 additional civilians killed throughout the country, the tally of Iraqis killed or found dead on Wednesday reached 65, according to Iraqi officials.
The rash of attacks — reflecting a spike in violence that has claimed roughly 200 lives since Sunday — came despite a new security plan for the capital, on a day when the top United States general, George W. Casey Jr., in Iraq said Iraqi forces could take over security as early as next year.
“I don’t have a date,” General Casey said in Baghdad. “But I can see — over the next 12 to 18 months — I can see the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country, with very little coalition support.” [see today’s govt for full story] [**********]
Three years into the war, American and Iraqi officials have grown increasingly eager to show progress. In recent weeks, they have repeatedly trumpeted evidence of a decline in killings this month after increases in June and July.
Yet the bloodshed of the past few days suggests that the gains might be temporary. [*******]
Americans have not been spared. The United States military said Wednesday that a marine from the First Armored Division was killed in action on Tuesday in Anbar Province.
Military officials also said two American soldiers were killed in an attack on a Stryker vehicle on Sunday in western Baghdad, not four as it had reported earlier. The total number of American service members killed that day remained at nine, though.
This month, 60 American service members have been killed in Iraq, up from 43 in July and nearly even with the 61 killed in June, according to Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military fatalities. In all, more than 2,600 American men and women in uniform have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war, according to the Department of Defense.
The toll for Iraqis is far higher, with an average of more than 100 killed a day in June and July by spreading sectarian violence, according to Iraqi government figures.
Statistics for August have not been released, but the attack at the Shorja market was just the latest attack in a crowded area that seemed aimed at killing as many civilians as possible.
The explosion destroyed scores of makeshift stalls, sent smoke towering over buildings and spread body parts through the streets.
Ali Jasim, 47, a yogurt vendor at the market, said that he narrowly missed being killed and that two brothers of a restaurant owner and four cardamom vendors were among those killed. “One of the women’s sons was getting married tomorrow,” he said.
A few hours after the explosion, piles of debris had been swept to the curb. A funeral procession flowed through the street, carrying one of the victims of the bombing.
Some of the mourners and bystanders blamed the United States, echoing a belief among some groups of Iraqis that the American government initiates the violence to justify its occupation. Others, like Raheem Kadem, 44, a high school gym teacher from Sadr City, a Shiite neighborhood, blamed Iraqi officials.
“Where is government?” he asked. “Why have the politicians left the people to face their destiny while the government hides behind the walls of the heavily protected Green Zone?”
“Things are getting worse,” he said.
Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim, met with the governor of Diwaniya and other local leaders in an effort to shore up support for the government after his troops clashed for 14 hours on Monday with Shiite militias.
He announced that there would be a ban on weapons, though he offered no plan for enforcing it, and said that when rival Shiite factions had disputes with forces in the area, they should ask him to intervene.
The battle was one of the worst internal conflicts in recent memory, pitting Iraqi troops against members of the Mahdi Army, loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and other militias. [**********]
The Iraqi police and army officials said Wednesday that the death toll from that battle had increased, to 23 soldiers and 13 civilians.
General Casey said Iraqi forces “gave much better than they got,” but his assessment could not be verified. He said the clash was not a setback for the army and the government did not intend to back down. [*******]
“The battle may be over,” he said. “But the campaign to clean that city up and to restore it to Iraqi government control isn’t finished.”
Khalid al-Ansary and Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:44 AM | Permalink

Iran: Writer Freed

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31briefs-001.html
August 31, 2006
World Briefing | Middle East
Iran: Writer Freed
By NAZILA FATHI [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [meanwhile, an Iranian scholar who was jailed earlier this year and who had Canadian citizenship has now been released after some 4 months] [qui bono?] [who pulled the strings on this?] [**************]
Ramin Jahanbegloo, one of Iran’s best-known scholars, was released after four months in prison on suspicion of working with the United States to overthrow the Iranian government, local news media reported. [*******]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/31briefs-001.html
August 31, 2006
World Briefing | Middle East
Iran: Writer Freed
By NAZILA FATHI [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [meanwhile, an Iranian scholar who was jailed earlier this year and who had Canadian citizenship has now been released after some 4 months] [qui bono?] [who pulled the strings on this?] [**************]
Ramin Jahanbegloo, one of Iran’s best-known scholars, was released after four months in prison on suspicion of working with the United States to overthrow the Iranian government, local news media reported. [*******]
Dr. Jahanbegloo also holds Canadian citizenship, and the Canadian government, along with human rights groups and scholars, had called for his release. [******]
He had been held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, in solitary confinement in Section 209, an area controlled by the Ministry of Information, [*****] people familiar with his case say.
He has written more than 20 books in English, French and Persian, including “Conversations With Isaiah Berlin,’’ the Oxford philosopher and pluralist.
He has also lectured on the prospects for democracy in Iran. [*******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:43 AM | Permalink

U.S. Drafting Sanctions as Iran Is Defiant

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/01irancnd.html
August 31, 2006
U.S. Drafting Sanctions as Iran Is Defiant
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [**************] [also see placeholder in today’s govt] [ditto]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 — With Iran defying today’s deadline to halt production of nuclear fuel, the United States and three European allies are assembling a list of sanctions they would seek in the United Nations Security Council, beginning with restrictions on imports of nuclear-related equipment and material.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/middleeast/01irancnd.html
August 31, 2006
U.S. Drafting Sanctions as Iran Is Defiant
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [**************] [also see placeholder in today’s govt] [ditto]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 — With Iran defying today’s deadline to halt production of nuclear fuel, the United States and three European allies are assembling a list of sanctions they would seek in the United Nations Security Council, beginning with restrictions on imports of nuclear-related equipment and material.
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared today that “the Iranian nation will not accept for one moment any bullying, invasion and violation of its rights.’’
His words echoed weeks of defiant pronouncements coming out of Tehran, and American and European diplomats have been preparing their sanctions proposals on the assumption that Iran would not comply with a Security Council demand that it stop nuclear enrichment work by today.
Eventually, the punitive measures American and European officials say they will seek might expand to restrict travel by Iran’s leaders and limit the country’s access to global financial markets, according to diplomats involved in the talks who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Aside from the effort in the Council, the Bush administration is also seeking to persuade European financial institutions to end new lending to Iran. Some Swiss banks have already quietly agreed to limit their lending, American officials say.
But even as an agreement shapes up among the United States, Britain, France and Germany, the push for sanctions faces a high hurdle in the Council, given Russia and China’s possession of veto power and their opposition to discussion of serious punishment for Iran.
In addition, the sanctions effort may also be hampered by a report to be issued Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in which inspectors will describe only slow progress by Iran in enriching uranium.
The report, according to diplomats familiar with its contents, will describe how Iran has resumed producing small amounts of enriched uranium since temporarily stopping in the spring, but has not increased the rate of production.
Furthermore, the report is expected to say that the purity of the uranium enrichment would not be high enough for use in nuclear weapons, but only for power plants. Iran has long insisted that its program is for peaceful purposes only.
“The big question is why they appear to be moving so slowly,” said one European official who has been involved in monitoring Iran’s progress. One explanation, the official said, is that the Iranians have not wanted to escalate tensions by appearing to be racing ahead in the production of uranium.
Alternative explanations, offered by some American officials, are that the country’s scientists have run into technical problems or that they are hiding some facilities. The mystery has been deepened by Iran’s recent restrictions on where international inspectors can roam, and its refusal to allow them to see facilities that Iran has not declared to be related to its nuclear program. [********]
The atomic agency’s report is also expected to detail questions that Iran has failed to answer about suspected nuclear activities that it has declined to show to international inspectors. [*****]
European and American officials say, for example, that Iran has refused to elaborate on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s claim earlier this year that the country has an active research project under way using an advanced type of enrichment centrifuge that it obtained from the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. [********]
In an interview, R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said that when the agency’s report comes out on Thursday the American argument will focus on Iran’s official refusal this month to stop enriching uranium despite an international ultimatum.
“The only criterion that matters is whether they met the conditions that the Security Council said they had to meet,” he said. “And they haven’t done it.” [*******]
For their part, Iran has mixed its denunciations of the United States with an active lobbying campaign to win support in other parts of the world. President Ahmadinejad has also asserted that Tehran is willing to enter negotiations, using its recent response to a package of incentives offered earlier this summer as a “framework’’ for the talks.
Abbas Araghchi, a deputy minister in Iran’s foreign ministry, met with Japanese officials in Tokyo today to lobby them to oppose sanctions.
“We are confident of the peaceful nature of our program,’’ Mr. Aragchi said, according to The Associated Press. “So if there is also goodwill and sincerity in the other side, we are sure that we can reach a good solution, a good conclusion through negotiations.’’
The United States and Europe, however, have said that Iran must halt its enrichment before talks can begin, a condition Iran has rejected.
The list of proposed sanctions, according to American and European officials, would begin with low-impact measures like an embargo on the sale of nuclear-related goods to Iran, and the freezing of overseas assets and a ban on travel for Iranian officials directly involved in the nuclear program.
American sales to Iran have been restricted ever since the Iran hostage crisis. But European and Russian companies have sold technology for Iran’s budding civilian nuclear program, and American officials said Wednesday that it was unclear whether the sanctions would force Russia to stop helping Iran complete its nuclear reactor at Bushehr.
The Bushehr project is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Russia, and the government of President Vladimir V. Putin is expected to argue that sanctions should not affect civilian projects that are already under way. “Stopping Bushehr would be the biggest impact of a nuclear-related sanction,” [********] said Robert J. Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation under President Bill Clinton.
American officials expect the debate within the Council to take weeks and say it could extend through the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in mid-September, an event that will include a speech by President Bush and meetings with other heads of state. [******]The administration is preparing to use those meetings to press for the sanctions resolution, just as it used the same meeting four years ago to begin to build its case for demands against Iraq.
But Russia and China, among other countries, are concerned about any American-led escalation of a confrontation. Unlike the Bush administration’s effort four years ago, however, American officials appear to be shying from using intelligence information to build their case. Instead, they are citing Mr. Ahmadinejad’s public statements and Iran’s refusal to comply with the Council resolution passed in July, with support from Russia and China, that demanded full suspension of enrichment by Aug. 31.
“Russia and China can’t claim they didn’t agree to impose some nonmilitary sanctions” if Iran refused to comply, [*****]Mr. Einhorn noted. American officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had received assurances in June that Russia would, at a minimum, sign on to a first phase of weak sanctions. [*****]
But it is unclear whether Russia or China will sign on to sanctions if they believe that commits them to voting in favor of further pressure.
Yet that is exactly the American strategy, as described by administration and European officials. If Iran still has not suspended uranium enrichment in a few weeks, the sanctions proposed by the United States and Europe would progress to a broader travel ban and freezing of assets for government members, a senior administration official said.
Continued noncompliance would bring a ratcheting up of sanctions to include restrictions on commercial flights and on World Bank loans. [*****]
Iran has hinted at various times in recent months that it would respond to sanctions with actions of its own, from cutting oil production to threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, [**********]as North Korea did.
Other American officials said they feared that sanctions could prompt Iran to spur the insurgency in Iraq or sponsor terrorism by Hezbollah. But Mr. Burns said on Wednesday, “We’re not going to be intimidated by the Iranians.” [*******]
He is expected to travel to Berlin next week to begin work on drafting a Security Council resolution, administration officials said.
But despite the private assurances American officials say they have received, the public comments of senior Russian and Chinese officials have remained ambiguous. Russia’s defense minister said last Friday that it was premature to consider punitive actions against Iran, adding that the issue was not “so urgent” that the Council should consider sanctions and expressing doubt that they would work in any case.
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:43 AM | Permalink

Iran's President Defies U.N. on Deadline to Stop Uranium Enrichment

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083100176.html
Iran's President Defies U.N. on Deadline to Stop Uranium Enrichment
By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 4:12 AM [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [**************]
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's president defiantly refused to compromise as a U.N. deadline for his country to stop enriching uranium arrived Thursday, [*****]saying Tehran would not be bullied into giving up its right to nuclear technology. [see yesterday’s oped by David Ignatius] [he argued that Ahmadinejad is clever and not to be underestimated] [I disagree: he’s a rube who is being controlled by others who are clever indeed] [but Ahadinejad is an unsophisticated bumpkin] [*******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083100176.html
Iran's President Defies U.N. on Deadline to Stop Uranium Enrichment
By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 4:12 AM [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [**************]
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's president defiantly refused to compromise as a U.N. deadline for his country to stop enriching uranium arrived Thursday, [*****]saying Tehran would not be bullied into giving up its right to nuclear technology. [see yesterday’s oped by David Ignatius] [he argued that Ahmadinejad is clever and not to be underestimated] [I disagree: he’s a rube who is being controlled by others who are clever indeed] [but Ahadinejad is an unsophisticated bumpkin] [*******]
Iran's refusal to heed the U.N. Security Council demand to stop enrichment will be detailed in a confidential IAEA report to be completed Thursday and given to the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35 board member nations. That is likely to trigger council members -- by mid-September -- to begin considering economic or political sanctions.
Iran could theoretically still announce a full stop to uranium enrichment before the day is up, but that appeared unlikely, given President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech and new findings by the IAEA that Iran was enriching small quantities of uranium as late as Tuesday. [******]
"The Iranian nation will not accept for one moment any bullying, invasion and violation of its rights," [*****]Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in the northwestern city of Orumiyeh.
He also said enemies of the country were trying to stir up differences among the Iranian people, but "I tell them: you are wrong. The Iranian nation is united." [******]
“They claim to be supporting freedom but they support the most tyrannical governments in the world to pursue their own interests,” he said, referring to the United States. “They talk about human rights while maintaining the most notorious prisons. Those powers that do not abide by God and follow evil are the main source of all the current problems of mankind.”[*********]
The U.S. State Department has not said publicly what type of punishment it might seek. But U.S. and European officials have indicated they might push for travel restrictions on Iranian officials or a ban on sale of dual-use technology to Iran. The hope is to start with relatively low-level punishments in a bid to attract Russian and Chinese support, the officials have said.
More extreme sanctions could include a freeze on Iranian assets or a broader trade ban -- although opposition to that by Russia, China and perhaps others would be strong, particularly since it could cut off badly needed oil exports from Iran. [******]
Russia and China, which have traditional economic and strategic ties with Tehran, seem likely to resist U.S.-led efforts for a quick response, which means sanctions do not loom immediately. [****] That has prompted the Bush administration to consider rallying its allies to impose sanctions or financial restrictions of their own, independent of the Security Council.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi shrugged off the possibility of sanctions Thursday, telling state-run television that Iran “will find a way to avoid pressure eventually.” [**********]
The deadline was widely reported on the front pages of major Iranian newspapers. The daily Aftab said the showdown offers "the enemies" a chance to ratchet up pressure on Iran. Another newspaper, Kargozaran, expressed doubt that the U.S. would muster enough support within the Security Council for punitive sanctions.
It's not clear when exactly Thursday's deadline will run out. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said Wednesday that he believed it would end at 12:01 a.m. Friday in Tehran -- or 3:31 p.m. Thursday at the Security Council in New York.
But diplomats said the exact timing was not particularly relevant for two reasons: They believe Iran already has given its answer; and they would almost certainly abandon their sanctions threat if Iran decides to suspend enrichment after the deadline.
On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad urged European members of the council against resorting to sanctions, saying punishment would not dissuade his country. Another top Iranian official urged Japan on Thursday to help peacefully resolve the standoff without sanctions.
Abbas Araghchi, deputy minister for legal and international affairs of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, met with Japan's foreign minister in a clear sign of Iran's continued efforts to lobby countries worldwide against support for sanctions.
"We are confident of the peaceful nature of our program. So if there is also goodwill and sincerity in the other side, we are sure that we can reach a good solution, a good conclusion through negotiations," [*******]Araghchi said.
Tehran insists it wants to enrich uranium as fuel solely for civilian nuclear power stations. However, the U.S. and other Western countries suspect it wants to use it in nuclear warheads. [*******]
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed fresh suspicion that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and said in remarks published Thursday that Arab governments are equally worried about Tehran's ambitions. [******]
"At the moment, Iran has no use whatsoever for enriched uranium -- unless it is planning to build the bomb," [******] Steinmeier was quoted as saying in the newspaper Bild.
He also criticized the Iranian president for "trying to play the role of the leader of the Islamic world. .... Yet his Arab -- also Islamic -- neighbors share our concern about and rejection of a nuclear-armed Iran." [*******]
The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany offered Iran earlier this summer a package of incentives in exchange for a commitment from Tehran to freeze enrichment [*****]so talks could begin.
But Tehran's response earlier this month suggested the country was not willing to suspend enrichment before talks, let alone consider a long-term moratorium on such activity.
The West has struggled for years over carrots and sticks to persuade Iran to roll back its nuclear program. But Tehran has time after time played the game by its rules and kept its eyes constantly on a long-term prize: forcing the world to accept its nuclear ambitions. [*****]
Iranian leaders have indicated they are willing to bear the economic blow of whatever sanctions are passed rather than give up enrichment.
That means Thursday will hardly be a climactic milestone in the long-standing tussle between Iran and the West. [******] Iran can go on putting forward diplomatic initiatives to try to divide the big powers and keep room for maneuver, said one analyst, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“This deadline will invariably be followed by another deadline and another,” he said. “This is a game that will play out over five years, not a game that will play out tomorrow.” [********]
Associated Press reporters Barry Schweid in Washington, George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran and Lee Keath in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:42 AM | Permalink

U.N. Approves Darfur Peacekeeping Force

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083100110.html
U.N. Approves Darfur Peacekeeping Force
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 10:57 AM [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************] [ditto]
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday voted to create a United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region, despite the Khartoum government's strong opposition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083100110.html
U.N. Approves Darfur Peacekeeping Force
By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 10:57 AM [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************] [ditto]
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday voted to create a United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region, despite the Khartoum government's strong opposition.
The vote was 12 in favor, with abstentions from Russia, China and Qatar, the only Arab council member. [*******] [I understand why Qatar felt obligated to abstain in behalf of the Sudanese govt in Khartoum] [but it also belies the theory that all Jihadis are simply enraged at Muslims being killed around the world] [in this case Muslims and Arab-Africans are killing non-Arab Africans, many of whom are Muslims] [******]
But the troops will not be deployed until Sudan agrees. The United Nations wants to replace or absorb an African Union force in Darfur, which has only enough money to exist until its mandate expires on September 30 and has been unable to end the humanitarian crisis in the lawless west of the country, which the United States has called a "genocide."
The resolution calls for up to 22,500 U.N. troops and police officers and an immediate injection of air, engineering and communications support for the 7,000-member African force. [********]
The measure, drafted by Britain and the United States, is designed to allow planning and recruitment of troops for an eventual handover. [*******]
"While it is preferable to have unanimity, we are not going to sacrifice the need to take a stronger hand to try and stop the genocide in Sudan just because we can't get unanimity," [******] U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters.
Earlier this week, a top U.N. official warned the Security Council that Darfur was on the brink of a fresh humanitarian disaster threatening massive loss of life.
Since the signing of a fragile peace pact in May between the government and two rebel groups, fighting has only increased. The Sudanese military plans to move 10,500 troops to Darfur to face rebels who have refused to sign, raising fears of a full-scale war.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes in three years of conflict in Darfur. The mainly Arab militia known as Janjaweed, backed by the Sudanese government, are said to be behind the most of the murder, pillaging and rape. [***********]
Darfur rebels said on Thursday that Sudanese planes and troops attacked villages in the western region ahead of the Security Council vote.
China, which has close ties to Sudan's government, said it did not object to a U.N. force but to the timing of the resolution. [******]
"It may trigger further misunderstandings and confrontation from the country directly involved and even cause problems on implementing the comprehensive peace agreement process," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said.
The resolution allows U.N. troops to "use all necessary means" within their capabilities to protect U.N. personnel and facilities and prevent attacks and threats against civilians.
© 2006 Reuters

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Shaky Darfur Peace at Risk as New Fighting Looms

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/africa/31darfur.html
August 31, 2006
Shaky Darfur Peace at Risk as New Fighting Looms
By LYDIA POLGREEN [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************]
EL FASHER, Sudan, Aug. 30 — At the airstrip here in the heart of Darfur, the Ilyushin cargo planes fly in day after day, their holds packed with the stuff of war: troops, trucks, bombs and guns. [*****]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/africa/31darfur.html
August 31, 2006
Shaky Darfur Peace at Risk as New Fighting Looms
By LYDIA POLGREEN [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************]
EL FASHER, Sudan, Aug. 30 — At the airstrip here in the heart of Darfur, the Ilyushin cargo planes fly in day after day, their holds packed with the stuff of war: troops, trucks, bombs and guns. [*****]
So far, negotiations over a proposed United Nations force to shore up the shaky peace in Darfur have limped along with no sign of compromise. The opposing sides in the conflict now seem headed toward a large-scale military confrontation, bringing Darfur to the edge of a new abyss — perhaps the deepest it has faced. [*******]
“Unfortunately, things seem to be headed in that direction,” said Gen. Collins Ihekire, commander of the beleaguered 7,000-member African Union force [*****]that is enforcing a fragile peace agreement between the government and one rebel group.
Nearly four months after signing the agreement, the government is preparing a fresh assault against the rebel groups that refused to sign. Years of conflict have already killed hundreds of thousands of people here and sent 2.5 million fleeing their homes. But that may be a prelude of the death likely to come from further fighting, hunger and disease. In the past few months, killings of aid workers and hijackings of their vehicles, mostly by rebel groups, have forced aid groups to curtail programs to feed, clothe and shelter hundreds of thousands of people. [**********]
“We have less access now than we did in 2004 when things were really bad,” said one senior aid official in El Fasher, speaking on the condition of anonymity because outspoken aid workers have been penalized and expelled by the government. [******]“If there were a major military offensive you could be looking at a complete evacuation of humanitarian workers in Northern Darfur, which would leave millions without a lifeline.”
Diplomatically, Sudan has taken a hard line, refusing to allow any international peacekeepers other than the small and relatively powerless African Union force already in place. [*******]
The United Nations Security Council plans to vote Thursday on a resolution that would replace the 7,000 African Union troops with some 21,000 United Nations troops and police officers, but the resolution specifies that the troops will not deploy without the consent of the Sudanese government. [*********]
A visit to Khartoum this week by Jendayi E. Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, failed to produce an agreement, potentially leaving the people of Darfur without any international peacekeepers to protect them. [******]The African Union force has only enough money to keep going until Sept. 30, when its mandate officially ends. As it is now, its troops have not been paid, in some cases for months. It is perpetually running short of fuel, food and equipment, and its suppliers, who also have waited months for payment, are reluctant to make new deliveries. Helicopter flights that deliver all but the most essential goods — food and medicine for the troops — have been canceled.
Beyond that, the force is finding itself increasingly drawn into the battle between the government and the rebels. An attack on a fuel convoy earlier this month was suspected to be the work of rebels. Two Rwandan soldiers were killed in an intense firefight that lasted hours. Rebel leaders deny that they were involved in the ambush, but nevertheless say that the African Union is biased because it brokered a peace agreement that they reject.
Most ominous is the looming confrontation between government troops and rebel holdouts, which is set to take place on a battlefield that is home to a quarter of a million people, and could easily set off a chain of battles across Darfur. [*******]“It would be catastrophic,” said another senior aid official with a different agency, asking not to be identified for fear of retribution from the Sudanese government. “In terms of loss of life it could dwarf the killings in 2003 and 2004.”
In that period alone, at least 180,000 people died from attacks on villages by government forces and their allied Arab militias, known as the janjaweed, [******] and in battles with non-Arab rebel groups seeking greater power in the region. The violence brought on widespread hunger and disease, often the most lethal killers here.
El Fasher was once a sleepy state capital in an impoverished, backward part of Sudan. Now it is a garrison town swarming with government troops in crisp new uniforms, driving shiny trucks mounted with 50-millimeter guns. The trucks are so new that their spare tires still bear the white and blue marks from the factory along the grooves of their deep treads.
The government has made no secret of its intentions — it submitted a plan to the Security Council earlier this month stating its plan to use 10,500 of its own troops to crush the rebellion, [******] a move that would violate the peace agreement it just signed, [*************]according to General Ihekire.
In an interview in Khartoum last week, Lam Akol, the foreign minister, said the government was simply trying to secure peace.
“We have the duty to secure our territory,” he said. “We have signed a peace agreement, and if the holdouts don’t want to join it then what can we do? How else can we return the region to normal life?” [*********]
The rebel movements that refused to sign the Darfur peace agreement have massed in a vast swath of territory north of here, gaining strength and flexing their muscle in attacks on government troops and its allies, [******]as well as on the African Union force.
In an interview deep in the territory they hold, commanders of the new rebel alliance, the National Redemption Front, said they were ready for a fight.
“Our capabilities are unlimited, on the air and on the ground, to repel them,” said Jarnabi Abdul Kareem, a top rebel commander.
In Umm Sidir, more than 100 rebel soldiers preened with their Kalashnikov rifles for visiting journalists. Many seemed barely in their teens, with amulets encasing Koranic verses slung across their narrow, boyish chests. [******]Their battered pickup trucks were mounted with heavy weaponry — gleaming anti-aircraft guns and shoulder-fired missiles. The splintering and reforming of the rebel groups since the peace agreement was evident in their makeshift logos. On one truck, the initials had been changed so many times that the jumble of abbreviations — SLA, JEM, NFR, G-19 — had become a collection of illegible smears.
Seated in a circle under a thorny tree, leaders of the front, joined in collective hatred for the signers of the peace agreement, said they came back to the battlefield reluctantly.
“We are holding arms in our left hand but an olive branch in our right,” said Abubakar Hamid Nour, a commander of the Justice and Equality Movement, an Islamist group that has joined with a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army to fight against the government and the rebel faction that signed the agreement. [*******] [used to be described as Christian and animists] [now it has become clear that Muslims are part of the rebels as well] [thus the janjaweed—Arab and Muslim—are fighting other Muslims in addition to Christians and Animists] [*********] [why aren’t Islamists around the world enraged at this?]
“But the government selected the way of force, the way of arms,” he continued. “The government has dispersed our people, burned 4,000 villages, raped the women of Darfur. This peace agreement will never answer to the people of Darfur who carried arms to win their rights.”
The battles over this patch of earth have already exacted a terrible toll.
On the outskirts of Hashaba, people displaced by the fighting as far back as 2003 have settled, their camps becoming semipermanent villages. There are few men here — just a handful among dozens of drawn-faced women and wiry children with ochre-tinted hair, a telltale sign of malnourishment.
“We used to get food here, but no one comes anymore,” said Aisha Adbul Rahman. In her hut were the ingredients for that night’s dinner — a calabash of brown, silted water and half a bowl of millet.
In Hashaba, at a clinic run by the International Rescue Committee, an aid organization, Dr. Hassan Ibrahim Isaac said he wrote prescriptions for the banal sicknesses that killed here — malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia. But these bits of paper are like scrip at a bankrupt company’s store. The clinic’s pharmacy ran out of antibiotics and antimalarial drugs long ago. [******]
“I still come because I don’t want people to give up hope,” Dr. Isaac said. “But now fewer people come. They know I have nothing to give them.” [*******]
This is the planting season, when rains coax skeins of green from the dun-colored earth. Once-bleak hills bristle with grassy stubble. Wadis, seasonal rivers, snake across the landscape like aortas, veins and capillaries. [*****]But they bleed into empty fields across much of Northern Darfur — violence has kept many villagers from their fields. And so the earth foretells more hunger when harvest time comes. [******]
Military officials for the African Union said the government troops could build up along an axis between El Fasher and the towns of Mellit and Kutum, using Antonov bombers and attack helicopters to wipe out as many rebels as they can, then force the rest to flee north. Another possibility is that the government will attack from the south, and airlift troops to swoop down from the north as well.
Already, bombing attacks on Kulkul have pushed rebels north to Umm Sidir and beyond, African Union military commanders said.
Open armed conflict on a vast scale seems so likely, and the hope of a United Nations peacekeeping force arriving to ease the tensions so distant, that a joke has been making the rounds of military and aid officials here: The most important peacekeeper in Darfur right now is the rain. [******]
It turns the rough, dusty tracks that crisscross the arid plains and mountains into impassable bogs, and swells once-dry riverbeds into rivers easily capable of carrying off a Toyota Land Cruiser, the military vehicle of choice.
But the rains end in the next couple of weeks. [********]
Daniel B. Schneider contributed reporting from the United Nations for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Five Plot Suspects to Remain in British Jail

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002934.html
Five Plot Suspects to Remain in British Jail
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A20 [London][UK 8-10-06] [[more evidence in London plots] [extradition issues] [suspects held over another week] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [*******] [ditto]
LONDON, Aug. 30 -- A British court on Wednesday gave police one more week to consider charges against five suspects held in an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083002934.html
Five Plot Suspects to Remain in British Jail
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A20 [London][UK 8-10-06] [[more evidence in London plots] [extradition issues] [suspects held over another week] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [*******] [ditto]
LONDON, Aug. 30 -- A British court on Wednesday gave police one more week to consider charges against five suspects held in an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners.
The five were among 25 people arrested in raids in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, west of London, this month. Police have alleged that the suspects intended to smuggle liquid explosives onto airliners for detonation in flight. Their arrests caused disruptions to air traffic around the world and resulted in strict new rules for carry-on baggage.
The five suspects whose detention was extended Wednesday are being held under a new British law that allows detention of terrorism suspects for up to 28 days without charge, [****] provided a judge reviews their detention every seven days.
Fifteen other suspects in the case have been charged with terrorism-related offenses and five have been released without charge. Of those charged, 11 face the most serious allegations of conspiracy to murder [****] and four face lesser charges, including withholding information from authorities. [*****] The charged suspects are all British Muslims, ages 17 to 35; [*****]police have not publicly identified those still being held without charge.
On Wednesday, three men charged on Tuesday made their first appearance at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in Central London. Mohammed Yasar Gulzar,[****] 25, Mohammed Shamin Uddin,[*****] 35, and Nabeel Hussain, [****]22, were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and preparing to commit terrorism by planning to smuggle explosives aboard planes. A judge ordered all three held until their next court appearance on Sept. 18. [********]
British police contend the suspects were plotting an attack that would result in "unimaginable" loss of life. Searches of more than 69 houses, businesses, vehicles and open spaces have yielded more than 400 computers, 200 cellphones and 8,000 computer-related items such as memory sticks, CDs and DVDs. Police have also said they confiscated several "martyrdom videos," which generally refer to videotaped declarations by people planning suicide attacks. [******]
Nabeel Hussain, [*****] who appeared in court Wednesday, has two brothers also charged. Mehran Hussain, [*****]23, and Umain Hussain, [*****] 24, are both charged with failing to alert authorities to their brother's alleged intention to commit a terrorist act. [nabeel hussain is the youngest brother of the 3] [interesting] [****]
Cossar Ali, 24 , the mother of an 8-month-old child, is charged with failing to report potential terrorist activity by her husband, Ahmed Abdullah Ali, 25, who is charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
The others charged with conspiring to murder are: Tanvir Hussain,[****] 25; Arafat Waheed Khan,[***] 25; Assad Ali Sarwar, [*****]26; Adam Khatib, [****]19; Ibrahim Savant, [*****]25; Waheed Zaman, [****] 25; and Umar Islam, [*****]28, also known as Brian Young.
Police have also charged a 17-year-old London youth, who has not been identified, with possession of items useful "to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism." [*******]Police said those items included "a book on improvised explosives devices, some suicide notes and wills with the identities of persons prepared to commit acts of terrorism and a map of Afghanistan."
British police are also seeking the extradition of a suspect arrested in Pakistan, Rashid Rauf, 25, whom Pakistani officials have called a central figure in the alleged plot. His return is being sought in connection with the April 2002 murder of his uncle. Police declined to say whether the extradition request was also related to the alleged bomb conspiracy.
Rauf is from a Birmingham family that runs a bakery. His younger brother Tayib Rauf, 22, was among those arrested, but British media reported he was released without charge. [*******]
British media have also linked the Rauf family to Crescent Relief, an Islamic charity that is under investigation by British officials. The group was reportedly established in 2000 by the Raufs' father, [*******]Abdul Rauf, 54. The Charity Commission, Britain's charity watchdog, announced last week it had frozen the charity's bank accounts pending the investigation.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Britain: Extra Week to Question 5 Terror Suspects

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/europe/31briefs-002.html
August 31, 2006
World Briefing | Europe
Britain: Extra Week to Question 5 Terror Suspects
By ALAN COWELL [London][UK 8-10-06] [[more evidence in London plots] [extradition issues] [suspects held over another week] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [*******]
A court ruled that five people detained without charge for almost three weeks may be held another seven days for questioning in what the police have described as a plot to set off explosions on airliners [****]flying to the United States from Britain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/europe/31briefs-002.html
August 31, 2006
World Briefing | Europe
Britain: Extra Week to Question 5 Terror Suspects
By ALAN COWELL [London][UK 8-10-06] [[more evidence in London plots] [extradition issues] [suspects held over another week] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [*******]
A court ruled that five people detained without charge for almost three weeks may be held another seven days for questioning in what the police have described as a plot to set off explosions on airliners [****]flying to the United States from Britain.
It was the first time any suspects had been held into a fourth week under new counterterrorism laws that allow for a maximum of 28 days’ detention without charge. [*****]
A total of 14 people have been charged in connection with the plot.
A lawyer for Muhammed Usman Siddique, a detainee who has not been charged, said his client’s physical and psychological well-being had been affected by his detention in a police station, [*****]during which he has been strip-searched daily.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:39 AM | Permalink

Source of C.I.A. Leak Said to Admit Role

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30armitage.html
August 30, 2006
Source of C.I.A. Leak Said to Admit Role
By NEIL A. LEWIS [plame] [leakgate] [after months of it being washington’s worst kept secret Richard Armitage finally admitted he leaked Plame’s name but apparently not knowing she was NOC] [*******]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, has acknowledged that he was the person whose conversation with a columnist in 2003 prompted a long, politically laden criminal investigation in what became known as the C.I.A. leak case, a lawyer involved in the case said on Tuesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30armitage.html
August 30, 2006
Source of C.I.A. Leak Said to Admit Role
By NEIL A. LEWIS [plame] [leakgate] [after months of it being washington’s worst kept secret Richard Armitage finally admitted he leaked Plame’s name but apparently not knowing she was NOC] [*******]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, has acknowledged that he was the person whose conversation with a columnist in 2003 prompted a long, politically laden criminal investigation in what became known as the C.I.A. leak case, a lawyer involved in the case said on Tuesday.
Mr. Armitage did not return calls for comment. But the lawyer and other associates of Mr. Armitage have said he has confirmed that he was the initial and primary source for the columnist, Robert D. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003, identified Valerie Wilson as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.
The identification of Mr. Armitage as the original leaker to Mr. Novak ends what has been a tantalizing mystery. In recent months, however, Mr. Armitage’s role had become clear to many, and it was recently reported by Newsweek magazine and The Washington Post.
In the accounts by the lawyer and associates, Mr. Armitage disclosed casually to Mr. Novak that Ms. Wilson worked for the C.I.A. at the end of an interview in his State Department office. Mr. Armitage knew that, the accounts continue, because he had seen a written memorandum by Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman.
Mr. Grossman had taken up the task of finding out about Ms. Wilson after an inquiry from I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby’s inquiry was prompted by an Op-Ed article on May 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof and an article on June 12, 2003, in The Washington Post by Walter Pincus.
The two articles reported on a trip by a former ambassador to Africa sponsored by the C.I.A. to check reports that Iraq was seeking enriched uranium to help with its nuclear arms program.
Neither article identified the ambassador, but it was known inside the government that he was Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms. Wilson’s husband. White House officials wanted to know how much of a role she had in selecting him for the assignment.
Ms. Wilson was a covert employee, and after Mr. Novak printed her identity, the agency requested an investigation to see whether her name had been leaked illegally.
Some administration critics said her name had been made public in a campaign to punish Mr. Wilson, who had written in a commentary in The Times that his investigation in Africa led him to believe that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence to justify an attack on Iraq.
The complaints after Mr. Novak’s column led to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity.
The special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, did not bring charges in connection with laws that prohibit the willful disclosure of the identity of an C.I.A. officer. But Mr. Fitzgerald did indict Mr. Libby on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, saying Mr. Libby had testified untruthfully to a grand jury and federal agents when he said he learned about Ms. Wilson’s role at the agency from reporters rather than from several officials, including Mr. Cheney.
According to an account in a coming book, “Hubris, the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War’’ by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, excerpts of which appeared in Newsweek this week, Mr. Armitage told a few State Department colleagues that he might have been the leaker whose identity was being sought.
The book says Mr. Armitage realized that when Mr. Novak published a second column in October 2003 that said his source had been an official who was “not a political gunslinger.’’
The Justice Department was quickly informed, and Mr. Armitage disclosed his talks with Mr. Novak in subsequent interviews with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even before Mr. Fitzgerald’s appointment.
The book quotes Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the intelligence and research bureau at the State Department, as saying that Mr. Armitage had told him, “I may be the guy who caused this whole thing,’’ and that he regretted having told the columnist more than he should have.
Mr. Grossman’s memorandum did not mention that Ms. Wilson had undercover status.
Apart from Mr. Ford, as quoted in the book, the lawyer and colleagues of Mr. Armitage who discussed the case have spoken insisting on anonymity, apparently because Mr. Armitage was still not comfortable with the public acknowledgment of his role.
He was also the source for another journalist about Ms. Wilson, a reporter who did not write about her. The lawyers and associates said Mr. Armitage also told Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and a well-known author, of her identity in June 2003.
Mr. Woodward was a late player in the legal drama when he disclosed last November that he had the received the information and testified to a grand jury about it after learning that his source had disclosed the conversation to prosecutors.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:20 PM | Permalink

FBI Shows Off Counterterrorism Database

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901520.html
FBI Shows Off Counterterrorism Database
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A06 [FBI] [finally a database to help in gsave] [********] [use nsc ms] [use psci 469]
The FBI has built a database with more than 659 million records -- including terrorist watch lists, intelligence cables and financial transactions -- culled from more than 50 FBI and other government agency sources. The system is one of the most powerful data analysis tools available to law enforcement and counterterrorism agents, FBI officials said yesterday. [********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901520.html
FBI Shows Off Counterterrorism Database
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A06 [FBI] [finally a database to help in gsave] [********] [use nsc ms] [use psci 469]
The FBI has built a database with more than 659 million records -- including terrorist watch lists, intelligence cables and financial transactions -- culled from more than 50 FBI and other government agency sources. The system is one of the most powerful data analysis tools available to law enforcement and counterterrorism agents, FBI officials said yesterday. [********]
The FBI demonstrated the database to reporters yesterday in part to address criticism that its technology was failing and outdated as the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks nears.
Privacy advocates said the Investigative Data Warehouse, launched in January 2004, raises concerns about how long the government stores such information and about the right of citizens to know what records are kept and correct information that is wrong.
The data warehouse is an effort to "connect the dots" that the FBI was accused of missing in the months before the 2001 attacks, bureau officials said. About a quarter of the information comes from the FBI's records and criminal case files. The rest -- including suspicious financial activity reports, no-fly lists, and lost and stolen passport data -- comes from the Treasury, State and Homeland Security departments and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. [********]
"That's where the real knowledge comes from . . . sharing information," said Gurvais Grigg, acting director of the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, who helped develop the system.
In a demonstration, Grigg sat at a computer and typed in the name "Mohammad Atta," one of the 19 hijackers in 2001. The system can handle variants of names and up to 29 variants on birth dates. He typed "flight training" in the query box and pulled up 250 articles relating to Atta. [***********]
The system, designed by Chiliad Inc. of Amherst, Mass., can be programmed to send alerts to agents on new information, Grigg said. Names, Social Security numbers and driver's license details can be linked and cross-matched across hundreds of millions of records. [********]
No top secret information is in the system, officials said.
Grigg said that before 2002, it would take 32,222 hours to run 1,000 names and birth dates across 50 databases. Now agents can make such a search in 30 minutes or less, he said.
The 13,000 agents and analysts who use the system make an average 1 million queries a month, Grigg said. The system does not reach into the databases themselves but mines copies that are updated regularly, he said.
Irrelevant information can be purged or restricted, and incorrect information is corrected, he said. Willie T. Hulon, executive assistant director of the FBI's National Security Branch, said that generally information is not removed from the system unless there is "cause for removal."
Every data source is reviewed by security, legal and technology staff members, and a privacy impact statement is created, Grigg said. The FBI conducts in-house auditing so that each query can be tracked, he said.
David Sobel, senior counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the Federal Register has no record of the creation of such a system, a basic requirement of the Privacy Act. He also said the FBI's use of an internal privacy assessment undercuts the intent of the privacy law.
FBI officials said the database is in "full compliance" with the law.
Sobel said he learned under a Freedom of Information Act disclosure last week that the system includes 250 million airline passenger records, stored permanently.
"It appears to be the largest collection of personal data ever amassed by the federal government," he said. "When they develop the capability to cross-reference and data-mine all these previously separate sources of information, there are significant new privacy issues that need to be publicly debated."
Michael Morehart, chief of the FBI's Terrorist Financing Operations Section, has testified to Congress about some aspects of the system. He said that Treasury Department documents included in the database have helped counterterrorism investigations significantly.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:19 PM | Permalink

Iran: U.S. Grants Visa to Ex-Leader

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/30briefs-004.html
August 30, 2006
World Briefing | Middle East
Iran: U.S. Grants Visa to Ex-Leader
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN [followup] [white house] [state] [decided to give Khatami a visa] [I thought this was decided a week or so ago] [followup] [*******]
The State Department issued a visa to Iran’s former president, Mohammad Khatami, allowing him to make a private visit starting Saturday that will include speeches in Chicago and Washington and a conference at the United Nations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/30briefs-004.html
August 30, 2006
World Briefing | Middle East
Iran: U.S. Grants Visa to Ex-Leader
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN [followup] [white house] [state] [decided to give Khatami a visa] [I thought this was decided a week or so ago] [followup] [*******]
The State Department issued a visa to Iran’s former president, Mohammad Khatami, allowing him to make a private visit starting Saturday that will include speeches in Chicago and Washington and a conference at the United Nations.
Since 1979, the United States has barred Iranian officials from traveling in the United States outside of a 25-mile radius of the United Nations.
A State Department spokeswoman said the ban did not apply to Mr. Khatami — a moderate who headed a reformist government for eight years until he was succeeded by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — because he is no longer a government official. She said the visit would demonstrate the American commitment to freedom of speech.
Mr. Khatami, a cleric, is to speak at the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago on Saturday and at an interfaith event at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 7. He will attend the United Nations conference on Sept. 5 and 6.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:19 PM | Permalink

Rumsfeld Says War Critics Haven’t Learned Lessons of History

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30rumsfeld.html
August 30, 2006
Rumsfeld Says War Critics Haven’t Learned Lessons of History
By DAVID S. CLOUD [rummy] [defense] [implicitly called anyone who sees Iraq and war on terror differently appeasers, Nevil Chamberlin] [**********]
SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 29 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that critics of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terror groups “seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” and he alluded to those in the 1930’s who advocated appeasing Nazi Germany.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30rumsfeld.html
August 30, 2006
Rumsfeld Says War Critics Haven’t Learned Lessons of History
By DAVID S. CLOUD [rummy] [defense] [implicitly called anyone who sees Iraq and war on terror differently appeasers, Nevil Chamberlin] [**********]
SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 29 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that critics of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terror groups “seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” and he alluded to those in the 1930’s who advocated appeasing Nazi Germany.
In a speech to thousands of veterans at the American Legion’s annual convention here, Mr. Rumsfeld sharpened his rebuttal of critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy, some of whom have called for phased withdrawal of United States forces or partitioning of the country.
Comparing terrorist groups to a “new type of fascism,” Mr. Rumsfeld said, “With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?” [strawman argument] [********]
It was the second unusually combative speech by Mr. Rumsfeld to a veterans group in two days and appeared to be part of a concerted administration effort to address criticism of the war’s conduct. [******]
On Monday, Mr. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney gave separate speeches to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nev. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to the American Legion Auxiliary on Tuesday and President Bush is to address veterans later this week. [*******] [just like a campaign they are rolling out the pr rhetoric] [********]
Mr. Cheney, too, spoke of appeasement at an appearance on Tuesday [*******]at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, reciting a passage that echoed verbatim one of his stock speeches.
“This is not an enemy that can be ignored, or negotiated with, or appeased,’’ he said. “And every retreat by civilized nations is an invitation to further violence against us. Men who despise freedom will attack freedom in any part of the world, and so responsible nations have a duty to stay on the offensive, together, to remove this threat.” [cheney] [*********]
Mr. Rumsfeld’s speech on Tuesday did not explicitly mention the Democrats, and he cited only comments by human rights groups and in press reports as evidence of what he described as “moral or intellectual confusion about who or what is right or wrong.”
In many previous speeches, including some before groups of veterans for whom World War II is a sacred memory, he has compared the government of Saddam Hussein, and the violent resistance since it fell, to the Nazis, and warned explicitly against appeasement there or in the broader campaign against terrorism, comparing it to the error of appeasing Hitler.
While he did not directly compare current critics of the war in Iraq to those who sought to appease Hitler, his juxtaposition of the themes led Democrats to say that he was leveling an unfair charge.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army officer and a Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee, responded that “no one has misread history more” than Mr. Rumsfeld.
“It’s a political rant to cover up his incompetence,” Senator Reed, a longtime critic of Mr. Rumsfeld’s handling of the war, told The Associated Press. [*******]
Mr. Reed said there were “scores of patriotic Americans of both parties who are highly critical of his handling of the Department of Defense.”
Mr. Rumsfeld, speaking just weeks before the fifth anniversary of 9/11, also took on criticisms of the administration’s approach for combating terrorism outside Iraq, like the use of wiretaps without warrants. “This enemy is serious, lethal and relentless,’’ he said. “But this is not well recognized or fully understood.” [********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:18 PM | Permalink

Bush Plans Speeches on Terrorism

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30cnd-bush.html
August 30, 2006
Bush Plans Speeches on Terrorism
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT [bush] [white house] [gsave] [upcoming speech] [use psci 469] [*******]
NASHVILLE, Aug. 30 — With the midterm elections coming into view, President Bush is launching an extended publicity tour to draw attention back to the threat of terrorism, quickly pivoting to more comfortable political territory for him after the focus in recent days on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. [*****]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30cnd-bush.html
August 30, 2006
Bush Plans Speeches on Terrorism
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT [bush] [white house] [gsave] [upcoming speech] [use psci 469] [*******]
NASHVILLE, Aug. 30 — With the midterm elections coming into view, President Bush is launching an extended publicity tour to draw attention back to the threat of terrorism, quickly pivoting to more comfortable political territory for him after the focus in recent days on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. [*****]
Starting with an address to veterans on Thursday, Mr. Bush intends to outline what one adviser described as the “consequences of victory and defeat.” He will continue making speeches on the subject throughout the month, keying off the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. [*******]
The White House has made national security, and the war in Iraq, the centerpieces of Mr. Bush’s strategy for helping Republicans try to retain control of Congress in this year’s election. [societal—election-year politics] [***] Nonetheless, as he traveled to Arkansas and Tennessee today to raise money for Republican candidates, Mr. Bush insisted that his “series of speeches, they are not political speeches.”
“These are important times, and I seriously hope people wouldn’t politicize these issues I’m going to talk about,” Mr. Bush said after a fund-raising event at a private home in Little Rock before flying to another fund-raiser in Nashville. “We have a duty in this country to defeat the terrorists.”
The shift in focus comes as other senior members of the administration have been aggressively attacking Democrats over the war and national security generally. In the most combative instance, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld triggered a partisan battle by saying on Tuesday that critics of the war had not “learned history’s lessons” and going on to allude to appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930’s.
Today, the Democratic Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, called Mr. Rumsfeld’s comments “reckless,” while Representative Rahm Emanuel, who is in charge of getting Democrats elected to the House, criticized the defense secretary for taking on a political role.
“Donald Rumsfeld should spend less time thinking about the midterm elections and more time figuring out how to clean up the mess this administration made in Iraq,” Mr. Emanuel said in a statement.
In Arkansas, Mr. Hutchinson, who gained national prominence as a House manager during the impeachment trial of President Clinton, is trailing his Democratic opponent, Mike Beebe, the state’s attorney general, according to polling data. The Arkansas governor’s seat is currently held by a Republican, Mike Huckabee, but term limits prevent him from running again. The seat is one of a handful being vacated by Republican governors, including that in New York, that are vulnerable to flipping sides in this year’s election.
In the race in Tennessee to fill the seat now held by exiting Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Mr. Corker leads the Democratic nominee, Representative Harold Ford, by a slight margin. Republicans view victory here as critical to keeping control of the Senate: they have only a six-seat margin now, and at least four other Senate seats are considered highly likely to fall into Democratic hands.
As in virtually every race, the war in Iraq is a central issue in Tennessee, with Mr. Ford recommending a “three-state strategy” dividing the war-torn country into thirds and Mr. Corker essentially defending the administration approach of continued occupation, according to recent local news accounts. Unlike candidates in other contests, neither Mr. Ford nor Mr. Corker has advocated a deadline for withdrawing United States troops.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:17 PM | Permalink

Ahmadinejad's High-Stakes Game

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901044.html
Ahmadinejad's High-Stakes Game
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A19 [oped] [ahmadinegad’s challenge to debate bush] [*******]
TEHRAN -- Drivers here play a high-risk game of chicken at every intersection. They barge into the frantic stream of traffic and you think there's going to be a crash for sure. But at the last moment someone usually gives way, and a collision is avoided.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901044.html
Ahmadinejad's High-Stakes Game
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A19 [oped] [ahmadinegad’s challenge to debate bush] [*******]
TEHRAN -- Drivers here play a high-risk game of chicken at every intersection. They barge into the frantic stream of traffic and you think there's going to be a crash for sure. But at the last moment someone usually gives way, and a collision is avoided.
Watching President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a news conference here Tuesday, I had the same mesmerizing anxiety as a passenger in a Tehran taxi. He has moved boldly -- recklessly, it seems to Americans -- into the international traffic flow. [*****]He keeps revving his motor, and it looks as if he and the West might be heading for a dangerous crackup over Iran’s nuclear program. Will there be a collision, or will leaders produce a compromise at the final instant? Normally, drivers here stop in time – except when they don’t.
“The feeling here is that Iran will go to the threshold of a serious crisis, and the government will find a solution,” says Kayhan Barzegar, a professor of international relations here. “It’s a cultural matter to wait until the last minute.” [***********]
The unpredictable factor in this game of brinkmanship is Ahmadinejad. In another defiant move, he laid out a radical vision of an Iranian new world order. The U.N. Security Council is an outdated relic of the post-World War II era and should be abandoned, he said. On the nuclear issue, "no one can stop us." He challenged President Bush to a live debate and seemed certain he would come out the winner. [*******]
Seeing Ahmadinejad up close, you appreciate the fact that he is a formidable politician. [****] He played the roomful of 150 journalists like a master performer. He has the look of a bantamweight fighter -- compact and agile, punching well above his weight. He's quick on his feet, answering a broad range of questions, including some critical ones about the Iranian economy, but he came away unscratched. He speaks more softly than you'd expect, making jokes and, on this occasion, avoiding some of his usual anti-Israel bombast. But the hard edge is never far away. His eyes can twinkle one moment and then suddenly become dark as night. My strongest feeling at the end of his performance was: He may be cocky and eccentric, but don't underestimate him. [*******]
With a Thursday deadline looming on the nuclear issue, you might expect that Tehran would feel like a garrison town. But it's surprisingly relaxed, and I think that's because most Iranians expect the crisis will be defused somehow. The regime has been putting on a show of defiance as the U.N. deadline approaches, shooting off new missiles in Persian Gulf war games, opening a new heavy-water reactor and festooning downtown streets with banners of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah. But this isn't a militarized country, and it certainly isn't eager for confrontation with America.
"I don't think anyone can think of a way to resolve problems between the U.S. and Iran other than negotiations," says Ali Ahmadi, a 28-year-old writer at the opposition newspaper Sharq. Though he's critical of Ahmadinejad, he describes the technical achievements of Iran's nuclear program as "really satisfying," and he sums up Iran's dilemma this way: "We are watching how much it's worth to continue the nuclear program -- its price. I can see there is this ambivalence, this concern. Because people realize this choice can bring about certain harsh consequences."
Perhaps the most interesting fact of life in Tehran this week is that you can't find anyone who is opposed in principle to dialogue with the United States. Even a few months ago, that topic was almost taboo, but now here's Ahmadinejad himself calling for a public debate with Bush. [******]"The golden key to being popular here is to normalize relations with the U.S.," says Shahriar Khateri, a former member of the Revolutionary Guards who is now a doctor and a participant in a joint project with American scientists to study the effects of chemical weapons.
Iranians are patient people, and they seem to expect this crisis will play out a while longer. They don't want sanctions, but people I talked to don't seem very worried about them, either. Iranians have been living under some form of sanctions for several decades, and they've learned how to make their own cars, steel and pharmaceuticals -- and now missiles and nuclear reactors. [*******]
I come back to the fierce jockeying of Tehran's traffic jams. If Ahmadinejad behaves like most local drivers, he will go as far and fast as he can. It's only when the fender is about to be crushed that he will put on the brake. That's why this crisis is so dangerous -- it's easy to miscalculate when nobody knows the rules of the road.
davidignatius@washpost.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:17 PM | Permalink

Italy’s Peacekeeping Offer Signals Shift in Its Foreign Policy

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/europe/30italy.html
August 30, 2006
Italy’s Peacekeeping Offer Signals Shift in Its Foreign Policy
By IAN FISHER [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Italy’s changing foreign policy] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south—into effect Aug 14] [Israel had been perceived as bogged down] [Hezbollah perceived as giving as good as it took from the once vauted Israeli IDF] [perceptions matter] [thus far the ceasfire has held, surprisingly] [********]
ROME, Aug. 29 — Kofi Annan thanked Italy. So did George W. Bush. And on Tuesday, as he stood on a ship carrying 800 Italian peacekeepers to Lebanon, the largest deployment of foreign troops to date, Prime Minister Romano Prodi could take pride that his nation had played the key role in overcoming Europe’s hesitation to put its soldiers at risk in the Middle East.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/europe/30italy.html
August 30, 2006
Italy’s Peacekeeping Offer Signals Shift in Its Foreign Policy
By IAN FISHER [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Italy’s changing foreign policy] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south—into effect Aug 14] [Israel had been perceived as bogged down] [Hezbollah perceived as giving as good as it took from the once vauted Israeli IDF] [perceptions matter] [thus far the ceasfire has held, surprisingly] [********]
ROME, Aug. 29 — Kofi Annan thanked Italy. So did George W. Bush. And on Tuesday, as he stood on a ship carrying 800 Italian peacekeepers to Lebanon, the largest deployment of foreign troops to date, Prime Minister Romano Prodi could take pride that his nation had played the key role in overcoming Europe’s hesitation to put its soldiers at risk in the Middle East.
“Bush was very warm, thanking me for leadership, for having pushed the European team,” Mr. Prodi said in an interview on Monday, recalling a recent telephone conversation with the president.
But for all the points Italy scored for courage — pledging a total of 3,000 peacekeepers for Lebanon last week, when France made a first offer of just 200 — the nation’s new leaders are also using the moment to declare a new distance from Washington.
After five years of unusually close relations between Mr. Bush and the former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the new center-left leadership is shifting Italy back to the camp of Europe — and at the same time pushing for a stronger, more united Europe as a counterbalance to America.
The United States and Israel supported the Lebanon mission. But that seems almost incidental when Mr. Prodi and other Italian leaders talk about their reasons for pushing the mission so aggressively, despite the risks and the wavering elsewhere in Europe.
“When the United Nations decided to engage in the area, in Europe it was clear,” Mr. Prodi, for five years the European Union president, said in the telephone interview.
“It was a moral and political issue,” he added, for Europe to take the lead in stopping the fighting in Lebanon, thus carving out a stronger international role for Europe in the explosive — and geographically close — Middle East. With America bogged down in Iraq and distrusted by Arab nations, there was no one else to do it but Europe, he said.
“My policy is first of all a European policy,” Mr. Prodi said. “I don’t think that any European country alone can have a role in the world. And so I want to create some kind of European co-action.”
For all the opposition here to the war in Iraq, Italy remains close to the United States, a fact that Mr. Berlusconi used to his political advantage in keeping its foreign policy in near-perfect alignment with Washington and, often, contrary to the rest of Europe.
“I am on whatever side America is on, even before I know what it is,” he said, half-jokingly, as he ran for office in 2001.
But with Iraq still mired in violence, Mr. Prodi’s government seems to feel a certain freedom to distance itself from Washington, apparently without paying a price either with voters or the Bush administration itself. For the moment, in the glow of the early success over forming a peacekeeping force for Lebanon, Italian leaders, political experts and even American diplomats speak of a new “effective multilateralism” that Italy seems to be testing.
“Honestly, Berlusconi found himself in a different place with a stronger division of Europe and unilateralism of America,” Massimo D’Alema, the Italian foreign minister, said in an interview over the weekend. “We live in a different phase, and for this we are lucky, because today unilateralism is clearly in a crisis. It is finished.”
And so Mr. D’Alema, a former Communist, has felt free to take shots at American foreign policy even as he cultivated what both Italian and American officials say is a warm relationship with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In the deployment to Lebanon, Italy and America found a common cause, if different motives, with each side praising the other for helping to form a more viable force of troops.
“If there is a little sniping and ‘I told you so’ going on from the Italians, it’s all to the good for the United States and Italy,” said John L. Harper, professor of American foreign policy and European studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna. “I don’t see any obvious risks, in terms of U.S.-Italian relations.”
Earlier this month, however, Mr. D’Alema allowed a top Hezbollah official to take him by the arm when he toured bombed-out areas of Lebanon. Italian Jews were infuriated, and the moment confirmed for the center-right opposition their contention that Mr. Prodi’s government — which ranges from Catholic centrists to far-left Greens and Communists — is essentially pro-Arab and anti-Israel.
In addition, some among the center-right oppose the Lebanon mission as likely to prove ineffective because, they say, Europe has never been strong or cohesive enough to provide real leadership.
“This is clearly an action intended in order to stop Israel’s policy of defending itself and at the same time trying to show America that Europe has muscles,” said Paolo Guzzanti, a senator in Mr. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. “Which is wrong, first off, because Europe unfortunately does not have muscles.”
“It’s a pointless show,” he added. “It’s ‘Hey, America, we are here!’ ”
Mr. Prodi, Mr. D’Alema and other center-left leaders deny that their new direction is anti-American, with some taking specific care to dispute any suggestion of anti-Israeli bias.
“Perhaps one of the rare good things that Berlusconi did during his mandate was improving relations with Jerusalem,” said Francesco Rutelli, a deputy prime minister.
The peacekeeping mission will be the first major deployment led by Europe since the war in Bosnia in the early 1990’s, an effort often criticized as weak and ineffective. And the risks in Lebanon — and thus to Italy’s ambitions for a more credible European role — are great: in 1983, 241 American service members and 58 French paratroopers were killed in Lebanon in a bombing of their barracks.
Sergio Romano, a former Italian ambassador to NATO and an influential newspaper columnist, argued that those risks increase if Europe is not able to develop a coherent foreign policy for the region. Otherwise, he said, soldiers will be put in harm’s way without the prospect of a long-term gain — and worse, they may not be able to respond effectively when things, inevitably, go wrong.
“Being on the ground with a military force in a situation like that, it’s just one piece of the puzzle,” Mr. Romano said. “It’s a very big job.”
Mr. Prodi and Mr. D’Alema agree that any deployment must be linked to a larger solution in the region, in the long term if not right away.
“Let’s use common sense,” Mr. Prodi said. “Step by step. Now we have to guarantee peace between Lebanon and Israel. Then of course we have to start dialogue, links, but we will expand to the neighboring problems.”
“Now we have to prepare the minds and the souls for that,” he said.
Peter Kiefer contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:16 PM | Permalink

Israeli Raids Leave 6 Palestinians Dead

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/30GAZA.html
August 30, 2006
Israeli Raids Leave 6 Palestinians Dead
By REUTERS [Palestine] [Israel] [gaza] [continued conflict] [followup] [********]
GAZA, Aug. 29 — Israeli troops killed six Palestinians on Tuesday in attacks in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, medics and witnesses said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/30GAZA.html
August 30, 2006
Israeli Raids Leave 6 Palestinians Dead
By REUTERS [Palestine] [Israel] [gaza] [continued conflict] [followup] [********]
GAZA, Aug. 29 — Israeli troops killed six Palestinians on Tuesday in attacks in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, medics and witnesses said.
Troops in Gaza, who opened an offensive in June to free an abducted Israeli soldier and stop cross-border rocket fire, fired a tank shell into a crowd in the Shijaia district, a militant stronghold, killing two people and wounding three, witnesses said.
An army spokesman said troops had identified two militants armed with an antitank missile and fired at them.
Soldiers later killed a Palestinian in northern Gaza, medics said. An Israeli Army spokeswoman said troops fired at a Palestinian who had crawled near the border fence and suspected that he was a militant.
The Israeli Army has killed more than 190 Palestinians in Gaza since starting the offensive after gunmen abducted the soldier on June 25.
Earlier Tuesday, Palestinian witnesses said one Palestinian was killed and another wounded by high-caliber Israeli weapons fire in Shijaia. Medics said they both wore civilian clothing.
An Israeli Army spokesman said soldiers in the area had fired a tank shell at three militants who were spotted planting a device that contained wires.
Israeli forces also killed two gunmen during a clash in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, said witnesses who identified the two as members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Fatah, the party of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:15 PM | Permalink

Israeli Leader Rebuffs U.N. on Blockade

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/31diplocnd.html
August 30, 2006
Israeli Leader Rebuffs U.N. on Blockade
By WARREN HOGE and JOHN O’NEIL [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [UN’s vs. Israel’s perspectives] [Friday night, August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Israel had been perceived as bogged down] [Hezbollah perceived as giving as good as it took from the once vauted Israeli IDF] [perceptions matter] [thus far the ceasfire has held, surprisingly] [********]
JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 — Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, today rebuffed a request from United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan for even a partial lifting of the seven-week old blockade of Lebanon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/31diplocnd.html
August 30, 2006
Israeli Leader Rebuffs U.N. on Blockade
By WARREN HOGE and JOHN O’NEIL [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [UN’s vs. Israel’s perspectives] [Friday night, August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Israel had been perceived as bogged down] [Hezbollah perceived as giving as good as it took from the once vauted Israeli IDF] [perceptions matter] [thus far the ceasfire has held, surprisingly] [********]
JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 — Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, today rebuffed a request from United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan for even a partial lifting of the seven-week old blockade of Lebanon.
Mr. Annan told reporters in an interview Tuesday night that while he would prefer that Israel completely lift its blockade of air, sea and land traffic into Lebanon, imposed to prevent the smuggling of arms to Hezbollah, he would ask Mr. Olmert to at least allow Beirut’s airport to resume normal operations.
But Mr. Olmert rejected that idea today. In doing so, he made reference to Mr. Annan’s previous insistence that all parties to the United Nations-brokered cease-fire abide by all of its provisions.
The resolution, Mr. Olmert said, “is not a smorgasbord. It’s not a buffet. It’s a one-time meal.’’
Therefore, he said, Israel cannot lift the blockade on one part of Lebanon but not others.
Mr. Olmert’s popularity has suffered in recent weeks from widespread dissatisfaction with his handling of the war, which failed to achieve the broad goal he set at its outset of dismantling or at least disarming Hezbollah. He and other Israeli officials have made clear since the cease-fire that they will take a tough line in its implementation.
Mr. Olmert also rejected a request by Mr. Annan that Israeli troops withdraw completely from southern Lebanon once the United Nations force there reaches about 5,000 troops, rather than waiting for it to reach its full planned strength of 15,000.
“Israel will pull out of Lebanon once the resolution is implemented,’’ he said.
From Jerusalem, Mr. Annan went to the West Bank, where he met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Mr. Annan noted that the continuing conflict in Gaza has been overshadowed by the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
“The suffering of the Palestinian people must not be forgotten as we strive to bring peace to the people of Lebanon,’’ he said. “Over 200 Palestinians have been killed since the end of June. This must end immediately.’’
News services reported that eight Palestinians died today in clashes with Israeli forces in Gaza, including a 14-year-old boy.
Mr. Annan said he had talked with Mr. Abbas about winning the release of an Israeli soldier whose kidnapping by militants in Gaza sparked the fighting there, and about negotiating for the release of the dozens of Palestinian legislators who have been seized by Israel during the conflict.
From the West Bank, Mr. Annan is set to embark on a tour of the region, beginning with Jordan. He is also planning to visit Syria and Iran, countries the United States and Israel say are crucial to any long-term settlement that involves Hezbollah. Given the Bush administration’s policy of refusing to negotiate with either, Mr. Annan’s visits to Damascus and Tehran have taken on greater significance.
“I think it is important that we obtain the support and cooperation of regional players,’’ Mr. Annan said.
As Mr. Annan left Lebanon Tuesday after two days of talks and tours of devastated areas, he said he was convinced that the Lebanese were serious about preserving the cease-fire and moving to a permanent peace.
“They believe that, handled properly, they can use this moment to strengthen their state,” Mr. Annan said in an interview in his hotel room in Jerusalem Tuesday night.
The Lebanese were committed, he said, to “the idea that you cannot have a state within a state, but have to have one authority, one law and one gun.” His reference was to the dominance in southern Lebanon of the Hezbollah militia, which provoked the hugely destructive 34-day war with Israel by capturing two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
“I believe the Lebanese because they have seen what has happened to their country,” he said.
Mr. Annan had spent his second day in Lebanon seeing much of that destruction, touring the border area in the south and visiting the headquarters of Unifil, the 2,000-member United Nations force that has been in Lebanon for years. That force is supposed to grow to 15,000, matched by a like number of Lebanese Army troops, to patrol the south.
Speaking in the Unifil office in Naqura, about two and a half miles north of the Israeli border, Mr. Annan said that “The Lebanese have shown they are serious about the implementation of 1701 in all the deployments and efforts they have made.”
Security Council Resolution 1701 brought the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel to a halt on Aug. 14 and established a buffer zone in southern Lebanon that is to be cleared of all weapons not authorized by the Lebanese government.
As one example of how the Lebanese were showing good faith with the demands of the measure, he noted that Hezbollah had so far committed many fewer cease-fire violations than Israel had.
A daily report from Unifil that Mr. Annan gave to Israel’s defense minister, Amir Peretz, Tuesday evening showed that Hezbollah had violated the cease-fire four times, while Israel had done so nearly 70 times. “Hezbollah is showing incredible discipline,” Mr. Annan said.
Today, however, there were also signs of limits to Lebanese officials’ willingness to comply with requests that they see as going beyond the resolution.
A member of the Lebanese cabinet who belongs to Hezbollah, Mohammed Fneish, said that the militant group would not release the two Israeli soldiers whom it seized last month, saying that they would be freed only as part of a prisoner exchange, according to The Associated Press.
And Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was quick to reject suggestions made by Mr. Annan and Israeli officials today that negotiations over the cease-fire could lead to a full-blown peace accord between the two countries.
Lebanon, Mr. Siniora said, “will be the last Arab country that could sign a peace agreement with Israel,’’ The A.P. reported.
On Tuesday, at the Naqura base, Mr. Annan was briefed by the force commander, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini of France, on how an expanded Unifil would deploy its troops to coordinate with the 15,000 Lebanese troops that Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon has readied to send to the south.
Mr. Annan also laid a wreath at a memorial to those killed in service to the mission, including four unarmed United Nations observers who died when their post came under repeated Israeli fire on July 25.
Later he toured the border in a helicopter, surveying flattened hilltop villages and bombed out roads and bridges from the air, and visiting four United Nations posts, including the wrecked one at Khiam where the four observers died.
Between posts, the team drove across the rocky scrubland and through largely deserted villages in white vans with black United Nations markings and blue United Nations flags. Posters of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, and yellow banners with the group’s insignia were common roadside sights. At one crossroads, sullen villagers greeted the passing convoy with handwritten signs saying, “Americans and Israelis are the terrorists.”
At one post, manned by members of an Indian battalion in blue turbans, the commander laid out on a table pieces from Hezbollah rockets and Israeli aerial bombs that had rained in on the peacekeepers during the 34-day siege.
The commander pointed with a look of helplessness to a spot just outside the post’s perimeter fence where Hezbollah had set up a launching site. General Pellegrini recalled how he had sent letters of protest to the Lebanese government without getting a single reply.
Asked how he could react with the new powers conferred on the enlarged Unifil mission, he said, “Now we can use forceful means.”
In the interview, Mr. Annan said he understood the concern over the ambiguity in the rules of engagement over who would be responsible for disarming Hezbollah and how it would be done, but he warned of the consequences of an overly aggressive approach.
“It’s a constant balancing act in Lebanon,” he said. “You have to make sure that while you try to help them, you don’t destabilize them. When people say the army should go and disarm Hezbollah, you’re asking for civil war.”
Speaking today in the West Bank, Mr. Annan defended his statements about the need for the disarmament of Hezbollah through political, not military, means, which have been criticized by Israeli officials. He said that most successful disarmament programs, like that of the Irish Republican Army, had been carried out in this fashion.
"It doesn’t always have to be done by force,’’ he said. "In some cases, if you try to do it by force, you compound the problem.’’
Warren Hoge reported from Jerusalem for this article and John O’Neil reported from New York.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:15 PM | Permalink

At Least 48 Dead in Iraq Violence

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/31iraqcnd.html
August 30, 2006
At Least 48 Dead in Iraq Violence
By DAMIEN CAVE [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 30 — Shootings and hidden bombs at a market, a gas station and army recruiting center killed at least 48 Iraqis today, continuing a wave of violence that has defied increased efforts to stanch the spread of sectarian bloodshed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/31iraqcnd.html
August 30, 2006
At Least 48 Dead in Iraq Violence
By DAMIEN CAVE [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 30 — Shootings and hidden bombs at a market, a gas station and army recruiting center killed at least 48 Iraqis today, continuing a wave of violence that has defied increased efforts to stanch the spread of sectarian bloodshed.
In the deadliest incident, a bomb inside a vendor’s cart exploded just after 10 a.m. in Shourja market, Baghdad’s oldest and largest bazaar, killing at least 24 civilians and wounding 35, Interior Ministry officials said.
Earlier and just south of the capital, an explosives-rigged bicycle blew up near an army recruiting center in Hilla, killing at least 12 people, the authorities said. A car bomb near a gas station in Baghdad also killed two civilians and wounded 21, including five policemen, who rushed to the scene in response to an earlier blast a few minutes earlier.
Also in Baghdad, gunmen executed a senior Justice Ministry official, Nadiya Mohammad Hasan, her driver and a guard, and the authorities found 13 bodies all over the city. With at least 11 additional civilians killed throughout the country, the tally of Iraqis killed or found dead today reached 65, according to Iraqi officials.
The rash of attacks — reflecting a spike in violence that has claimed roughly 200 lives since Sunday — came despite a new security plan for the capital, on a day when the top American general in Iraq said that Iraqi forces could take over security as early as next year.
“I don’t have a date,” Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said in Baghdad. “But I can see — over the next 12 to 18 months — I can see the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country, with very little coalition support.”
Three years into the war, American and Iraqi officials have grown increasingly eager to show progress. In recent weeks, they have repeatedly pointed to evidence of a decline in killings this month after increases in June and July.
Yet the bloodshed of the past few days has darkened the statistical achievement.
Americans have not been spared. The United States military said today that a marine from the First Armored Division was killed in action Tuesday in Anbar province. Military officials also said that they had misidentified the number of soldiers dead from an attack on a Stryker vehicle Sunday in western Baghdad; two American died from the attack, not four, though the total number killed that day remained at nine.
So far this month, 60 American service members have killed in Iraq, up from 43 in July, and nearly even with the 61 killed in June, according to Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military fatalities. In all, 2,362 American men and women in uniform have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war, according to the Department of Defense.
The toll for Iraqis is far higher, with more than 100 people killed per day in June and July by spreading sectarian violence, according to the Iraqi government figures. Statistics for August have not been released, but the attack at Shourja market was just the latest attempt to kill as many civilians as possible by targeting a crowded area.
The explosion destroyed scores of makeshift stalls, sent smoke towering over buildings, and spread body parts and bloodied cartons of nuts and umbrellas through the streets.
“Two brothers of the restaurant owners died, in addition to four cardamom vendors, all women whose bodies were found headless,” said Ali Jasim, 47, a yogurt vendor at the market who narrowly missed being killed. “One of the women’s sons was getting married tomorrow.”
A few hours after the explosion, piles of debris had been swept to the curb. A funeral procession flowed through the street, carrying one of the victims killed by the bomb.
Some of the mourners and bystanders blamed the United States, echoing a commonly held belief among Iraqis that the American government initiates the violence to justify its occupation. Others, like Raheem Kadem, 44, a high school gym teacher from Sadr City, blamed Iraqi officials.
“Where is government?” he said. “Why have the politicians left the people to face their destiny while the government hides behind the walls of the heavily protected green zone?”
“Things are going worse,” he said. “It has been three and half years since they came to power, and nothing has been improved.”
In an effort to patch up Iraq’s defense minister met with the provincial governor and other local leaders in an effort to shore up support for the government after his troops clashed for more than 12 hours on Sunday with Shiite militias. He announced that there would be a ban on weapons, though he offered no plan for enforcing it, and said that when rival Shiite factions had disputes with forces in the area, they should ask him to intervene.
The battle was one of the worst internal conflicts in recent memory, pitting Iraqi troops against members of the Mahdi army, loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and other militias. And by today, the death toll had increased: Iraqi police and army officials said 23 soldiers were killed, along with 13 civilians.
General Casey said that Iraqi forces “gave much better than they got,” but his assessment could not be verified. He insisted that the clash was not a setback for the army and that the government did not intend to back down.
“The battle may be over,” he said. “But the campaign to clean that city up and to restore it to Iraqi government control isn’t finished.”
Khalid al-Ansary, Qais Mizher and Ali Adeeb contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:14 PM | Permalink

Iranian President Meets Press and Is Challenged

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html
August 30, 2006
Iranian President Meets Press and Is Challenged
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [just as surely, they count on the US not being patient and playing into their strategy] [**************]
TEHRAN, Aug. 29 — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meant to use Tuesday to focus attention on his challenge to the president of the United States: a face-off in a live televised debate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html
August 30, 2006
Iranian President Meets Press and Is Challenged
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [just as surely, they count on the US not being patient and playing into their strategy] [**************]
TEHRAN, Aug. 29 — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meant to use Tuesday to focus attention on his challenge to the president of the United States: a face-off in a live televised debate.
But at a freewheeling two-hour news conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad also found himself challenged by local reporters who questioned the government’s economic program and its tolerance of a critical press. [*********]
The marathon question-and-answer session offered a window into one of the many contradictions of Iranian politics and governance: even as the government grows more authoritarian, it is openly criticized and challenged on its performance. [*****]
This was Mr. Ahmadinejad’s fourth news conference since taking office a year ago, and it came just three days before a deadline set by the United Nations Security Council for Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium.
The president used the opportunity to continue Iran’s defiant posture toward the West — the United States and Britain in particular. He made it clear that Iran would not meet the deadline and that it would risk sanctions.
“I announce that I am fully prepared to debate world and international issues with George Bush in a televised debate,” he said in his prepared remarks. “Of course, only under the conditions that this debate is broadcast live and without censors, especially for the nation of U.S.” [*******]
Although the White House immediately dismissed the challenge as a diversion, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks appeared intended to further three objectives: to position Iran as taking the moral high ground by making the United States look like the party unwilling to talk; to drive a wedge between the United States and Britain on one side and France and Germany on the other; and to reiterate Iran’s determined refusal to give up its enrichment program.
“Peaceful nuclear energy is the right of the Iranian nation,” he said, repeating what has become a mantra of his administration. “The Iranian nation has chosen that based upon international regulations, it wants to use it, and no one can stop it.”
The news conference veered off into an unruly question-and-answer session, with reporters praising the president, questioning him and some jumping from their seats demanding that their questions be taken. The president politely admonished one reporter, saying he needed to behave better.
One reporter said he had no question but wanted to recite poetry.
A reporter for a small newspaper called The Path of the People stood to ask a question and said: “I was hoping when you arrived I would share my pain with you. Now I have no pain in my heart, only happiness.”
But as the conference continued, Mr. Ahmadinejad found himself challenged on several issues of local importance, most focusing on the economy or on efforts to silence criticism of his government in the press. [*****]
One reporter said the government’s decision to spend billions of dollars to subsidize gasoline amounted to welfare for the rich, an assertion the president disputed. Another said that although the president claimed to support the press, his spokesman sought to have the judiciary investigate critical reporters.
“This contradicts what you said,” the reporter said into the microphone as Mr. Ahmadinejad listened. The same reporter said the president’s interior minister had denied permits to 14 groups wanting to hold demonstrations.
The president responded quickly, dismissing the complaints, and he tried to move on. But the challenges kept coming — not one after the other, but more consistently as the confidence in the room seemed to grow. [******]
“Food is very expensive to buy,”‘ said Nasser Alaghbandan, a reporter with the Tehran daily Jam-e-Jam, adding that whenever anyone asked the government spokesman about that issue he responded by citing government sticker prices, not actual prices.
At first Mr. Ahmadinejad responded with a quip, saying maybe the reporter should go shopping at the same store as his spokesman. He eventually said the rate of inflation was actually lower since he took office, but acknowledged that more needed to be done to bring down some specific costs, especially housing.[*****]
“I am not happy it increased,” he said of the cost of housing.
As the news conference demonstrated, Iran’s leadership faces two primary challenges simultaneously, its nuclear program and its economy. On the nuclear front the president was resolute. On the economy, the issue that was the core of his campaign, he cited some accomplishments but asked for patience and more time.
“I did not expect in 10, 11, 12 months, I did not expect the economic programs of the government would be tangible everywhere,” he said, adding that they had been felt by some people.
The president, in his now trademark cream-colored suit and open collar with no tie, entered the packed conference hall from a side door. He climbed up onto a platform and briefly held his right hand over his head in a sort of hero’s greeting to the crowd.
He smiled through much of the conference, joked with questioners, and bobbed and weaved around many questions. He avoided answering directly when asked if Iran would be willing to take steps to prove that it was not after a nuclear weapons program, or if it would be willing to have face-to-face talks with the United States.
But Mr. Ahmadinejad did give some insight into sometimes ambiguous meaning of some of his statements. On Saturday the president said, “We are not a threat for any country, even the Zionist regime that is the enemy of the countries in the region.”
A reporter asked if that represented a change in position from his earlier call for Israel to be removed from the region. He replied by saying that swatting a baby’s hand to stop it from putting its fingers in a fire is not a threat. [******]
“We are a peaceful country,” he said, “but recognize legitimate defense as our legal right.” [******]
Iranian officials have also said they will be willing to hold talks on all issues regarding their nuclear program, so long as there are no preconditions. Asked if that meant that the government would be willing to consider, in the course of negotiations, suspending uranium enrichment, the president said: “We are ready to negotiate. They can put any question to us. Our response will be based on the inalienable rights of Iran.”
On the topic of debating his American counterpart, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s objective seemed as clear as when he sent Mr. Bush a letter last spring asking him to re-examine his foreign policies in the light of his Christian values.
While the White House dismissed the letter, and many of Iran’s own intellectuals scoffed at it, the Iranian president won points among his growing legion of followers in the region. Political analysts said he was hoping for the same response with the debate proposal. [*******]
“He is saying we want to talk, but Bush is refusing,” said Mustafa el-Labbad, an expert in Iranian affairs based in Cairo. “He wants to embarrass him by saying, ‘We are willing to negotiate, but he is refusing.’ ”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:13 PM | Permalink

U.S. Envoy in Sudan Fails to Get Accord

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/africa/30sudan.html
August 30, 2006
U.S. Envoy in Sudan Fails to Get Accord
By LYDIA POLGREEN [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************] [followup]
EL FASHER, Sudan, Aug. 29 — A senior State Department official sent to Sudan to seek an understanding on a United Nations force to calm the conflict in the troubled Darfur region left Khartoum on Tuesday without an agreement from President Omar al-Bashir.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/africa/30sudan.html
August 30, 2006
U.S. Envoy in Sudan Fails to Get Accord
By LYDIA POLGREEN [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************] [followup]
EL FASHER, Sudan, Aug. 29 — A senior State Department official sent to Sudan to seek an understanding on a United Nations force to calm the conflict in the troubled Darfur region left Khartoum on Tuesday without an agreement from President Omar al-Bashir.
The official, Jendayi E. Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, waited two days to meet Mr. Bashir, extending her trip by a day after Mr. Bashir sent word that he was too busy to meet her.
The meeting did finally take place, but appeared to have produced no change of heart from Mr. Bashir, who has said that United Nations troops will be seen as occupying forces and that Sudan’s military will fight them.
“They met, and she has left,” said Katharine Moseley, spokeswoman for the United States Embassy in Khartoum. No further details were released, and Ms. Frazer did not speak to reporters, boarding a plane within 30 minutes of her meeting with Mr. Bashir, Ms. Moseley said.
When Ms. Frazer arrived Saturday she was greeted by a crowd chanting anti-American slogans and waving banners telling her to “Go home.”
The United States and Britain have introduced a Security Council resolution calling for a 20,000-member peacekeeping force to shore up a shaky peace accord in Darfur. More than 200,000 people have died here and 2.5 million have been displaced in a conflict that has raged since 2003 between the Arab-dominated government and rebel groups fighting for more autonomy.
Sudan has resisted the force, proposing instead to have a weak and ill-equipped African Union force that is already in Darfur strengthened and to use 10,000 of its own troops to fight rebels who refused to sign the peace agreement reached in May with one of the rebel factions.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:13 PM | Permalink

In Chechen’s Humiliation, Questions on Rule of Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/europe/30chechnya.html
August 30, 2006
In Chechen’s Humiliation, Questions on Rule of Law
By C. J. CHIVERS [Russia] [former ussr] [Chechnya] [jihadis and separatists] [sharia] [*********]
ARGUN, Russia, Aug. 26 — The humiliation of Malika Soltayeva, a pregnant Chechen woman suspected of adultery, was ferocious and swift.
Ms. Soltayeva, 23, had been away from home for a month and was reported missing by her family. When she returned, her husband accused her of infidelity and banished her from their apartment. [****]The local authorities found her at her aunt’s residence. They said they had a few questions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/europe/30chechnya.html
August 30, 2006
In Chechen’s Humiliation, Questions on Rule of Law
By C. J. CHIVERS [Russia] [former ussr] [Chechnya] [jihadis and separatists] [sharia] [*********]
ARGUN, Russia, Aug. 26 — The humiliation of Malika Soltayeva, a pregnant Chechen woman suspected of adultery, was ferocious and swift.
Ms. Soltayeva, 23, had been away from home for a month and was reported missing by her family. When she returned, her husband accused her of infidelity and banished her from their apartment. [****]The local authorities found her at her aunt’s residence. They said they had a few questions.
What followed was no investigation. In a law enforcement compound in this town in east-central Chechnya, the men who served as Argun’s police sheared away her hair and her eyebrows and painted her scalp green, the color associated with Islam. [******] A thumb-thick cross was smeared on her brow. [******]
Ms. Soltayeva, a Muslim, had slept with a Christian Russian serviceman, [****]they said. Her scarlet letter would be an emerald cross. She was forced to confess, ordered to strip, and beaten with wooden rods and hoses on her buttocks, arms, legs, hands, stomach and back.
“Turn and be condemned by Allah,” one of her tormentors said, demanding that she position herself so he could strike her more squarely. [*******]
The torture of Ms. Soltayeva, recorded on a video obtained by The New York Times, and other recent brutish acts and instances of religious policing, raise questions about Chechnya’s direction. [*******]
Since 2004, the war in Chechnya has tilted sharply in the Kremlin’s favor, as open combat with separatists has declined in intensity and frequency. [*****]Moscow now administers the republic and fights the remaining insurgency largely through paramilitary forces led by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the powerful young Chechen premier. [******]
Mr. Kadyrov’s public persona is flamboyantly pro-Russian. He praises President Vladimir V. Putin and has pledged to rebuild Chechnya and lead it back to the Kremlin’s fold. “I cannot tell you how great my love for Russia is,” he said in an interview this year.
But beneath this publicly professed loyalty, some of Chechnya’s indigenous security forces — with their evident anti-Slavic racism, institutionalized brutality, culture of impunity and intolerant interpretation of a pre-medieval Islamic code — have demonstrated the vicious behavior that Russia has said its latest invasion of Chechnya, in 1999, was supposed to stop. [*****]
Human rights groups and Chechen civilians say that these security forces’ ambitions and loyalties are uncertain and that their actions are unchecked. The republic’s course, they say, is dangerous for Russians and Chechens alike. [******]
Few people have yet compared the current disorder with the end of the brief period of Chechen autonomy, in the late 1990’s, when rebels and foreign Islamic mercenaries operated terrorist training camps in the forests, and when Islamic courts sentenced criminals to execution by firing squads, which were broadcast on Chechen television news. But Mr. Kadyrov’s police and security forces, known as kadyrovsty, are staffed mostly with uneducated young men, some of whom have been fighting for years, including many former rebels who have changed sides.
Recent videos of their conduct, provided to The New York Times by outraged Chechens, show an unsettling pattern.
One shows a man and a woman in the town of Shali, each married to someone else, who were suspected of flirting in a car this summer. The police swarmed around the couple, jeering at them, and directed the man to kick the woman. [*****]The couple was then forced to dance a brief lezginka, a traditional and often sexually charged dance. The police kicked the woman, too, and pulled her scarf and hair.
Although the faces of several of the officers are clear, they have yet to come under investigation by higher authorities.
Another instance of unrestrained behavior occurred in late July in Kurchaloi, when one of Mr. Kadyrov’s units killed a rebel, Akhmad Dushayev, and beheaded his body. The severed head was displayed on a pipe in the town’s center, residents said in interviews.
Videos show that, later, the kadyrovsty, many in police uniforms, casually amused themselves with the head, joking as they displayed it in a garage. Another video shows the head adorned with a cap and with a cigarette in its mouth. [*****]
Residents said the police justified the beheading by saying that Mr. Dushayev had previously cut off the head of a pro-Kremlin Chechen fighter, and that the vengeance was fair play.
Ms. Soltayeva’s own experience, much of which was captured on video, was an accumulation of terror, pain and loss.
She was seized March 19, and mocked throughout a torture session that lasted nearly two hours. “Call for Sergei!” one of the policemen said, using the name of her assumed lover as he beat her. “Sergei! Help!” [*******]
Next they told her to dress, and drove her to her husband’s courtyard and made her dance before her neighbors. “Look how ugly you are,” another policeman said.
When she staggered away, several of them kicked her with their heavy black boots. Two days later she miscarried, and has been largely out of public view since.
The episode, which took place five months ago, was not investigated, even though videos showing the torture were passed along on cellphones throughout Argun and other Chechen towns. [*****]The videos circulated widely enough that accurate details of her abuse were known by roughly half of the Chechens interviewed by The New York Times.
“It is just outrageous lawlessness,” Ms. Soltayeva said in an interview in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital.
As is common in crumbling marriages, the details of Ms. Soltayeva’s family life and behavior are in dispute. Her former husband’s family says she had an affair with a Russian serviceman she met at a store where she worked as a cashier. She says that she did not, and that she was faithful to her husband even though he beat her.
Her whereabouts in the weeks leading up to her beating are also a source of contention.
Ms. Soltayeva said she was away from home because she had been abducted by masked men who eventually released her, a phenomenon in Chechnya that is common enough that her own family says they believe her. [*****]Her husband’s family, and the police, say that she left Chechnya to try to live with her Russian lover, and that she returned when it did not work out.
Natalya Estemirova, a staff member at the Grozny office of Memorial, a private human rights group, said she tried to bring the case to the Chechen authorities, but they threatened Ms. Soltayeva with criminal charges for falsely claiming to have been kidnapped. They showed no interest in the police violence, she said.
Allegations of state-sponsored horrors, and claims that Russian and Chechen officials have allowed servicemen to commit crimes with impunity, have been a regular accompaniment to the Chechen wars.
Human rights groups have documented mass graves, extralegal executions, widespread use and tolerance of torture, illegal detention, rape, robbery and kidnapping. [*****]
Some cases have seemed a matter of policy, as when suspected rebel supporters have been abducted during police and military sweeps. Other cases appeared to flow from the rage, drunkenness or frustration of ordinary soldiers fighting a savage guerrilla war. [********]
What has made several recent cases different is that many of the kadyrovsty, unsophisticated gunmen who have had little contact with the world beyond Chechnya, have acquired cellphones with small video cameras and have casually, even gleefully, recorded their own crimes.
The video sequences are then shared, multiplying as they swiftly pass from phone to phone.
In a long interview earlier this year, Mr. Kadyrov said that his units were being professionalized and that the armed men under his command integrated into formal government structures. He insisted that they would be able to provide security and competent policing.
[On Aug. 29, The Times provided Mr. Kadyrov’s office with four videos of Ms. Soltayeva’s torture. Mr. Kadyrov said through a spokeswoman that upon viewing them he had ordered the Chechen Interior Ministry to investigate. “Criminal charges will be brought against all responsible for this,” said the spokeswoman, Tatyana Georgiyeva.]
Ms. Estemirova said that the unit in Argun that seized Ms. Soltayeva had been formally disbanded in the spring, but that its members were simply transferred into new “professional” battalions, known as North and South.
“They were assimilated into North and South and never checked by prosecutors,” she said. “Now they are more difficult to arrest.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:12 PM | Permalink

Pressures Increase on Pakistan’s Government

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/asia/30pakistan.html
August 30, 2006
Pressures Increase on Pakistan’s Government
By CARLOTTA GALL and SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [Jihadis central] [the new Afghanistan] [Musharraf’s dangerous balancing act] [here Baluchistan separatists] [followup on unrest since confirmed killing of Baluchistan leader] [*******]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 29 — The government of Pakistan came under mounting political pressure on Tuesday as rioting continued for the third day in Baluchistan after the killing of a prominent rebel tribal leader, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz faced a no-confidence vote lodged by an alliance of opposition parties. [*****]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/asia/30pakistan.html
August 30, 2006
Pressures Increase on Pakistan’s Government
By CARLOTTA GALL and SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [Jihadis central] [the new Afghanistan] [Musharraf’s dangerous balancing act] [here Baluchistan separatists] [followup on unrest since confirmed killing of Baluchistan leader] [*******]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 29 — The government of Pakistan came under mounting political pressure on Tuesday as rioting continued for the third day in Baluchistan after the killing of a prominent rebel tribal leader, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz faced a no-confidence vote lodged by an alliance of opposition parties. [*****]
Four people died in the protests — three in a bomb explosion and one policeman in clashes with protesters, [*****]news agencies reported.
The opposition failed in its no-confidence vote against Mr. Aziz, a former executive with Citibank, garnering only 136 votes of the 172 needed to pass the measure in the 342-member Parliament. But the vote was seen as an opening maneuver by the opposition alliance in a contentious atmosphere ahead of elections in 2007. [*****]
Angry speakers condemned the use of military force that led to the death of the 79-year-old tribal leader and former legislator, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, [*****]in a mountain cave in his native Baluchistan, in the south, and criticized the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is also the head of the army.
Legislators accused the prime minister of corruption, particularly in recent privatization deals, and mismanagement of the economy. More broadly and perhaps more ominously for the government, they focused on the lack of democracy under General Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999, and the dubious legitimacy of the prime minister, who was named to the post in 2004 after a politically safe seat was found for him in Parliament.
“The no-confidence vote is not just about the failures of the government of the past four years, but about the policy failures of President Musharraf over the past seven years,” said the leader of the opposition, Maulana Fazlur Rehman. “The government should resign.”
“It was alleged that past governments and corruption destroyed the country and a new system against corruption and new policies would be introduced, but the present government has also not lagged behind in these crimes,” he said.
Mr. Fazlur Rehman also said the prime minister had failed to curb inflation and that the process of privatization has not been transparent.
His partner in a coalition of religious parties, Qazi Hussein Ahmed, weighed in against General Musharraf for his pro-American policies, entertaining guests with dancing girls, using the army against the tribes and people of Pakistan, and imposing a banker from abroad as prime minister. [******]
Mr. Ahmed, like others, condemned Mr. Bugti’s death. “Nawab Bugti was a member of Parliament and ruthlessly eliminated,” he said.
“Musharraf is the root of the evil,’’ he said. “Shaukat Aziz is not the main person responsible.” [*******]
The opposition has been leveling corruption allegations against Mr. Aziz since the Pakistan Supreme Court rejected the government’s bid to sell a majority stake of the state-owned Pakistan Steel Mills, criticizing the process as hasty.
The allegations are not baseless, said Shahid Hasan Siddiqui, an economist based in Karachi. [******]He added that Mr. Aziz’ handling of a sudden sugar shortage earlier this year, a stock market crash in 2005 and the privatization process were questionable and merited investigation.
Mr. Aziz told Parliament that the privatization process had been in accordance with international practice and that the no-confidence resolution was based on “false allegations, frivolous and selective use of distorted information designed to mislead the nation.”
“My heart and hands are clean, my strength has been transparency and integrity, and this was an attempt to malign it,” he said at a news conference just after the vote.
He added that the vote showed discipline and unity among the government coalition, which has appeared fractious in recent months.
Underscoring the tempestuousness of the day was the continuing violence in the south in reaction to the death on Saturday of Mr. Bugti, who for more than 50 years had dominated the Baluchi political scene. Some 10,000 mourners turned out for prayers for Mr. Bugti at the stadium in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
Townspeople observed a citywide strike and shops were shut and the streets deserted. A policeman was killed in a clash with rioters in Quetta and a bomb exploded in a town called Hub to the south, killing three people. [******]
Tensions remained high as the government delayed handing over Mr. Bugti’s body to his relatives, saying that he was buried in the rubble of the cave and that it would take days to dig him out. Yet the bodies of the six soldiers who died in the explosion were retrieved and buried Monday, the military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said.
General Sultan contradicted earlier claims by the government that they had not known that Mr. Bugti was in the cave, telling journalists at a news briefing on Tuesday that members of the law enforcement agencies had entered the cave to negotiate Mr. Bugti’s surrender. [*********]
“The government had intended to take him into custody,’’ General Sultan said. “Every effort was being made to apprehend him alive.’’ [*****]
An explosion caused the cave to collapse when the law enforcement officers were inside, he said.
There is widespread skepticism over the government’s version of events. “I don’t believe it was an accident,’’ Agha Shahid Bugti, a senator and Mr. Bugti’s son-in-law, said by telephone from Quetta. “With all the weapons and equipment America has given the Pakistani Army, it is not difficult for them to know the precise location of someone. It was a well planned operation to remove him from the scene.”
“We think they are afraid of the public backlash,’’ he said. “The people knew Bugti as a political leader, and a father figure, so I don’t think things will get easy for the government. [*******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:12 PM | Permalink

Britain Charges 3 More Suspects With Plotting to Bomb Airplanes

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/europe/30britain.html
August 30, 2006
Britain Charges 3 More Suspects With Plotting to Bomb Airplanes
By ALAN COWELL [London][UK’s Muslims] [competing forces shape their views] [quite different that their 1st-generation parents] [Pakistan’s connection] [Jihadis central] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [use psci 469] [*******]
LONDON, Aug. 29 — The British police charged three more people on Tuesday with major terrorism and conspiracy counts [****]after this month’s alert over what the police described as a plot to bomb airliners flying from Britain to the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/europe/30britain.html
August 30, 2006
Britain Charges 3 More Suspects With Plotting to Bomb Airplanes
By ALAN COWELL [London][UK’s Muslims] [competing forces shape their views] [quite different that their 1st-generation parents] [Pakistan’s connection] [Jihadis central] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [use psci 469] [*******]
LONDON, Aug. 29 — The British police charged three more people on Tuesday with major terrorism and conspiracy counts [****]after this month’s alert over what the police described as a plot to bomb airliners flying from Britain to the United States.
The charges brought to 11 the number of people accused of conspiring to murder and to bomb airplanes flying to the United States [*****]— the most serious charges brought against the suspects embroiled in the alleged conspiracy.
The police announced the charges separately, saying early Tuesday evening that a man identified as Nabeel Hussain [****]had been charged with conspiracy to murder and planning to smuggle ‘‘improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board.’’ [****]As with the other suspects, Mr. Hussain, 22, had earlier been held without charge under British counterterrorism laws.
Several hours later, the police said two men identified as Mohammed Yasar Gulzar [****] and Mohammed Shamin Uddin [*****] had been charged with the same offenses. [****]Mr. Gulzar’s name had not previously been made public in the inquiries that led to a huge roundup of suspects on Aug. 10 and set off a terror alert in Britain and the United States.
Most of the names of other people charged with offenses had been on a list released by the Bank of England on Aug. 11 when the bank announced that the assets of 19 people had been frozen. Mr. Uddin, 35, was the oldest person on the list.
Apart from the 11 people facing the most serious charges, three other people — including two of Mr. Hussain’s brothers and Cossar Ali, the wife of another conspiracy suspect — are charged with lesser offenses, including withholding information from the authorities. [********]
Several people have been released without charge since the first arrests on Aug. 10.
The police said late Tuesday that five more suspects remained in prison under counterterrorism laws permitting detention without charge for 28 days. [****]Those laws require the police to seek a judge’s permission every seven days to continue holding suspects. That deadline falls on Wednesday, almost three weeks after the first arrests.
The tally of conspiracy suspects is complicated by the fact that a 17-year-old caught up in the initial police dragnet on Aug. 10 is now being held on a terrorism charge unrelated to the conspiracy case. [*******]
The 17-year-old is too young to be identified by name under British court rules, but he is charged with “having in his possession a book on improvised devices, some suicide notes and wills with the identities of persons prepared to commit acts of terror, and a map of Afghanistan,’’ [******]The Press Association reported. His lawyer, Gareth Peirce, indicated during a court hearing on Tuesday that her client would deny the charges.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:11 PM | Permalink

Ex-Colleague Says Armitage Was Source of CIA Leak

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801278.html
Ex-Colleague Says Armitage Was Source of CIA Leak
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A06 [leakgate] [curiouser and curiouser] [why would Richard Armitage leak anything to Robert Novack, let alone a CIA operative?] [it’s difficult to understand what his motivation may have been] [***********]
The leak of information about an undercover CIA employee that provoked a special prosecutor's investigation of senior White House officials came from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, according to a former Armitage colleague at the department.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801278.html
Ex-Colleague Says Armitage Was Source of CIA Leak
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A06 [leakgate] [curiouser and curiouser] [why would Richard Armitage leak anything to Robert Novack, let alone a CIA operative?] [it’s difficult to understand what his motivation may have been] [***********]
The leak of information about an undercover CIA employee that provoked a special prosecutor's investigation of senior White House officials came from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, according to a former Armitage colleague at the department.
Armitage told newspaper columnist Robert D. Novak in the summer of 2003 that Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war, worked for the CIA, the colleague said. In October of that year, Armitage admitted to senior State Department officials that he had made the remark, which was based on a classified report he had read. [*****]
Novak collected what he considered to be a confirming comment from White House political strategist Karl Rove, then wrote a column in July 2003 that cited Plame's CIA employment as a reason to question the credentials of the critic, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
In 2002, the CIA sent Wilson to Niger to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear material there. He subsequently accused the White House of distorting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Novak's column set off a chain of events that culminated in the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and a grand jury's indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for lying to investigators about his own conversations with reporters regarding Plame. [*********]
Fitzgerald has never commented on Armitage's role and has not brought charges against him.
Armitage's role in the case -- which he confirmed to the FBI in 2003 and later described to Fitzgerald and to the grand jury, his colleague said yesterday -- raises questions about when the White House became aware of the origins of Novak's story. President Bush said as late as 2005 that he was eager to learn all the facts behind the leak.
The case's origin in a conversation between Novak and Armitage is one of Washington's worst-kept secrets. Neither Novak nor Armitage has confirmed it, however, leaving a measure of uncertainty until now. [******]A story this weekend by Newsweek magazine was the first to cite confirming statements by former Armitage associates.
Armitage did not return a phone call to his office yesterday, but his former colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Armitage had described disclosing Plame's employment to Novak in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip, at the end of a conversation in Armitage's office. Armitage did not know at the time that Plame's identity was considered secret information and senior State Department officials concluded he did "not do anything wrong" [*********]when they learned about it months later, the former colleague said.
Armitage and two officials he later briefed on his role -- State Department legal adviser William Howard Taft IV and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- each discussed the matter with the FBI and testified before the grand jury, the former colleague said. But Fitzgerald told Armitage in February that he would not be charged with a crime, he said.
Three weeks before Armitage spoke to Novak, he made a similar, offhand disclosure of Plame's employment to Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward, the former colleague added. Armitage disclosed the conversation to Fitzgerald after Woodward reminded him of it in October 2005, and Woodward subsequently gave a deposition about the conversation. [************]
"Of course, I have nothing to say about sources," Woodward said yesterday.
Armitage's involvement in the matter does not fit neatly into the assertions of Bush administration critics that Plame's employment was disclosed as part of a White House conspiracy to besmirch Wilson by suggesting his Niger trip stemmed from nepotism at the CIA. Wilson and Plame have sued top administration officials, alleging that the leak was meant as retaliation.
But Armitage, the source Novak had described obliquely as someone who is "not a political gunslinger," was by all accounts hardly a tool of White House political operatives. [******] As the No. 2 official at the State Department from March 2001 to February 2005, Armitage was a prominent Republican appointee. But he also privately disagreed with the tone and style of White House policymaking on Iraq and other matters. [*********]
"Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn't mean that there wasn't a White House conspiracy to 'out' Valerie [Plame] Wilson. We don't think it affects the case," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group pressing the lawsuit.
Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:42 AM | Permalink

U.S. appoints envoy to counter Kurdish rebel threat

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900467.html
U.S. appoints envoy to counter Kurdish rebel threat
Reuters
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; 10:11 AM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [here the US takes an unusual move of appointing an envoy to coordinate with Iraqi and Turkish officials about Kurdish rebels] [note: it was reported yesterday—external—Kurdish rebels detonated targets in touristtowns in Turkey] [see placeholder in today’s external] [followup] [**********]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has appointed a former NATO commander as special envoy to help Turkey and Iraq fight Kurdish rebels along their border and in northern Iraq, the State Department said on Tuesday. [*******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900467.html
U.S. appoints envoy to counter Kurdish rebel threat
Reuters
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; 10:11 AM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [here the US takes an unusual move of appointing an envoy to coordinate with Iraqi and Turkish officials about Kurdish rebels] [note: it was reported yesterday—external—Kurdish rebels detonated targets in touristtowns in Turkey] [see placeholder in today’s external] [followup] [**********]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has appointed a former NATO commander as special envoy to help Turkey and Iraq fight Kurdish rebels along their border and in northern Iraq, the State Department said on Tuesday. [*******]
The appointment of retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, [*******]a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, underscored U.S. commitment to working with Turkey and Iraq to end "terrorism in all its forms," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"General Ralston will have responsibility for coordinating U.S. engagement with the government of Turkey and the government of Iraq to eliminate the terrorist threat of the PKK and other terrorist groups operating in northern Iraq and across the Turkey-Iraq border," said McCormack in a statement. [*********]
Several thousand members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, are believed to be hiding in the mountains of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, from where they slip across the border to attack Turkish police, troops and other targets. [***********]
The appointment of the special envoy comes after President Bush told Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last month that the United States wanted to deal more aggressively with PKK cross-border attacks. [*******]
Ankara has complained for months that the United States has not done enough to counter the PKK threat in Iraq. [*******]Turkey blames the PKK for more than 30,000 deaths since the start of its campaign for a Kurdish homeland in 1984.
Turkey has repeatedly warned it has the right under international law to conduct cross-border operations if Iraq and the United States fail to crack down on PKK rebels. Last week, Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish guerrilla positions in the Iraqi border region.
The United States, which has more than 130,000 troops in Iraq, fears that cross-border operations by Turkey will further complicate an already unstable environment there.
Diplomats have said Turkey is frustrated that the United States accepted Israel's right to launch attacks against its enemies in Lebanon while opposing Ankara taking unilateral action against the PKK in Iraq. [*********]
Ralston ended a 37-year career in the U.S. Air Force in 2003. Apart from his NATO post, he was also vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon from 1996-2000.
© 2006 Reuters

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:41 AM | Permalink

U.S. Blocks Men’s Return to California From Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/us/29hayat.html
August 29, 2006
U.S. Blocks Men’s Return to California From Pakistan
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD [federales] [fbi and others] [Pakistanis who are treated guilty by association] [difficult case] [************]
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 28 — Federal authorities have prevented two relatives of a father and son convicted recently in a terrorism-related case from returning home to California from Pakistan unless they agree to be interviewed by the F.B.I. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/us/29hayat.html
August 29, 2006
U.S. Blocks Men’s Return to California From Pakistan
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD [federales] [fbi and others] [Pakistanis who are treated guilty by association] [difficult case] [************]
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 28 — Federal authorities have prevented two relatives of a father and son convicted recently in a terrorism-related case from returning home to California from Pakistan unless they agree to be interviewed by the F.B.I. [*********]
It is unclear whether the men, Muhammad Ismail, 45, and his son Jaber, 18, have a direct connection to the terrorism case or if they have been caught up in circumstance.
The United States attorney’s office in Sacramento declined Monday to answer questions about the Ismails beyond confirming that the men had not been permitted to fly into the United States and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted to question them. [*********]
The United States attorney, McGregor W. Scott, reiterated a comment he had made to The San Francisco Chronicle, which reported Saturday about the Ismails’ troubles.
“They’ve been given the opportunity to meet with the F.B.I. over there and answer a few questions, and they’ve declined to do that,” Mr. Scott said through a spokeswoman, Mary Wenger.
The Ismails live in Lodi,[*********] Calif., a small farming town south of Sacramento, where their relatives Umer Hayat and his son, Hamid, were arrested last summer as part of what federal prosecutors said was an investigation into terrorist links.
The Hayats are the only people to have been charged. Hamid Hayat, the nephew of Muhammad Ismail and the cousin of Jaber, was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a training camp in Pakistan. Umer Hayat, in a deal reached with prosecutors after jurors deadlocked on terrorism charges, pleaded guilty in May to lying to the authorities about carrying $28,000 to Pakistan from California. [***********]
The Ismails discovered they were on the federal government’s no-fly list of people not allowed to enter the United States after they were refused permission to board a connecting flight in Hong Kong on April 21; they had been trying to return to California after several years in Pakistan, [*******]said Julia Harumi Mass of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who is representing them.
In Hong Kong, Ms. Mass said, they were told there was a problem with their passports; other family members traveled on to California, while the Ismails returned to Pakistan. There, a consular officer suggested there had been a mix-up and advised them to book a direct flight to the United States, but at the airport, they were told they were on the no-fly list, she said.
Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, was questioned by the F.B.I. at the American Embassy in Islamabad, but his father, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, declined to participate, [*******]Ms. Mass said. Jaber Ismail has refused further interrogation without a lawyer and has declined to take a polygraph test; Ms. Mass said the men were told these conditions had to be met before the authorities would consider letting them back into the United States.
She said the men had not been involved in terrorist activities; Jaber Ismail, she said, had gone to Pakistan in part for religious study.
“If the government had evidence instead of innuendo,” Ms. Mass said, “then they would be charged with a crime instead of being held hostage in a foreign land.” She said she had filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security, seeking the removal of the Ismails from the no-fly list and an explanation for why they were considered a threat. [***********]
Hamid Hayat mentioned Jaber Ismail in a marathon F.B.I. interrogation before he was charged, according to transcripts. He said his cousin had attended a camp in the past couple of years, but he was not sure if it was the same one he had attended. [*********]
Defense lawyers attacked the interrogation as coerced and misleading, saying that the camp Mr. Hayat had referred to involved religious instruction, not terrorism, and that investigators had intimidated the men into making false claims. The government never presented evidence that Mr. Hayat had attended the camp, beyond his own words.
Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has studied terrorism prosecutions, said the Ismails’ situation raised a host of difficult legal issues.
“There are a lot of Supreme Court cases on the right to travel,” Mr. Tobias said. “But you have to play them against the Patriot Act and whatever legislation may apply. This does render them stateless in some ways.” [*********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Nevada: Cheney Criticizes Idea of Leaving Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/washington/29brfs-001.html
August 29, 2006
Nevada: Cheney Criticizes Idea of Leaving Iraq
By DAVID S. CLOUD [white house] [veep cheney] [again flacking for the white house position on –Iraq] [that’s what veeps do] [but he had a particularly high stake in the outcocme since he and his neocons buddies pushed it so hard and predicted such an easy time] [***************]
In a speech to the annual convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Vice President Dick Cheney warned against a “precipitous withdrawal” from Iraq and suggested that those who advocate reducing the American troop presence are guilty of “self-defeating pessimism.” [*******]Mr. Cheney avoided direct references to the Democrats and the midterm elections, but his speech was heavy with political overtones. “Some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone,” he said. “But the exact opposite is true.” [********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:40 AM | Permalink

With Kazakh's Visit, Bush Priorities Clash

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801282.html
With Kazakh's Visit, Bush Priorities Clash
Autocrat Leads an Oil-Rich Country
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A01 [white house] [invited Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev to visit] [sort of makes a lie of the position in 2006 National security strategy of the United States that the US will foster democracy over short-term expediency] [*******]
President Bush launched an initiative this month to combat international kleptocracy, the sort of high-level corruption by foreign officials that he called "a grave and corrosive abuse of power" that "threatens our national interest and violates our values." [***]The plan, he said, would be "a critical component of our freedom agenda."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801282.html
With Kazakh's Visit, Bush Priorities Clash
Autocrat Leads an Oil-Rich Country
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A01 [white house] [invited Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev to visit] [sort of makes a lie of the position in 2006 National security strategy of the United States that the US will foster democracy over short-term expediency] [*******]
President Bush launched an initiative this month to combat international kleptocracy, the sort of high-level corruption by foreign officials that he called "a grave and corrosive abuse of power" that "threatens our national interest and violates our values." [***]The plan, he said, would be "a critical component of our freedom agenda."
Three weeks later, the White House is making arrangements to host the leader of Kazakhstan, an autocrat who runs a nation that is anything but free and who has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of pocketing the bulk of $78 million in bribes from an American businessman. Not only will President Nursultan Nazarbayev visit the White House, people involved say, but he also will travel to the Bush family compound in Maine. [********]
Nazarbayev's upcoming visit, according to analysts and officials, offers a case study in the competing priorities of the Bush administration at a time when the president has vowed to fight for democracy and against corruption around the globe. [********] Nazarbayev has banned opposition parties, intimidated the press and profited from his post, according to the U.S. government. But he also sits atop massive oil reserves that have helped open doors in Washington.
Nazarbayev is hardly the only controversial figure received at the top levels of the Bush administration. In April, the president welcomed to the Oval Office the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, [*******]who has been accused of rigging elections. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hosted Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, who has been found to have millions of dollars stashed in overseas bank accounts.
But the Kazakh leader has received especially warm treatment, given that the same government that will host him next month plans to go to trial in federal court in January to prove that he was paid off in the 1990s by a U.S. banker seeking to influence oil rights. Although the banker faces prison time, Nazarbayev has not been charged and has called the allegations illegitimate.
In addition to Nazarbayev's upcoming visit, Vice President Cheney went to the former Soviet republic in May to praise him as a friend, a trip that drew criticism because it came the day after Cheney criticized Russia for retreating from democracy. The latest invitation has sparked outrage among Kazakh opposition. [*********]
"It raises the question of how serious is the determination to fight kleptocracy," [*******]said Rinat Akhmetshin, director of the International Eurasian Institute, who works for Kazakh opposition. "Nazarbayev is a symbol of kleptocracy . . . and yet they are bringing him in. That sends a very clear signal to people inside Kazakhstan who are very well aware that he stole money from them."
The White House declined to comment because it has not yet officially announced the visit, but Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Evan Feigenbaum was in Kazakhstan last week working out details, and Kazakh officials said the trip will take place in late September. A spokesman for former president George H.W. Bush confirmed that Nazarbayev will visit Kennebunkport as part of his U.S. stay. "An old friend of his was in the U.S. and he extended an invitation," Bush spokesman Tom Frechette said.
An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the invitation has not been announced, said President Bush often meets with leaders of countries "that are not yet democracies" and uses the time to push for more freedom. "We've always been frank in our discussions with government officials from Kazakhstan about our concerns about lack of democratic movement, and we always press them for democratic reform," the official said.
Kazakhstan, a vast nation of 15 million on the Central Asian steppe, has emerged as an increasingly important player in the world energy market. With the largest crude oil reserves in the Caspian Sea region, Kazakhstan pumps 1.2 million barrels a day and exports 1 million of that. [******]The Kazakh government hopes to boost production to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2015, rivaling Iran. U.S. and Russian companies and governments have competed for access to its oil.
Nazarbayev, 66, a blast-furnace operator-turned-Communist functionary, has led Kazakhstan since 1990, when it was part of the Soviet Union, and has since won a series of tainted elections. [******]His government has banned or refused to register opposition parties, closed newspapers and harassed advocacy groups. Two opposition leaders were found dead of gunshots in disputed circumstances. [********]
But the Bush administration considers Nazarbayev a friendly, stable moderate in a region of harsher, sometimes hostile dictators and has been hopeful he will open up and cleanse his government. The Kazakh government under Nazarbayev recently embarked on an anti-corruption campaign that has resulted in arrests of mid-level officials.
"I really do think he has learned how to be clean," said Martha Brill Olcott, a Kazakhstan specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "He has learned a lot more about how you can promote to some degree divestiture [of assets]. Most of his holdings are, I wouldn't say transparent, but they're more so."
Others aren't sure. "When the United States is transparently soft on friendly dictators like Nazarbayev, it undermines the effort to be tough on not-so-friendly dictators," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch.
Transparency International, an anti-corruption organization, ranks Kazakhstan 2.6 on a 10-point scale, placing it 107th out of 159 countries graded. That's a decline from a 3.0 grade and 65th place in 2000.
"You don't have free elections, and the press is pretty much controlled by his family, and a significant portion of assets in Kazakhstan are directly or indirectly controlled by his family," said Miklos Marschall, the group's regional director. "But on the other hand, unlike other Central Asian countries, he is willing to initiate some step-by-step reforms. From our perspective, he's not the worst."
Nazarbayev visited the Bush White House in 2001 -- before the Justice Department filed a case in 2003 alleging that he had taken bribes and before the president issued a 2004 proclamation banning corrupt foreign officials from visiting the United States. A State Department official said hundreds of foreign officials have been denied visas under Bush's proclamation but could not explain how it would not apply in Nazarbayev's case. [***********]
U.S. prosecutors have charged businessman James H. Giffen with steering $78 million in bribes to Nazarbayev and one of his former prime ministers in the 1990s in exchange for influence in oil transactions. In addition to cash transferred to secret Swiss bank accounts, Nazarbayev, originally identified in court papers simply as "KO-2," allegedly received two snowmobiles, an $80,000 speedboat, fur coats for his wife and daughter, and tuition for his daughter at a Swiss boarding school and later George Washington University.
Giffen's attorneys have argued that he is not guilty because his actions were sanctioned by the U.S. government. Giffen says he disclosed his activities to agencies including the CIA and was encouraged to continue for national security reasons. The Justice Department is appealing a court decision allowing the defense. The case is scheduled to go to trial Jan. 16.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Share the Evidence On Iran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800858.html
Share the Evidence On Iran
By Micah Zenko
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A15 [oped] [the Iran NIE] [though classified it has leaked out recently] [for instance that US military leaders and intelliegence community believe it would be counterproductive to attack militarily] [open letter to the president a week or so ago] [and recent newspaper leaks] [****************]
How long until Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800858.html
Share the Evidence On Iran
By Micah Zenko
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A15 [oped] [the Iran NIE] [though classified it has leaked out recently] [for instance that US military leaders and intelliegence community believe it would be counterproductive to attack militarily] [open letter to the president a week or so ago] [and recent newspaper leaks] [****************]
How long until Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state?
The current best guess of American intelligence agencies is found in a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed last summer: “Left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons,” it says, yet it is unlikely that Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb before “early to mid-next decade.” [**********]
Senior Bush administration officials, lawmakers in both parties and analysts out of government are increasingly skeptical of the Iran NIE. They believe that the U.S. intelligence community is underestimating Iran's nuclear program after having overestimated Iraq's programs for weapons of mass destruction in 2002. [**********]
To counter the growing chorus of skeptics, President Bush should do in the case of Iran what he did with regard to the Iraq NIE after the invasion: declassify the key judgments in the document and the dissents from it. Of course, to ensure the ability to collect future intelligence on Iran, the declassified NIE should not reveal the sources and methods employed; it should simply declare what U.S. intelligence agencies believe and where they disagree.
Initially ordered by the National Intelligence Council in January 2005, the Iran NIE was the intelligence community's first comprehensive estimate of Iran since 2001. Unlike the flawed Iraq NIE, rushed to completion in 20 days and relying on questionable sources, the Iran NIE was crafted and debated over several months and reflects an updated reporting standard that required a "dramatic increase in the transparency of sourcing," [*********************]according to Gen. Michael V. Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence.
Fully declassifying the NIE's key judgments and dissents about Iran's nuclear program would serve four functions: [******]
First, [*] it would educate the public about U.S. intelligence agencies' best collective estimate of Tehran's nuclear intentions and capabilities. President Bush has declared that, regarding Iran, he "will not tolerate construction of a nuclear weapon." If it comes down to using military force, the American people will be more supportive if they clearly understand the threats, the knowns and the unknowns of Iran's nuclear program. It will ensure more probing media reporting and a more vigorous national debate.
Second, [**] it would slow down what Bush has labeled "wild speculation" about using force against Iran, since the intelligence estimate suggests we have years, not months, to exhaust all diplomatic avenues toward finding a solution.
Third, [***] since the NIE's central conclusions about Iran's nuclear program have already been selectively leaked to the media, declassifying the key judgments and dissents would publicly establish the intelligence community opinion. This would inoculate the White House against further intelligence leaks from hard-liners who seek a confrontation with Iran, and from Tehran's exaggerated claims of nuclear progress.
Fourth, [****] it would force America's allies in Europe and Israel to acknowledge the diverging estimates of their intelligence agencies about the likely birth date of an Iranian bomb. For example, British officials claim Iran will have "the technology to enable it to develop a nuclear weapon" by year's end, while the Israel Defense Forces has consistently put it at 2008. While such gaps in allied intelligence estimates remain, we should not expect a unified effort to find a diplomatic resolution.
As the president worried earlier this year: "People will say, if we're trying to make the case on Iran, 'Well, the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we can trust the intelligence in Iran?' " The first step toward trust at home and abroad is transparency.
The U.S. government's expert opinion about the Iranian nuclear program is contained in the summer 2005 NIE. President Bush has both a precedent and the legal authority to declassify an NIE "when it is in the public interest." [*********]Declassifying the key judgments and dissents of the Iran NIE clearly meets this criterion.
The writer is a research associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:39 AM | Permalink

Beyond the Cease-Fire

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801251.html
Beyond the Cease-Fire
Nice as it sounds, this is not the moment for an Israeli-Arab peace settlement.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A14
[editorial] [why Israel and Palestine . . . should NOT seek a settlement now] [the time is not propitious] [***************]
THE CEASE-FIRE in Lebanon appears to be gradually strengthening, thanks to belated but welcome commitments of peacekeeping troops by European countries and the manifest reluctance of either Israel or Hezbollah to renew hostilities. [******] Hasan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, is even sounding chastened: On Sunday he told a Lebanese television interviewer that he would "absolutely not" have launched the raid that triggered the war had he known what the result would be. [*****]Also regretful is Hamas, which started the fighting in Gaza in June with its own cross-border raid; [******]one of its spokesmen has publicly lamented the resulting "chaos." Behind the scenes, both Islamic movements are trying to strike a face-saving deal to release the Israeli soldiers they still hold hostage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801251.html
Beyond the Cease-Fire
Nice as it sounds, this is not the moment for an Israeli-Arab peace settlement.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A14
[editorial] [why Israel and Palestine . . . should NOT seek a settlement now] [the time is not propitious] [***************]
THE CEASE-FIRE in Lebanon appears to be gradually strengthening, thanks to belated but welcome commitments of peacekeeping troops by European countries and the manifest reluctance of either Israel or Hezbollah to renew hostilities. [******] Hasan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, is even sounding chastened: On Sunday he told a Lebanese television interviewer that he would "absolutely not" have launched the raid that triggered the war had he known what the result would be. [*****]Also regretful is Hamas, which started the fighting in Gaza in June with its own cross-border raid; [******]one of its spokesmen has publicly lamented the resulting "chaos." Behind the scenes, both Islamic movements are trying to strike a face-saving deal to release the Israeli soldiers they still hold hostage.
Can the truce lead to a more fundamental settlement between Israel and its neighbors? Various policymakers and politicians in and outside the region have boldly proclaimed this the moment when what they see as the root cause of the war -- Israel's conflict with the Palestinians -- should be resolved once and for all. [*******]In fact, as advocates such as French President Jacques Chirac ought to know, that goal is unachievable in the short run. Trying to bring it about by means of an international conference or other grandiose measures would only distract from the incremental but valuable political gains that could be realized in the war's aftermath. [********]
The war has probably killed the only promising prospect of a step toward Israeli-Palestinian peace, which was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to unilaterally withdraw Israeli settlements and troops from most of the West Bank. [******]While that wouldn't have resolved the conflict, it would have created space for a Palestinian state and ended Israel's day-to-day intervention in the lives of most Palestinians. Thanks to the cross-border raids and the rocket attacks of Hamas and Hezbollah -- both of which oppose a two-state solution -- many more Israelis now regard the previous unilateral withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza as mistakes. Mr. Olmert has told his cabinet that the West Bank pullout is no longer his priority.
The alternative to unilateralism is Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But the elected Hamas government appears no closer to accepting the essential precondition -- that it recognize Israel's right to exist -- than it was before the war. [******] A tentative step in that direction, a political pact between moderate Hamas leaders and the secular Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas, was disrupted by the initial raid. Talk of a coalition government in the war's aftermath is, so far, just that.
What Israel and outside parties can do now is take measures to strengthen the secular moderates in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories who oppose the extremism of Hamas and Hezbollah. [*****] Israel has often talked about bolstering Mr. Abbas, who still commands most Palestinian security forces, but has done little to do so. Mr. Olmert should at last make an effort to work with the Palestinian president. Lebanon's secular politicians have declared their intention to prevent further conflict along the border; Israel should reach out to those leaders, if only through intermediaries. [***]Western and Arab governments should quickly act on their declared intention to provide aid and training to Lebanon's government and armed forces. None of this will produce a breakthrough toward a Middle East peace. But it could, at best, lay the groundwork for one.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:38 AM | Permalink

A Tool We Need to Stop the Next Airliner Plot

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800849.html
A Tool We Need to Stop the Next Airliner Plot
By Michael Chertoff
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A15 [dhs secretary oped] [agitating for additional tools for gsave] [ingratiating himself with his bosses: W. and Cheney] [***********]
Imagine that our troops in Afghanistan raided an al-Qaeda safe house and captured a computer containing the cellphone numbers of operatives in Europe. Wouldn't it be important to know whether one of those cellphone numbers was used to book a transatlantic flight? Unfortunately, today our ability to make that connection remains limited: Information that terrorists readily share with travel agents cannot easily be shared throughout the United States government. That needs to change. [can you say NSA spying?] [*********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800849.html
A Tool We Need to Stop the Next Airliner Plot
By Michael Chertoff
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A15 [dhs secretary oped] [agitating for additional tools for gsave] [ingratiating himself with his bosses: W. and Cheney] [***********]
Imagine that our troops in Afghanistan raided an al-Qaeda safe house and captured a computer containing the cellphone numbers of operatives in Europe. Wouldn't it be important to know whether one of those cellphone numbers was used to book a transatlantic flight? Unfortunately, today our ability to make that connection remains limited: Information that terrorists readily share with travel agents cannot easily be shared throughout the United States government. That needs to change. [can you say NSA spying?] [*********]
Information sharing and intelligence gathering are some of our most important tools in the global war on terrorism. British authorities, in partnership with the United States and our allies, were able to disrupt the recent terrorist plot against passenger aircraft precisely because of timely, actionable intelligence, properly shared and acted upon before the terrorists could carry out their plans.
But despite the strong links we’ve forged with our European partners to protect our nations, we still remain handcuffed in our ability to use all available resources to identify threats and stop terrorists.
To defeat terrorists, we must limit their movement between countries and disable their worldwide networks by targeting our investigative resources. One technique practiced by the Department of Homeland Security and a number of foreign governments is the use of name-based information, such as passenger manifests and crew lists, to screen travelers coming to the United States before they get here. These manifests allow us to identify known persons of interest on watch lists and to act upon threats before they can reach our shores – even, where possible, before they depart on their trip. But how do we thwart a terrorist who has not yet been identified? [airplane travel data which dhs has been arguing for now for years] [**********]
One way is by using more of the detailed information collected by airlines and travel agencies when an individual books a flight. These passenger name records contain information, such as travel itineraries and payment details, that can be analyzed in conjunction with current intelligence to identify high-risk travelers before they board planes.
If we learned anything from Sept. 11, 2001, it is that we need to be better at connecting the dots of terrorist-related information. After Sept. 11, we used credit card and telephone records to identify those linked with the hijackers. But wouldn't it be better to identify such connections before a hijacker boards a plane?
By comparing passenger name record (PNR) data and intelligence gathered on known terrorists -- such as cellphone numbers collected in Afghanistan -- we can identify unknown threats for additional screening and enhance our ability to assess risk. At the same time, that means we will spend less time with inconvenient screening of low-risk travelers. [***********]
The U.S. government has collected PNR data on travelers aboard international flights to the United States since the early 1990s. This information is of such value that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Congress mandated its continued collection. But in the past few years European privacy concerns have limited the ability of counterterrorism officials to gain broad access to data of this sort.
For example, under an agreement with the European Union, U.S. Customs and Border Protection receives this information regularly, but it cannot routinely share it with investigators in another DHS component, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or with the FBI -- never mind with our allies in London. [********]This information might yet identify associates of those arrested in the plot in Britain, but the rules blind us in routinely searching for that connection.
DHS has made a strong commitment to protect personal privacy while screening international travelers. We do not profile based on race or ethnicity, but we do assess potential threats through careful analysis of individual behavior. The DHS chief privacy officer has closely reviewed the PNR program to ensure that it meets standards of fair information practices and U.S. law. This includes providing a process through which travelers can seek redress if they feel their freedoms have been violated.
Protecting personal privacy is a part of responding to the post-Sept. 11 world, but it should not reflexively block us from developing new screening tools. Indeed, more data sharing leads to more precisely targeted screening, which actually improves privacy by reducing questioning and searches of innocent travelers.
All governments bear a responsibility to prevent terrorists from boarding aircraft, and information sharing is a critical way we can work together to limit terrorist mobility, screen for unknown threats and investigate terrorist cells. Smart screening -- including careful and responsive analysis of travel data -- will enhance security and privacy.
The writer is U.S. secretary of homeland security.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801178.html
Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A02 [not oped but a regular column that functions much the same way] [moreover, it’s on AIPAC and the Mearsheimer et al., controversial argument that AIPAC disproportionately influences USFP] [AIPAC as an SIG] [************]
It was quite a boner.
University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer was in town yesterday to elaborate on his view that American Jewish groups are responsible for the war in Iraq, the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and many other bad things. As evidence, he cited the influence pro-Israel groups have on "John Boner, the House majority leader." [*************]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801178.html
Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A02 [not oped but a regular column that functions much the same way] [moreover, it’s on AIPAC and the Mearsheimer et al., controversial argument that AIPAC disproportionately influences USFP] [AIPAC as an SIG] [************]
It was quite a boner.
University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer was in town yesterday to elaborate on his view that American Jewish groups are responsible for the war in Iraq, the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and many other bad things. As evidence, he cited the influence pro-Israel groups have on "John Boner, the House majority leader." [*************]
Actually, Professor, it's "BAY-ner." But Mearsheimer quickly dispensed with Boehner (R-Ohio) and moved on to Jewish groups' nefarious sway over Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who Mearsheimer called " Von Hollen."
Such gaffes would be trivial -- if Mearsheimer weren't claiming to be an authority on Washington and how power is wielded here. But Mearsheimer, with co-author Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School, set off a furious debate this spring when they argued that "the Israel lobby" is exerting undue influence in Washington; opponents called them anti-Semitic. [************]
Yesterday, at the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), they held a forum at the National Press Club to expand on their allegations about the Israel lobby. Blurring the line between academics and activism, they accepted a button proclaiming "Fight the Israel Lobby" and won cheers from the Muslim group for their denunciation of Israel and its friends in the United States. [**********]
Whatever motivated the performance, the result wasn't exactly scholarly.
Walt singled out two Jews who worked at the Pentagon for their pro-Israel views. "People like Paul Wolfowitz or Doug Feith . . . advocate policies they think are good for Israel and the United States alike," [*********] he said. "We don't think there's anything wrong with that, but we also don't think there's anything wrong for others to point out that these individuals do have attachments that shape how they think about the Middle East." [*************]
"Attachments" sounds much better than "dual loyalties." But why single out Wolfowitz and Feith and not their non-Jewish boss, Donald Rumsfeld? [or Dick Cheney for that matter] [or John Bolton, or . . .] [************]
"I could have mentioned non-Jewish people like John Bolton," Walt allowed when the question was put to him.
Picking up on the "attachments" lingo, Mearsheimer did mention Bolton but cited two Jews, Elliott Abrams and David Wurmser, as "the two most influential advisers on Middle East affairs in the White House. [*********] Both, he said, are " fervent supporters of Israel." Never mind that others in the White House, such as national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney and President Bush, have been just as fervent despite the lack of "attachments." [***********]
This line of argument could be considered a precarious one for two blue-eyed men with Germanic surnames. And, indeed, Walt seemed defensive about the charges of anti-Semitism. He cautioned that the Israel lobby "is not a cabal," that it is "not synonymous with American Jews" and that "there is nothing improper or illegitimate about its activities." [**********]
But Mearsheimer made no such distinctions as he used "Jewish activists," "major Jewish organizations" and the "Israel lobby" interchangeably. Clenching the lectern so tightly his knuckles whitened, Mearsheimer accused Israel of using the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah as a convenient excuse to attack Lebanon. [*********]
"Israel had been planning to strike at Hezbollah for months," he asserted. "Key Israelis had briefed the administration about their intentions." [*******]
A questioner asked if he had any "hard evidence" for this accusation. Mearsheimer cited the "public record" and "Israeli civilian strategists," then repeated the allegation that Israel was seeking "a cover for launching this offensive."
As evidence that the American public does not agree with the Israel lobby, the political scientist cited a USA Today-Gallup poll showing that 38 percent of Americans disapproved of Israel's military campaign. He neglected to mention that 50 percent approved, and that Americans blamed Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Lebanon far more than Israel for the conflict. [************]
Walt kicked off the session with a warning that we face a "threat from terrorism because we have been so closely tied to Israel." This produced chuckles in the audience. [*******] Walt allowed that this was "not the only reason" for our problems, but he did blame Israel supporters for the hands-off position the Bush administration took during the Lebanon fighting. [*******]
"The answer is the political influence of the Israel lobby," Walt said. [*******]He also hypothesized that if not for the Israel lobby, the Iraq war “would have been much less likely.”
Up next, Mearsheimer ridiculed U.S. leaders for “falling all over themselves to express support for Israel.” And he drew groans from the crowd when he spoke about a lawmaker who, after questioning Israel’s policy, “met with various representatives from major Jewish organizations, who explained to him the basic facts of life in American politics.” [***********]
When the two professors finished, they were besieged by autograph- and photo-seekers and Arab television correspondents. Walt could be heard telling one that if an American criticizes Israel, "it might have some economic consequences for your business."
Before leaving for an interview with al-Jazeera, Mearsheimer accepted a button proclaiming "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby." [********]
"I like it," he said, beaming.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Seoul's Push to Regain Wartime Control From U.S. Divides South Koreans

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801193.html
Seoul's Push to Regain Wartime Control From U.S. Divides South Koreans
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A10 [ROK] [relic of the Cold War] [though with dprk on its border it can never move beyond its Cold War past] [younger generation in ROK want US out and their own control over their destinies and future] [older generation believe it would be foolish to expose ROK to DPRK’s million-stong military] [the US is the object over which they’re debating] [*************]
SEOUL -- At a packed news conference last week, a formidable coalition of retired South Korean military officers and former defense ministers issued a dire warning. They declared the half-century-old military alliance between South Korea and the United States in danger of falling apart, resting the blame squarely at the feet of President Roh Moo Hyun. [**********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801193.html
Seoul's Push to Regain Wartime Control From U.S. Divides South Koreans
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A10 [ROK] [relic of the Cold War] [though with dprk on its border it can never move beyond its Cold War past] [younger generation in ROK want US out and their own control over their destinies and future] [older generation believe it would be foolish to expose ROK to DPRK’s million-stong military] [the US is the object over which they’re debating] [*************]
SEOUL -- At a packed news conference last week, a formidable coalition of retired South Korean military officers and former defense ministers issued a dire warning. They declared the half-century-old military alliance between South Korea and the United States in danger of falling apart, resting the blame squarely at the feet of President Roh Moo Hyun. [**********]
They pointed to Roh's determination -- expressed in comments to the local press earlier this month -- to regain wartime command of South Korea's military as early as possible. [********] South Korea ceded that authority to the United States during the Korean War, and has since vested such power in a series of American generals who have headed the joint command here.
The system, in part, has ensured the intervention of U.S. troops still stationed in the South in the event that communist North Korea launches another invasion. But with a wave of ethnic Korean nationalism sweeping over the South, and with the North now viewed in kinder terms here, [*******]Roh has fostered public support for doing away with that system. He has called reclaiming full command from the United States the "core of a self-reliant national defense," adding that South Koreans who believed their military wasn't yet up to the task lacked "self-respect."
Roh's populist rhetoric aside, what has really scared the gaggle of retired generals are indications that the Pentagon may be just as eager to see the switch. The transfer of wartime command had been envisioned for sometime around 2012, [****] but an earlier transfer, some U.S. officials now argue, would let the Pentagon focus more on the current crises in the Middle East and allow more administrative cuts in South Korea. [*******]
On Sunday, South Korean officials said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had proposed that South Korea assume wartime command of its troops from the United States as early as 2009. [***********]
U.S. officials have said any agreement would be unrelated to South Korea's new political landscape and instead reflect the country's vastly improved military preparedness. But the developments nevertheless have left the impression among many pro-American South Koreans that Washington has simply grown tired of Seoul's embrace of the belligerent North, as well as the deep-seated anti-Americanism within some circles of South Korea's ruling Uri Party.
Some are hoping that Roh's visit to Washington next month for talks with President Bush may help smooth over cracks in the alliance. But most observers believe the mounting friction is unlikely to change before 2008, when Roh will leave office and U.S. voters will choose Bush's successor. [***********]
"President Roh is effectively saying that South Korea really doesn't need America the way we have all these years, and I can't blame the Americans for saying, 'Fine, have it your way,' " said Song Young Sun, a legislator with the opposition Grand National Party. "He wants to move South Korea away from the United States and closer to North Korea. And what we are saying is that this is just not a safe or smart thing to do."[*********]]
It has fanned a be-careful-what-you-wish-for mentality among some South Koreans, who now fear that their national security may be put in jeopardy if the transfer of wartime command comes too soon. [*********] Although such a deal is likely to yield only a small new reduction of U.S. troops stationed here, opponents say it would loosen the strings that bind the U.S.-South Korean alliance and could even pave the way for an eventual American pullout.
It was only 12 years ago that the United States relinquished peacetime troop command. And the U.S. military is already scheduled to reduce its troop levels from about 30,000 to 25,000 by 2008. [*************]
The most important issue dividing Seoul and Washington these days is how to handle North Korea [*******]-- a nation analysts say could now harbor as many as half a dozen nuclear devices. For the past 10 months, Pyongyang has refused to return to six-party talks aimed at its nuclear disarmament.
The Bush administration has sought to pressure North Koreans back to negotiations, cracking down on Pyongyang's suspected counterfeiting and money-laundering operations by persuading international financial institutions not to do business with the country.
That policy has been directly at odds with South Korea's approach of broad economic engagement. Hoping to bring the North out of its communist shell, the South has poured billions of dollars into tourism and industrial projects just across the border. [*******]
Roh administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the threat posed by North Korea has been exaggerated. U.S. officials say the difference in threat perception may be one reason Seoul and Washington are now mired in a series of squabbles over the realignment of U.S. forces in South Korea, including delays in the creation of a new bombing range as well as toughened environmental oversight by South Korean regulators.
These days, the Roh administration has begun to view a more assertive Japan -- Washington's closest ally in Asia -- as posing more of a long-term threat to Seoul's national security than North Korea.
"If you can't agree on who the enemy is, it raises some pretty fundamental questions about the reasons for your alliance," said a U.S. official familiar with South Korean policy who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Roh administration officials also concede that there are problems in the relationship, but say the foundation of the alliance remains intact.
"I cannot say the relationship is perfectly good," said a ranking South Korean official who also spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue. "The question is how to handle North Korea."
In Washington, a senior State Department official portrayed the U.S.-South Korea relationship as generally healthy. [*****]
While saying that Roh has a "tendency to frame issues, including important alliance matters, in a narrow nationalist perspective," the official noted that the United States and South Korea are both seeking a handover in wartime command and that changes are being implemented through bilateral agreements.
South Korea's military "is extremely capable now, so it makes sense for us to start playing a supporting role," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. [*******
Most analysts agree that South Korea and the United States still have more to gain together than apart, but that improvements in their relationship are unlikely to happen soon.
"We won't see a major improvement in the alliance until the current leadership changes," said Lee Jung Hoon, professor of international relations at Seoul's Yonsei University. "After that, the challenge will be about mending fences."
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Japanese Company Suspected of Selling Nuclear Equipment to Iran

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/asia/29japan.html
August 29, 2006
Japanese Company Suspected of Selling Nuclear Equipment to Iran
By MARTIN FACKLER [japan] [followup to august 16 piece, external] [east asia] [japan has history of industrialists selling technology to highest bidder] [during Cold War Toshiba—as I recall—sold machine tools that could make submarine propellars as quite as US subs to Soviets] [here dual use technology to Malaysia] [JI and other jihadis groups active in Malaysia and other SEA countries] [***************]
TOKYO, Aug. 28 — An investigation into a Japanese manufacturer suspected of exporting sophisticated measuring devices to Libya’s former atomic weapons program has increasingly focused on whether the company also sold similar equipment to Iran, a government official said Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/asia/29japan.html
August 29, 2006
Japanese Company Suspected of Selling Nuclear Equipment to Iran
By MARTIN FACKLER [japan] [followup to august 16 piece, external] [east asia] [japan has history of industrialists selling technology to highest bidder] [during Cold War Toshiba—as I recall—sold machine tools that could make submarine propellars as quite as US subs to Soviets] [here dual use technology to Malaysia] [JI and other jihadis groups active in Malaysia and other SEA countries] [***************]
TOKYO, Aug. 28 — An investigation into a Japanese manufacturer suspected of exporting sophisticated measuring devices to Libya’s former atomic weapons program has increasingly focused on whether the company also sold similar equipment to Iran, a government official said Monday.
The police and regulators have broadened their investigation of the company, the Mitutoyo Corporation, a maker of precision instruments, as evidence has emerged that it may have also sold equipment to Iran for use in making centrifuges to enrich uranium, said an official in the Trade Ministry, which administers export restrictions.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the investigation, led by the Tokyo police.
On Friday, the police arrested five Mitutoyo officials, including the president, on suspicion of exporting equipment to Libya before that country scrapped its weapons program three years ago. [********]
The police say the equipment was shipped to Libya by Scomi Precision Engineering, a Malaysian company linked to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who later confessed to selling nuclear technology. The increasing focus on Iran has shed light on the clandestine routes it has used to obtain nuclear-related technology to advance its enrichment program. Iran is in a standoff with the United Nations over the program, which Iran says will create fuel to generate power, but which the United States and others fear will be used to build nuclear weapons. [***********]
In April, Iran disclosed that it was trying to build more advanced and powerful centrifuges known as model P-2, [*****]which would speed its enrichment program. It is unclear whether the Japanese equipment has been used by Iran to develop the those centrifuges.
The Trade Ministry official said the police believe the shipments went to Iran via a small, unlisted Tokyo-based trading company called Seian, whose offices the police also raided on Friday. A Seian employee reached by telephone would not answer questions, but a description of the company provided by Teikoku Databank, a research company, listed the president as Ahmad Eftekhari Masumi, an Iranian name.
The Trade Ministry official refused to provide further details. But Japanese news reports, apparently based on briefings by the police exclusively to major local news media, say the police believe Mitutoyo has exported technology to Iran at least twice in the last several years, most recently four years ago.
The reports said the police were investigating whether Mitutoyo altered software used in its measuring devices to disguise it as less-advanced software that was subject to looser export restrictions.
The reports said Mitutoyo first came under scrutiny in 2003 when at least one of its measuring devices was discovered in Libya after that country relinquished its weapons program.
A spokesman at Mitutoyo, which is based in Kawasaki, in central Japan, would not comment on the reports of exports to Iran or software alterations.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Hamas Spokesman Blames Palestinians for Gaza Chaos

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29israel.html
August 29, 2006
Hamas Spokesman Blames Palestinians for Gaza Chaos
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Palestine] [Hamas leadership in Palestine (vs say Damascus) is beginning to look and talk like a responsible governance entity] [implications are vast] [if Hamas can get past its charter and become a negotiating partner, perhaps via the unity govt they are supposedly forming with PA (Abu Mazen), then much could happen between Israel and Palestine] [*****************]
JERUSALEM, Aug. 28 — In an unusual instance of self-criticism, a well-known Hamas official has deplored the collapse of Gazan life into chaos and has said that much of the blame belongs to Palestinians themselves. [**********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29israel.html
August 29, 2006
Hamas Spokesman Blames Palestinians for Gaza Chaos
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Palestine] [Hamas leadership in Palestine (vs say Damascus) is beginning to look and talk like a responsible governance entity] [implications are vast] [if Hamas can get past its charter and become a negotiating partner, perhaps via the unity govt they are supposedly forming with PA (Abu Mazen), then much could happen between Israel and Palestine] [*****************]
JERUSALEM, Aug. 28 — In an unusual instance of self-criticism, a well-known Hamas official has deplored the collapse of Gazan life into chaos and has said that much of the blame belongs to Palestinians themselves. [**********]
“Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs,” Ghazi Hamad, a former Hamas newspaper editor and the spokesman for the current Hamas government, [*******]wrote in an article published Sunday in Al Ayyam, the Palestinian newspaper.
After so much optimism when Israelis pulled out of Gaza a year ago, he wrote, “life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden.” [*******] [absolutely true; it’s nice to see a Hamas authority admit it instead of claiming only victimhood] [********]
He urged Palestinians to look to themselves, not to Israel, for the causes. But he appeared not to be placing the blame on Hamas or the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas. [*******]He said various armed groups in the Gaza Strip — most affiliated with Fatah, Hamas’s rival — were responsible for the chaos.
“We’ve all been attacked by the bacteria of stupidity,” Mr. Hamad wrote. “We have lost our sense of direction.” He addressed the armed groups: “Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs, infighting. Let Gaza breathe a bit. Let it live.” [**********]
He also questioned the utility of firing rockets into Israel that cause few casualties but result in many Palestinian deaths when the Israelis retaliate. He seemed to be arguing for other armed groups to follow the Hamas decision to halt rocket fire into Israel. [*********]His article was first described in English on Monday in The Jerusalem Post.
With Mr. Hamad looking at Palestinian failings, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel announced that his government would set up its own committee to investigate its lapses in the recent war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In a televised speech on Monday evening, Mr. Olmert acknowledged “shortcomings and failures” and said a government-appointed committee led by Nahum Admoni, a former director of the Mossad secret service, would investigate.
Mr. Olmert and his government, elected just five months ago, are trying to respond to public unhappiness with the results of the war without losing control of any investigation. Aides say he believes that the results of the war are positive and Israelis will come to see that in time, and is betting that a protest movement among reservists over the way the war was conducted will wane.
Few Israelis have the appetite for a new election, and those on the left who are unhappy with Mr. Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the leader of the Labor Party, do not want the Israeli right to benefit. [********]
Mr. Olmert’s decision — apparently to avoid a state commission of inquiry — is sure to cause criticism, but he has argued that a government inquiry would be faster and more efficient. “We do not have the time and must act quickly,” he said in his speech.
A commission would have the power to subpoena witnesses and demand resignations. Once announced, it would be out of the government’s control, with members appointed by the leader of the supreme court.
In the West Bank on Monday, Palestinian government workers held a strike and march in Ramallah and hospital workers in Nablus went on strike because the government had not paid salaries. [the govt has no money] [unless and until it renounces its charter it will have few sources of income] [*******]
The civil servants’ union announced earlier that about 80,000 workers would begin an open-ended strike on Sept. 2. The workers include 37,000 teachers and 25,000 health workers, the union said.
The action suggests that popular patience with Hamas may be running out, as the United States and Israel predicted early this year when they announced a freeze on the aid that pays most of the salaries. [*********]
Efforts by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, to form a unity government with Hamas have not succeeded. Hamas has insisted on leading the government. Nor has Mr. Abbas been willing to dissolve the Hamas government, as the Bush administration has reportedly urged him to do. [************]
In Gaza on Monday, four Palestinians were killed near Gaza City. Palestinian security officials said the four were staffing checkpoints in the area when they were hit by an Israeli missile. The Israeli military said Israeli soldiers in the area had killed three Palestinians in a firefight.
In southern Gaza, Hamas gunmen shot a motorist who refused to stop at a roadblock, witnesses said.
In an effort to ease the pressure on the Palestinian economy, the American security coordinator for the Palestinians, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, has proposed expanding the Karni commercial crossing into Israel. It is often closed by Israel, citing security concerns. General Dayton is proposing putting 90 international observers, themselves watched by Americans, on the Palestinian side of Karni to assuage Israeli fears.
He first proposed the idea, a $19.2 million project ($10.4 million of it in 2006), to a donors’ group meeting on Aug. 8, said a Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of customary diplomatic anonymity. Palestinians have accepted the idea; the Israelis have not responded. The American Embassy said it would not comment.
Mr. Hamad said that his article, in a newspaper normally associated with Fatah, was a personal comment. Despite the taunt at Fatah, it was important for its criticism of the penchant to blame Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands for every ill — even after Israeli troops and settlers had left Gaza. [*********]
“I’m not interested in discussing the ugliness and brutality of the occupation because it is not a secret,” he wrote. “I prefer self-criticism and self-evaluation. We’re used to blaming our mistakes on others.”
Palestinian joy after the Israeli departure “made us forget the most important question — what is our next step?” he wrote.
“When you walk in the streets of Gaza City,” he continued, “you cannot but close your eyes because of what you see there: unimaginable chaos, careless policemen, young men carrying guns and strutting with pride and families receiving condolences for their dead in the middle of the street.” [*********]
Mr. Hamad said those who saw themselves as fighting Israel were working at cross-purposes. “It is strange that when a big effort is taken to reopen Rafah crossing to ease the suffering of the people, you see others who go to shell rockets toward the crossing, or when someone talks about cease-fire and its importance, you find those who go and shell more rockets,” [******] he wrote. “Of course I do not deny that the occupation committed massacres that cannot be justified, but I support negotiations over what can be fixed.” [****************]
Some Palestinians will agree or disagree with him, he wrote, “but running away from self-confrontation will only cause us more pain.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:35 AM | Permalink

Lebanon Insists It Can Control the Syrian Border by Itself

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29nations.html
August 29, 2006
Lebanon Insists It Can Control the Syrian Border by Itself
By WARREN HOGE [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Lebanon’s perspectives] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Europeans have steped up with the “backbone” of the ceaefire forces] [it is both a source of Euro pride—they are seen as great powers—and concern—they worry (justifiably) that another Lebanon 1983 situation where they are in lose-lose situation] [********]
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 28 — Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Monday that Lebanon could control its border with Syria without the assistance of international troops and had already confiscated illegal arms in the south.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29nations.html
August 29, 2006
Lebanon Insists It Can Control the Syrian Border by Itself
By WARREN HOGE [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [Lebanon’s perspectives] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Europeans have steped up with the “backbone” of the ceaefire forces] [it is both a source of Euro pride—they are seen as great powers—and concern—they worry (justifiably) that another Lebanon 1983 situation where they are in lose-lose situation] [********]
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 28 — Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Monday that Lebanon could control its border with Syria without the assistance of international troops and had already confiscated illegal arms in the south.
In an interview in his Ottoman-era offices in downtown Beirut, Mr. Siniora said that he had deployed 8,600 Lebanese Army soldiers along the border and that he had accepted an offer from Germany for technical equipment and training to help prevent the entry of unauthorized weapons into Lebanon.
“The army will confiscate every piece of weapon that it finds, and that is what is happening now, in a firm but friendly manner,” he said.
The control of the border has emerged as a major concern in the international effort to dismantle the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon and to prevent its re-establishment with weaponry coming in from Syria.
The United Nations Security Council resolution that ended the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel two weeks ago calls for an embargo on arms not authorized by Lebanon.
Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, said last week that he would close the border, isolating Lebanon, if Beirut stationed foreign troops there. While Mr. Siniora made no direct reference to the threat, he explained that one reason he was discouraging the placement of United Nations soldiers at crossing points was that “we don’t want to make new issues.”
“The use of guards is not very helpful,” he said. “It will complicate the picture without achievement or benefit.”
He said the Lebanese Army was authorized to enter any premises it wished to.
“There are no restrictions on where the army can go,” he said.
He also contended that putting weapons out of sight, the survival tactic that is often ascribed to Hezbollah, would not be tolerated.
“There will be no appearances of any armed presence, whether it’s hiding weapons or wearing clothing” of a military character, he said.
He declined to describe what kind of arms had been intercepted other than to call them “serious weapons.”
“Our policy is not to announce,” he said.
The interview preceded a meeting of Lebanese officials to discuss the stabilization of southern Lebanon with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, who arrived here on Monday at the start of an 11-day trip to the Middle East.
Mr. Annan said he would ask Syria at his stop in Damascus later this week to police its own border with Lebanon to prevent smuggling.
“It is important that the borders are protected and there are no attempts to rearm,” Mr. Annan said at a news conference with Mr. Siniora. “Lebanon has seen too much conflict. There are too many arms in the country. We don’t need any more.”
Mr. Annan said at a meeting of the cabinet that he would urge Syria, a country that once dominated Lebanese political life, to set up diplomatic ties with Beirut.
In addition to meeting Mr. Siniora, Mr. Annan held talks with the Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, a central ally of Hezbollah, and Mohammed Fneish, one of the two Hezbollah ministers in the cabinet.
In a more confrontational encounter with Hezbollah, Mr. Annan was heckled and jostled in an afternoon visit to a badly bombed Shiite stronghold in the southern suburbs.
Protesters chanted Hezbollah slogans and angrily waved posters of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, as Mr. Annan and a crush of security men and aides moved through a World War II tableau of muddy streets lined by collapsed and soot-scarred apartment buildings.
Mr. Siniora said it was impossible to disarm Hezbollah by military means, and Mr. Annan, speaking at the news conference, agreed. “Let’s not kid ourselves and say the only way to disarm militias is by force,” he said.
Mr. Siniora said he hoped to see Hezbollah fighters incorporated one day into the Lebanese military.
Mr. Annan said he wanted the two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah guerrillas set off the 34-day war with Israel to be released either under Red Cross auspices or to the Lebanese government. He offered to broker the transfer.
Mr. Annan said he was impressed with steps taken by the Lebanese government to police its borders, but Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister of Israel, Mr. Annan’s next stop, said Monday in Berlin that international intervention was essential.
“Without this international help, Hezbollah cannot be disarmed and Siniora in Lebanon can’t do much,” she said. “Therefore it’s clear we need this help to create a normal Lebanon, a Lebanon that can also live in peace.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:34 AM | Permalink

Annan Visits U.N. Force on Mideast Tour

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mideast.html
August 29, 2006
Annan Visits U.N. Force on Mideast Tour
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:31 a.m. ET [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [UN’s perspectives] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Europeans have steped up with the “backbone” of the ceaefire forces] [it is both a source of Euro pride—they are seen as great powers—and concern—they worry (justifiably) that another Lebanon 1983 situation where they are in lose-lose situation] [********]
NAQOURA, Lebanon (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after Italy and Turkey moved to join the international force there.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mideast.html
August 29, 2006
Annan Visits U.N. Force on Mideast Tour
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:31 a.m. ET [Israel’s 2-front war] [and the tenuous ceasfire continues to hold] [UN’s perspectives] [August 11, UN Security Council unamymously passed resolution supporting cessation of hostilities then moving a more robuts Lebanese force into south] [Europeans have steped up with the “backbone” of the ceaefire forces] [it is both a source of Euro pride—they are seen as great powers—and concern—they worry (justifiably) that another Lebanon 1983 situation where they are in lose-lose situation] [********]
NAQOURA, Lebanon (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after Italy and Turkey moved to join the international force there.
Annan and his entourage landed in Naqoura, a town on the Mediterranean coast about two miles north of the Israeli border, in two white U.N. helicopters. The town is the headquarters of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.
The U.N. chief was in Lebanon on the first leg of an 11-day Mideast tour that would take him to Israel, as well as to Syria and Iran -- Hezbollah's main benefactors.
Annan was briefed by French Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, the UNIFIL commander, and other top officials, then reviewed an honor guard of U.N. troops in blue berets standing at attention on the green lawn inside the U.N.'s white-walled compound.
He laid a wreath at a monument for peacekeepers killed in Lebanon since UNIFIL deployed here in 1978. Muslim and Christian clergymen said prayers, and the U.N. chief stood in silence in front of a display of portraits of those killed, including four UNIFIL members killed in an Israeli airstrike on their base in Khiam on July 25.
The U.N. chief shook hands with members of the 2,000-member force, which is being expanded to 15,000 under the U.N. resolution that halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Aug. 14. Flags of countries contributing troops to UNIFIL, including Annan's native Ghana, fluttered in the breeze as the band played their national anthems.
Annan reiterated his calls for Hezbollah to release two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture spurred the fighting, and for Israel to lift its air and sea blockade on Lebanon.
''We need to resolve the issue of the abducted soldiers very quickly,'' he said. ''We need to deal with the lifting of the embargo -- sea, land and air -- which for the Lebanese is a humiliation and an infringement on their sovereignty.''
''I think the time has come for the siege to be lifted. The Lebanese have shown they're serious about the implementation of (U.N. resolution) 1701 in all the deployments and efforts they have made,'' he added.
He later traveled to Jerusalem for talks with Israeli leaders.
In Copenhagen, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said there was ''no good news on the situation of the soldiers'' after she met with Danish leaders. She was to return to Jerusalem later in the day to meet with Annan.
Livni said ''time will tell who is the winner'' of the 34-day conflict, and she said Hezbollah had been weakened by the fighting.
''Hezbollah has to give some explanation to the Lebanese people,'' she said. ''They suffered for nothing.''
After talks with Lebanese leaders in Beirut, the U.N. chief faulted both Israel and Hezbollah for not living up to key sections of the cease-fire resolution, and warned that fighting could resume if the parties did not abide by the full resolution.
''Without the full implementation of resolution 1701, I fear the risk is great for renewal of hostilities,'' he said.
He also toured a bombed out neighborhood in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut, where hundreds of residents booed him as he toured the ruins Monday.
Annan said he found the destruction in south Lebanon ''quite shocking,'' and said he could ''understand the anger and frustration of some of those who had lived there.''
''But what happened yesterday was really a little sideshow put on to impress me, and I think some of the young ones got a bit overzealous,'' he said in reference to the booing.
The U.N. refugee agency said thousands of Lebanese have been unable to return to their homes two weeks after the cease-fire took hold because they feel too insecure or their residences were destroyed.
''I think until the cease-fire is completely stable and the forces are in place there, many of those people would be reluctant to go back,'' said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Jack Redden.
Meanwhile, an Italian task force, led by the country's only aircraft carrier, the Giuseppe Garibaldi, sailed from southern Italy for Lebanon. Three landing platform dock ships also left the port of Brindisi, and a small frigate already in Cyprus was scheduled to join the Italian mission, the Defense Ministry said.
Italy on Monday approved sending 2,500 troops, the largest national contingent so far. The plan now goes to Parliament for approval, but the ships were to set sail ahead of the vote and reach Lebanon on Friday.
''We will follow you with trepidation because it is a delicate mission of huge historic significance,'' Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told about 1,000 soldiers bound for U.N. peacekeeping duties. ''But we will also follow you with pride and trust, knowing that although you carry arms, you're going to Lebanon exclusively to bring peace.''
Some of the crew shared the mixed feelings.
''This mission came all of a sudden,'' said Sgt. Gaspare Scavone, 33, on his first mission abroad. ''We're still in the dark as to what we will have to do once we're in the area.''
Spain's Defense Ministry said a marine unit was ordered to prepare for deployment to Lebanon to join the U.N. peacekeeping force. The ministry would not disclose the number of troops but Spain's Socialist government reportedly is considering sending between 700 and 1,000. The government is expected to approve the deployment at a Cabinet meeting Friday and then must seek Parliament's approval.
A battalion of 900 French soldiers will arrive in Lebanon in mid-September to help boost the U.N. peacekeeping force, the Defense Ministry said. France now has about 400 soldiers in the force, known as UNIFIL, and plans to expand that number to 2,000.
On Monday, Turkey's Cabinet decided in favor of sending peacekeepers and its parliament was to debate the deployment later this week or early next week, said Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek.
Turkey ruled Lebanon for some 400 years during the Ottoman Empire and many Turkish officials want their country to have a say in an area that they regard as their country's backyard.
The United States, the European Union and Israel were pressing Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO and a country with close ties to Israel and Arab countries, to send peacekeepers.
Associated Press Writer Ariel David contributed to this report from Italy.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:33 AM | Permalink

Suicide Bomber Kills 17 At Afghanistan Bazaar

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801276.html
WORLD IN BRIEF
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A12
Suicide Bomber Kills 17 At Afghanistan Bazaar
[Afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring-summer offensive this year has been particularly effective in showing the US has got bogged down in –Iraq to the detriment of Afghan] [followup] [ditto] [**********]
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives in a crowded market Monday, killing 17 people and wounding 47, a hospital official said, in the latest violence to hit southern Afghanistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801276.html
WORLD IN BRIEF
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A12
Suicide Bomber Kills 17 At Afghanistan Bazaar
[Afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring-summer offensive this year has been particularly effective in showing the US has got bogged down in –Iraq to the detriment of Afghan] [followup] [ditto] [**********]
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives in a crowded market Monday, killing 17 people and wounding 47, a hospital official said, in the latest violence to hit southern Afghanistan.
The blast left body parts, blood-soaked turbans and shattered glass in the bazaar of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, said Hayatullah Khan, a security guard.
On Tuesday, at least one Afghan civilian was killed in a suicide bomb attack on a NATO convoy in Kabul.
* * *
ASIA
• COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Sri Lanka's military launched airstrikes and fired artillery as it advanced on Sampur, a strategic enclave held by Tamil Tiger rebels south of the port of Trincomalee, killing at least 28 people, officials said.
• SEOUL -- South Korea and China agreed to pursue joint projects in the fields of renewable energy, oil reserves, electricity and gas, a South Korean official said.
• HANOI -- Vietnam will release Pham Hong Son, 37, a dissident who has served more than four years for spying after he translated and posted online an article on democracy from a U.S. government Web site, diplomats said Monday.
• KATHMANDU, Nepal -- The face of Nepal's popular anti-monarchy protests -- an 88-year-old village woman who repeatedly braved tear gas and water cannons -- has died after being hit by a motorcycle, her family said. Chhaya Devi Parajuli, a member of the Nepali Congress, the nation's biggest political party, came to Kathmandu in 2002 when King Gyanendra sacked the elected prime minister. She was at the forefront of almost every demonstration in the Nepali capital against the king, who assumed absolute power in 2005 saying he was acting to crush a Maoist insurgency.
the americas
• RIO DE JANEIRO -- Paleontologists have discovered a giant dinosaur species based on fossilized fragments of the herbivorous reptile that lived 80 million years ago. The Maxakalisaurus topai was 43 feet long and weighed nine tons.
• BRASILIA -- Election authorities have banned about 1,500 candidates charged with fraud from running in Brazil's general election next month, officials said.
• QUITO, Ecuador -- The world's oldest person, a 116-year-old woman who drank donkey milk and wine for health, died Sunday, her relatives said. Maria Esther de Capovilla was born in 1889, the year the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated.
europe
• WARSAW -- A collection of letters written by popes and kings about 700 years ago and found among the possessions of a deceased U.S. World War II veteran was given to Polish national archives officials.
africa
• KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudan ignored U.S. pressure to accept U.N. troops in Darfur, snubbing the top U.S. diplomat on Africa and boycotting a critical U.N. Security Council debate on quelling violence in Sudan's west.
Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for Africa, in Khartoum to deliver a message to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir that he must accept U.N. troops, was forced to extend her stay another day to try to get an audience with the Sudanese leader.
• THE HAGUE -- Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court filed their first indictment, charging Thomas Lubanga, a former Congolese warlord, with abducting and recruiting children as young as 10 to fight in Congo's brutal civil war.
the middle east
• RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia has released more than 700 suspected militants after clerics "corrected" their thinking in a special program aimed at stemming a three-year-old campaign of violence by al-Qaeda, officials said.
-- From News Services
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:33 AM | Permalink

Suicide Bomber Kills 17 Afghans; Attacks Persist in the South

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/asia/29afghan.html
August 29, 2006
Suicide Bomber Kills 17 Afghans; Attacks Persist in the South
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA [Afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring-summer offensive this year has been particularly effective in showing the US has got bogged down in –Iraq to the detriment of Afghan] [followup] [**********]
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 28 — A suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday in the middle of a busy bazaar in Helmand Province, in the south, killing 17 civilians. In one of the bloodiest attacks this year in Afghanistan, the bomber walked into a crowd of shoppers at midday in the center of the capital, Lashkar Gah, said the province’s governor, Mohammed Daud.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/asia/29afghan.html
August 29, 2006
Suicide Bomber Kills 17 Afghans; Attacks Persist in the South
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA [Afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring-summer offensive this year has been particularly effective in showing the US has got bogged down in –Iraq to the detriment of Afghan] [followup] [**********]
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 28 — A suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday in the middle of a busy bazaar in Helmand Province, in the south, killing 17 civilians. In one of the bloodiest attacks this year in Afghanistan, the bomber walked into a crowd of shoppers at midday in the center of the capital, Lashkar Gah, said the province’s governor, Mohammed Daud.
Governor Daud said 47 people were wounded in the explosion, including 15 children. The governor said the identity of the suicide bomber was not known. “Taliban attacks are rising these days,” he said, adding that there had been five suicide attacks this year in his province.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to The Associated Press and said the target was a former police chief who had served in the province during the Communist era of the 1980’s. The former chief, who no longer holds any official post and was a businessman, was killed along with a relative, police officials said.
“He was an ordinary man like other civilians who were killed and had no official job,” said Hajji Muhaiuddin, a spokesman for the governor. “There was no single official worker among the casualties.”
Among the wounded was a 2-year-old boy who had to have a leg amputated, he said.
The explosion was the second deadliest suicide bombing in southern Afghanistan this year; on Aug. 3, a bomber blew up his car in the bazaar at Panjwai, outside Kandahar, killing 21 people.
British and Dutch troops, part of the newly deployed NATO force in southern Afghanistan, have been battling insurgents for weeks in Helmand, a lawless province and the largest producer of opium poppies in the country.
In a statement released in Kabul, the British commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Richards, described the bombing on Monday as a “horrifying waste of human life,” and said the Taliban were no more than “vicious criminals.”
“Launching a suicide bomber into a crowded area is guaranteed to harm innocent civilians and shows no concern whatsoever for ordinary citizens,” he said.
Governor Daud said that the government was in control of all but one district of the province, but that it still did not have enough police and army personnel to do the job.
NATO has deployed 4,000 troops in Helmand; the previous United States-led coalition had only a few hundred soldiers in the province. In addition, the government has for the first time sent Afghan Army troops to the province.
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:32 AM | Permalink

Iraqi Troops Battle Shiite Militiamen In Southern City

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800039.html
Iraqi Troops Battle Shiite Militiamen In Southern City
20 U.S.-Backed Soldiers Are Killed
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A01 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********] [ditto]
BAGHDAD, Aug. 28 -- With American combat aircraft providing cover, U.S.-backed Iraqi troops battled radical Shiite militiamen Monday in the southern city of Diwaniyah in one of the first major clashes between the two forces. At least 20 Iraqi soldiers and eight civilians were killed, a U.S. military official said, citing initial reports. Seventy people were injured.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800039.html
Iraqi Troops Battle Shiite Militiamen In Southern City
20 U.S.-Backed Soldiers Are Killed
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A01 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********] [ditto]
BAGHDAD, Aug. 28 -- With American combat aircraft providing cover, U.S.-backed Iraqi troops battled radical Shiite militiamen Monday in the southern city of Diwaniyah in one of the first major clashes between the two forces. At least 20 Iraqi soldiers and eight civilians were killed, a U.S. military official said, citing initial reports. Seventy people were injured.
Also, a suicide bombing in Baghdad killed 15 and injured 35, capping one of the bloodiest 24 hours in Iraq in recent weeks.
The more-than-12-hour battle in Shiite Muslim-dominated Diwaniyah, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, illustrates the growing strength and confidence of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is increasingly challenging the authority of the Iraqi government and, by extension, the United States.
Some Iraqi soldiers were captured and beheaded, Iraqi army officials said. As of late Monday, it was unclear how many militiamen had died.
Nine U.S. soldiers also were killed over the weekend in and around Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday, making it one of the most lethal weekends for American troops in recent months. Seven U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bomb attacks and one by gunfire on Sunday, while another soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday.
On Sunday, gunmen and bombers killed at least 69 people, the deadliest of the attacks taking place outside Baghdad, in northern cities.
Meanwhile, new allegations of indiscriminate killings by U.S. troops surfaced Monday. Relatives and neighbors of seven civilians shot dead during a gun battle in a Baghdad neighborhood on Sunday said U.S. soldiers had stepped out of their vehicles and randomly fired at their car.
"The soldiers decided to kill everyone on the streets, and my mother was one of them," Mohammed Sabah al-Dulaimi, 19, an engineering student said in a telephone interview. "They were angry. There's no other reason for killing. They took revenge."
Dulaimi's mother, Suad Jodah Yaseen, was returning from work in a company car, which stopped some distance away from the scene where a roadside bomb had struck a U.S. military vehicle, according to her brother, Hadi Jodah Yaseen, 50.
"But random shooting by American soldiers hit her in the head and the chest, and one bullet pierced her chest and came out of the back," Yaseen said.
Lt. Col Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that seven civilians were killed Sunday in Ghazaliyah, a volatile western Baghdad neighborhood where U.S. forces have bolstered their efforts to tame sectarian violence. But he said the civilians were caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between U.S. troops and insurgents.
Johnson said that insurgents opened fire on American troops with grenade launchers and guns after the roadside bomb detonated and that U.S. forces returned fire.
"These people were unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time," Johnson said. He added that there would be a review to determine whether a further investigation into the soldiers' actions is warranted.
The violence comes amid assertions by the Iraqi government and the U.S. military that they are clamping down on lawlessness and prevailing over extremists fueling the sectarian unrest gripping the capital.
Over the past week, attacks in Baghdad province averaged about 23 a day, lower than the monthly average for July, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, told reporters Monday. Baghdad's average daily homicide rate also dropped 46 percent from July to August, he added.
Roadside bombs, too, decreased by 50 percent last week to a total of eight, making for the lowest monthly average in nearly eight months, he said. However that figure dramatically changed with the spike in roadside bombs over the weekend, he added.
Despite the recent sharp rise in violence, Caldwell said that "the operation is moving along as anticipated" to quell violence in Baghdad.
"It was always expected that there would be this extremist element that would get out and try to discredit the operations that are ongoing by striking at areas where civilians are readily available, where they can inflict some casualties," Caldwell said. "We'll continue to make every diligent effort to preclude that from happening."
The southern part of Iraq could emerge as the biggest challenge for U.S. and Iraqi forces, potentially rivaling the sectarian chaos in Baghdad. Upon taking office, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to eradicate the host of militias and death squads operating in the country. But 100 days after his coalition government was sworn into power, the militias, especially the Mahdi Army, remain key players in a struggle for power from Baghdad to the southern city of Basra.
Monday's clashes in Diwaniyah underscored the militias' growing influence. Tensions were already high. Three days earlier, the Iraqi army had arrested three prominent supporters of Sadr, said Abdul Razak al-Nadawi, the head of the cleric's office in Diwaniyah.
"They did this without any warrants," Nadawi said in an interview. "Usually, people are arrested by the police. But it was the Iraqi army who arrested them."
Soon after the arrests, Mahdi Army militiamen flooded the streets, clutching guns and engaging in minor clashes with police, said Kareem al-Musawi, 33, a resident.
"Then all the police withdrew from the streets," he said. "Then the armed men covered every street in the city."
Monday's clashes erupted after Iraqi soldiers, backed by Polish troops, attempted to raid three neighborhoods controlled by the Mahdi Army. The fighting began after midnight as explosions and gunfire rattled different parts of the city, residents said. As many as 26 mosques in Diwaniyah were damaged by Mahdi Army mortar attacks, the Iraqi army said in a statement. Shops, markets and government offices shut down, and frightened residents stayed inside their houses.
By late afternoon, the fighting had subsided. It was soon clear who had won.
"The city is fully controlled by the militia of Jaish al-Mahdi now," said Ahmed Fadhil, 45, a school teacher living in the center of Diwaniyah, using the Arabic term for Sadr's militia. "There are no police or Iraqi army in the streets of the city. I can see only the gunmen of Mahdi Army in the streets."
At a news conference, the governor of Diwaniyah, Khalil Ibrahim said that he visited Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Monday. He said Sadr had requested an investigation into what had happened in Diwaniyah.
For now, he said, the Mahdi Army still controls two big neighborhoods, "and neither the American forces nor Iraqi forces were able to enter these neighborhoods yet."
"The police refuse to go back to the streets, especially after three of their cars were set on fire Thursday," Ibrahim said.
On Monday, residents were stunned by their city's transformation.
"We had a stable city," said Musawi. "Now all the shops are closed. The streets are empty. No one is going out to the streets, and there is a curfew. It is a ghost city."
Meanwhile in Baghdad, a suicide bomber in a car detonated explosives at a checkpoint leading into the Interior Ministry, where a meeting of police chiefs from Iraq's 18 provinces was scheduled. The blast killed 15 people and injured 35.
The visiting British defense minister, Des Browne, told reporters in Baghdad that U.S.-led troops planned to turn over a second province, Dhi Qar, to Iraqi security forces next month. He joined other Western and Iraqi officials in pulling back recently from warnings last month -- including from Britain's outgoing ambassador to Iraq -- that Iraq could slide into all-out civil war. "My view is there is not a civil war in this country, and it is not likely that a civil war will develop," Browne said.
Correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer, special correspondents Saad Sarhan, K.I. Ibrahim and Naseer Nouri and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:31 AM | Permalink

Radical Militia and Iraqi Army in Fierce Battle

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html
August 29, 2006
Radical Militia and Iraqi Army in Fierce Battle
By DAMIEN CAVE and EDWARD WONG [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 28 — At least 20 gunmen and 8 civilians were killed Monday when the Iraqi Army battled fiercely for hours with members of a militia loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, [Mahdi militia] [********]the radical Shiite cleric, in Diwaniya, Iraqi officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29iraq.html
August 29, 2006
Radical Militia and Iraqi Army in Fierce Battle
By DAMIEN CAVE and EDWARD WONG [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********]
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 28 — At least 20 gunmen and 8 civilians were killed Monday when the Iraqi Army battled fiercely for hours with members of a militia loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, [Mahdi militia] [********]the radical Shiite cleric, in Diwaniya, Iraqi officials said.
The violence, which one Iraqi general said included militiamen executing Iraqi soldiers in a public square, amounted to the most brazen clashes in recent memory between Iraqi government forces and Mr. Sadr’s militia. [*********]
After weeks of rising tensions and skirmishes between elements of the militia and American-led forces, it could increase pressure on Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite, to find a way — political or military or both — to rein in Mr. Sadr’s powerful militia. [*******]
The battle erupted after a particularly violent weekend in Iraq for American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, in what had been a relatively quiet month.
The American military announced Monday the deaths of nine American service members in attacks on Sunday. In Baghdad, a car bomb killed at least 13 people on Monday and wounded dozens at a checkpoint just outside the Interior Ministry headquarters.
Over all, more than 100 Iraqis were killed Sunday and Monday. [********]
With sectarian violence soaring, American generals and the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, say that militias are now the single greatest threat to the stability of Iraq and that the Iraqi government must disband them. [**********]
But Mr. Maliki has yet to introduce any new policy, and has refrained from strong condemnations of Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army. Mr. Maliki relies on Mr. Sadr, who is enormously popular among poor Shiites, for political support against rival Shiite politicians. [*********]Mr. Sadr controls several ministries and at least 30 seats in Parliament, and he maintains close ties to Mr. Maliki’s political group, the Islamic Dawa Party. [**********]
Earlier this month, after the Americans called in air support during a raid with Iraqi forces in a Sadr stronghold in Baghdad, Mr. Maliki denounced the move by the Americans and said he had never given permission for it.
The fighting on Monday in Diwaniya, in the south, underscored the recalcitrant, rebellious nature of the Mahdi Army and raised the specter of the two uprisings that Mr. Sadr led against the Americans and the Iraqi government in 2004.
After several hours of gunfire and mortars, “the clashes reached a point where members of the militias executed soldiers after their ammunition ran out in a public square, in front of residents,” said Maj. Gen. Othman al-Ghanimi, commander of the Eighth Division of the Iraqi Army in Diwaniya. “This is true terrorism and a crime.”
The Mahdi Army denied the reports of executions.
The fighting ended only after Shiite politicians visited Mr. Sadr’s office in Najaf to negotiate a cease-fire. [*********]
An American military official said more than 70 people were wounded Monday during the battle, including 40 civilians. Reports from Iraqi authorities and Sadr officials offered similar tallies.
General Ghanimi and other Iraqi Army and police officials said several militias were involved, not just the Mahdi Army. But they said the seed of the violence on Monday was planted a week ago when a roadside bomb they believe was planted by the Mahdi Army killed at least two Iraqi soldiers. Two days later, the Iraqi Army arrested a member of the Mahdi Army.
Nasir al-Saadi, a spokesman for the Sadr bloc in Parliament, said the unidentified Sadr militant arrested by the army was tortured and may have been killed. According to Mr. Saadi’s account, the army started attacking a Mahdi-dominated neighborhood late Sunday night. He said the soldiers killed civilians and damaged houses while Sadr militants “did not participate” at first, refusing to return fire.
General Ghanimi, a Sunni, denied torturing the Mahdi detainee, noting that Sadr representatives visited him on Saturday and found him healthy. He said they asked for the accused bomber’s release and when the army refused, fighting broke out as the militias sought to free him from custody.
Gunfire riddled the streets from around 2 a.m. to the early afternoon. Polish troops responsible for the area helped Iraqi soldiers encircle the most violent areas, as American helicopters hovered overhead without dropping bombs, according to an American official who declined to be identified because the information is supposed to be released by the Iraqi Army.
Khalil Jalil Hamza, the governor of Diwaniya, later shuttled to Mr. Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf to discuss a cease-fire, Sadr officials said. By 5:30 p.m., the battle had ended. Mr. Hamza is a senior official in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a rival Shiite party.
The Mahdi Army and the military wing of the Supreme Council, the Badr Brigade, have fought pitched battles several times in Baghdad and the south in recent years. [********]
According to someone who identified himself as a Mahdi fighter involved in the clash, a prisoner exchange was still being negotiated Monday night. In a telephone interview, the fighter, who called himself Abu Abbas, said the Mahdi Army had taken several soldiers captive and would trade them for the detainee that Iraqi commanders accused of being involved in the roadside bombing. He was reached through a known member of the Mahdi Army, who vouched for his membership.
He said that a local judge had approved the militant’s release before the fighting started but that the Iraqi Army refused to accept the ruling. When asked why the Mahdi militants killed more than a dozen other Iraqis, he said, “We know they are our brothers, but the Americans are pushing them against us.”
Iraqi, American and British officials continue to assert that a civil war here can be averted.
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the lead spokesman for the American military, said Monday that attacks and murders in Baghdad declined in August thanks to the deployment of about 12,000 additional American and Iraqi troops. He said several neighborhoods searched over the past few weeks under a new security plan were reviving, with stores re-opening, and children riding bicycles in the streets.
Yet Mr. Sadr and the Mahdi Army remain an obstacle. Prime Minister Maliki, a Shiite who depends on support from Mr. Sadr’s allies in Parliament, has not confronted Mr. Sadr publicly. Sadr City, a Mahdi bastion, has not been searched or raided in a thorough manner, even though it is one of the capital’s most violent areas.
The Americans have maintained some distance: even as the fighting raged in Diwaniya on Monday, General Caldwell told reporters he had not been briefed on the battle and could not comment.
Several clashes have erupted between the Mahdi Army and American-led forces this summer. [********]
In July, American and Iraqi troops stormed a building in Sadr City and engaged in firefights that killed or wounded 30 to 40 gunmen before capturing a militia commander. Days later, British troops raided Al Garma, a town near the southern port at Basra, and detained a Sadr official, Sajad Badr al-Sukany. At least one British soldier was killed in the operation. [***********]
Ambassador Khalilzad said in an interview this month that Iran had been inciting splinter groups of the Mahdi Army to step up attacks against American-led forces in retaliation for the Israeli attacks in Lebanon. [***********]
General Caldwell said days later that some militia elements had been training in Iran and had received weapons from groups or individuals in Iran, though it was unclear whether the Iranian government was involved.
The battle in Diwaniya took place on a particularly bloody day for Iraqi forces. The car bombing in Baghdad killed at least a dozen Interior Ministry police officers, and wounded at least 35 other officers, a ministry official said. Another policeman was killed when a roadside bomb exploded in southern Baghdad.
In Mosul, the authorities said an Iraqi policeman was gunned down in front of his house, while the police killed one insurgent in a separate clash.
Of the nine American soldiers killed Sunday, four died after their armored Stryker unit was ambushed by a bomb and gunfire in Ghazaliya, a western Baghdad neighborhood that was part of the new security plan and had been described as a model of improved security. [********]Three were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks, and one from small-arms fire in or near Baghdad. One was killed in Anbar Province.
Defense Minister Abdul Qader Mohammed Jasim, at a joint news conference with the British defense secretary, said the Iraqi government would do everything it could to make the country safe.
“There are criminals and killers — we know the scum who wear the mask of the jihad and religion,” Mr. Jasim said. “They used to kill people as criminals and now they kill them under the cover of jihad.” [************]
Reporting for this article was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi, Khalid W. Hassan, Omar al-Neami and Qais Mizher.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:30 AM | Permalink

U.S. appoints envoy to counter Kurdish rebel threat

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900467.html
U.S. appoints envoy to counter Kurdish rebel threat
Reuters
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; 10:11 AM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [here the US takes an unusual move of appointing an envoy to coordinate with Iraqi and Turkish officials about Kurdish rebels] [note: it was reported yesterday—external—Kurdish rebels detonated targets in tourist towns in Turkey] [see full piece in today’s govt] [followup] [**********]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has appointed a former NATO commander as special envoy to help Turkey and Iraq fight Kurdish rebels along their border and in northern Iraq, the State Department said on Tuesday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900467.html
U.S. appoints envoy to counter Kurdish rebel threat
Reuters
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; 10:11 AM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [here the US takes an unusual move of appointing an envoy to coordinate with Iraqi and Turkish officials about Kurdish rebels] [note: it was reported yesterday—external—Kurdish rebels detonated targets in tourist towns in Turkey] [see full piece in today’s govt] [followup] [**********]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has appointed a former NATO commander as special envoy to help Turkey and Iraq fight Kurdish rebels along their border and in northern Iraq, the State Department said on Tuesday.
The appointment of retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, underscored U.S. commitment to working with Turkey and Iraq to end "terrorism in all its forms," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
. . . .
© 2006 Reuters

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:29 AM | Permalink

Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29military.html
August 29, 2006
Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order
By MICHAEL R. GORDON [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — A group of Iraqi soldiers recently refused to go to Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, to help restore order there, [*********]a senior American military officer said Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/middleeast/29military.html
August 29, 2006
Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order
By MICHAEL R. GORDON [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [politics and violence since big 3 and the still holding ceasefire] [followup] [**********]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — A group of Iraqi soldiers recently refused to go to Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, to help restore order there, [*********]a senior American military officer said Monday.
The officer, Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, who oversees the American-led effort to train Iraq’s security forces, said the episode last week involved about 100 Iraqi soldiers based in Maysan Province, which borders Iran. [********]
A formal investigation has begun, and the Iraqi government will soon decide whether to rescind the deployment order to the soldiers’ parent Iraqi Army unit, the Second Battalion of the Fourth Brigade of the 10th Division. [*********]
“The majority of this particular unit was Shia, and they felt — the leadership of that unit and their soldiers — like they were needed down there in Maysan,’’ [*****]General Pittard told reporters in a videoconference from Iraq. “Now, that will be worked out by the Iraqi government and the Ministry of Defense, and we’ll be in support of that.” [********]
Though the episode involves only a small fraction of the 10-division Iraqi Army, it points to an important issue. The new Iraqi government wants to build a national military, one that is ethnically diverse and can be deployed anywhere in Iraq. It does not want to field a military that is essentially a collection of local units with regional loyalties. [*********]
But many Iraqis are reluctant to serve far from their home provinces. Sunnis in Anbar Province, for example, are reluctant to join the army if they will be sent far from home to predominantly Shiite areas. Shiites are often hesitant to serve in overwhelmingly Sunni regions. [***********]
“The Iraqi Army is supposed to be a national army,” said General Pittard. “They were recruited regionally, and for the most part they’ve been operating regionally. So that’s where the difficulty is.” [************]
The refusal of some Iraqi soldiers in Maysan Province to serve in Baghdad was reported late last week in The Daily Telegraph of London and The Washington Post. General Pittard’s comments, however, appear to be the first time that a senior American officer involved in training the Iraqi military has explained the episode and discussed the investigation.
This is not the first time that Iraqi soldiers have refused to deploy to a distant area. A large number of soldiers from a predominantly Kurdish unit in northern Iraq, the Second Battalion, Third Brigade of the Second Iraqi Division, refused to go to Ramadi, where American Army troops have been involved in a tough fight to take the city back from insurgents, [*******] General Pittard noted.
Even when Iraqi soldiers agree to serve far from home, many quit. The two Iraqi divisions in Anbar Province in western Iraq have had high attrition rates and are more than 5,000 soldiers below their authorized levels. When leaves are taken into account, the day-to-day strength of the two Iraqi divisions in that province is 35 percent and 50 percent. [*********]
The Bush administration has cast the effort to train Iraq’s security forces as part of its exit strategy. More than 3,000 soldiers in the American-led coalition are involved in training the Iraqi Army, police and border troops. As President Bush put it last year, “Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." [************]
The current operation in Baghdad, which is called Together Forward, is intended to break the cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to plunge the country into civil war.
Under the plan, American and Iraqi forces are working their way through the city, neighborhood by neighborhood, in an effort to clear it of insurgents and militias. Once the areas are secured, the plan is to hand them over to the Iraqi police, who will work with American advisers. Millions of dollars of Iraqi and American funds are to be spent to restore vital services, create jobs and, essentially, try to build good will for the new Iraqi government.
An additional 12,000 troops have been sent to Baghdad to carry out the operation, 7,000 of whom are Americans. Some of the American troops have been diverted from other parts of Iraq. The Iraqi soldiers who refused to deploy from the Maysan areas were to have been part of the Iraqi reinforcements. [********] [making them targets for Jihadis and insurgents] [putting them all in one spot]
General Pittard said an important milestone would be reached in September, when the Eighth Iraqi Army Division will be placed under the control of the Iraqi Ground Forces Command. “It will be the first time that an Iraqi division will no longer be under the tactical control of the coalition forces,” he said.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:29 AM | Permalink

Iranian Leader Wants to Debate Bush

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
August 29, 2006
Iranian Leader Wants to Debate Bush
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:18 a.m. ET [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [just as surely, they count on the US not being patient and playing into their strategy] [**************]
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged the authority of the U.N. Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues. [*********] [again, evidence that Ahmadinejad is a rube being controlled by others] [exceptional simplistic thinking] [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
August 29, 2006
Iranian Leader Wants to Debate Bush
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:18 a.m. ET [iran] [wmd] [brinkmanship] [iran and its sovereign rights vs. UN Perm 5, EU3, IAEA] [followup] [recent Iran announced it will produce plutonium] [not much of an opening for negotiation when it keeps uping the ante] [sure to fuel the neocons calls for an attack] [recent announcement intended to divide the Perm5 and may be working] [iran’s strategy appears to be split the coalition that formed against iran’s wmd by holding out possibility of negotiation for those with patience] [just as surely, they count on the US not being patient and playing into their strategy] [**************]
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged the authority of the U.N. Security Council as Iran faces a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment and he called for a televised debate with President Bush on world issues. [*********] [again, evidence that Ahmadinejad is a rube being controlled by others] [exceptional simplistic thinking] [*********]
The Security Council has given Iran until Thursday to suspend enrichment, a process that can produce either fuel for a reactor or material for weapons.
''The U.S. and Britain are the source of many tensions,'' Ahmadinejad said at a news conference. ''At the Security Council, where they have to protect security, they enjoy the veto right. If anybody confronts them, there is no place to take complaints to.
''This (veto right) is the source of problems of the world. ... It is an insult to the dignity, independence, freedom and sovereignty of nations,'' [*********] he said.
Ahmadinejad rejected any suspension of enrichment, even if U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked for it during an upcoming visit to Iran.
''The use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is the right of the Iranian nation. The Iranian nation has chosen this path. ... No one can prevent it,'' [********]he said.
Iran last week responded to a Western incentives package aimed at getting Tehran to roll back its nuclear program. Iranian officials said the Islamic country did not agree to halt enrichment -- the key demand -- before engaging in further talks.
Ahmadinejad called the response an opportunity for the two sides to resolve the issue and he didn't rule out the possibility of direct talks with the United States. [***********]
''The opportunity the Iranian nation has given to other countries today is a very exceptional opportunity for a fair resolution of the issue,'' he said.
The Iranian president also called Israel a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. [******]
''The Zionist regime has deprived the Palestinian nation and other nations of the region of a single day of peace. In the past 60 years, it has imposed tens of wars on the Palestinian nation and others,'' he said. [**********]
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Islamic Revival Led by Women Tests Syria’s Secularism

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/world/middleeast/29syria.html
August 29, 2006
Islamic Revival Led by Women Tests Syria’s Secularism
By KATHERINE ZOEPF [Syria] [Islamic revival] [implications for the regime?] [note: Bashir al Assad’s family and the ruling clique are Alawite—a sect closer to Shiite vs. Sunni but also one that seems tolerated by Sunnis for some reason] [context: Syria has cast its lot with Iran and Hezbollah] [it’s leaders are heady with victory] [suffering the great human error: hubris] [here woman lead Islamic revival] [use psci 469?]
DAMASCUS, Syria — Enas al-Kaldi stops in the hallway of her Islamic school for girls and coaxes her 6-year-old schoolmate through a short recitation from the Koran.
“It’s true that they don’t understand what they are memorizing at this age, but we believe that the understanding comes when the Koran becomes part of you,” [*********]Ms. Kaldi, 16, said proudly.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/world/middleeast/29syria.html
August 29, 2006
Islamic Revival Led by Women Tests Syria’s Secularism
By KATHERINE ZOEPF [Syria] [Islamic revival] [implications for the regime?] [note: Bashir al Assad’s family and the ruling clique are Alawite—a sect closer to Shiite vs. Sunni but also one that seems tolerated by Sunnis for some reason] [context: Syria has cast its lot with Iran and Hezbollah] [it’s leaders are heady with victory] [suffering the great human error: hubris] [here woman lead Islamic revival] [use psci 469?]
DAMASCUS, Syria — Enas al-Kaldi stops in the hallway of her Islamic school for girls and coaxes her 6-year-old schoolmate through a short recitation from the Koran.
“It’s true that they don’t understand what they are memorizing at this age, but we believe that the understanding comes when the Koran becomes part of you,” [*********]Ms. Kaldi, 16, said proudly.
In other corners of Damascus, women who identify one another by the distinctive way they tie their head scarves gather for meetings of an exclusive and secret Islamic women’s society known as the Qubaisiate. [*********]
At those meetings, participants say, they are tutored further in the faith and are even taught how to influence some of their well-connected fathers and husbands to accept a greater presence of Islam in public life.
These are the two faces of an Islamic revival for women in Syria, one that could add up to a potent challenge to this determinedly secular state. [******] Though government officials vociferously deny it, Syria is becoming increasingly religious and its national identity is weakening. [****] If Islam replaces that identity, it may undermine the unity of a society that is ruled by a Muslim religious minority, the Alawites, and includes many religious groups. [*******]
Syrian officials, who had front-row seats as Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into war, are painfully aware of the myriad ways that state authority can be undermined by increasingly powerful, and appealing, religious groups. [********] Though Syria’s government supports Hezbollah, it has been taking steps to ensure that the phenomenon it helped to build in Lebanon does not come to haunt it at home. [********]
In the past, said Muhammad al-Habash, a Syrian lawmaker who is also a Muslim cleric, “we were told that we had to leave Islam behind to find our futures.” [********]
“But these days,” he said, “if you ask most people in Syria about their history, they will tell you, ‘My history is Islamic history.’ The younger generation are all reading the Koran.”
Women are in the vanguard. Though men across the Islamic world usually interpret Scripture and lead prayers, Syria, virtually alone in the Arab world, is seeing the resurrection of a centuries-old tradition of sheikhas, [*******]or women who are religious scholars. [*******]The growth of girls’ madrasas has outpaced those for boys, religious teachers here say.
There are no official statistics about precisely how many of the country’s 700 madrasas are for girls. [*****]But according to a survey of Islamic education in Syria published by the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, there are about 80 such madrasas in Damascus alone, serving more than 75,000 women and girls, and about half are affiliated with the Qubaisiate (pronounced koo-BAY-see-AHT).
For many years any kind of religious piety was viewed here with skepticism. But while men suspected of Islamist activity are frequently interrogated and jailed, subjecting women to such treatment would cause a public outcry that the government cannot risk. [*******] Women have taken advantage of their relatively greater freedom to form Islamic groups, becoming a deeply rooted and potentially subversive force to spread stricter and more conservative Islamic practices in their families and communities.
Since intelligence agents still monitor private gatherings that involve discussion of Islam, groups like the Qubaisiate often meet clandestinely, sometimes with women guarding the door to deter interlopers. [***********]
The group is named for its founder, a charismatic Syrian sheikha, Munira al-Qubaisi. [********]
A wealthy woman in her 50’s living in Damascus, who has attended Qubaisiate meetings and who asked that her name not be used because she feared punishment, provided a rough description of the activities.
A girl thought to be serious about her faith may be invited by a relative or a school friend to go to a meeting, the woman said. There, a sheikha sits on a raised platform, addresses the assembled women on religious subjects and takes questions.
Qubaisiate members, the woman said, tie their head scarves so there is a puff of fabric under the chin, like a wattle. As girls and women progress in their study of Islam and gain stature within the group, the color of their scarves changes. New members wear white ones, usually with long khaki colored coats, she said. Later they graduate to wearing navy blue scarves with a navy coat. At the final stage the sheikha may grant them permission to cover themselves completely in black.
Hadeel, a Syrian woman in her early 20’s who asked to be identified only by her first name, described how her best childhood friend had become one of the Qubaisi “sisterhood” and encouraged her to follow suit.
“Rasha would call and say, ‘Today we’re going shopping,’ and that would be a secret code meaning that there was a lesson at 7:30,” Hadeel said. “I went three times, and it was amazing. They had all this expensive food, just for teenage girls, before the lesson. And they had fancy Mercedes cars to take you back home afterward.” [*************]
Hadeel said she had at first been astonished by the way the Qubaisiate, ostensibly a women’s prayer group, seemed to single out the daughters of wealthy and influential families and girls who were seen as potential leaders.
“They care about getting girls with big names, the powerful families,” Hadeel said. “In my case, they wanted me because I was a good student.” [********]
Women speaking about the group asked that their names not be used because the group is technically illegal, though it seems the authorities are increasingly turning a blind eye.
“To be asked to join the Qubaisiate is very prestigious,” said Maan Abdul Salam, a women’s rights campaigner. [******]
Mr. Abdul Salam explained that such secret Islamic prayer groups recruited women differently, depending on their social position. “They teach poor women how to humble themselves in front of their husbands and how to pray, but they’re teaching upper-class women how to influence politics,” [*********]he said.
The Islamic school where Ms. Kaldi, the 16-year-old tutor, studies has no overt political agenda. But it is a place where devotion to Islam, and an exploration of women’s place in it, flourishes.
The school, at the Zahra mosque in a western suburb of Damascus, is a cheerful, cozy place, with soft Oriental carpets layered underfoot and scores of little girls running around in their socks. Ms. Kaldi spends summers, vacations and some afternoons there, studying and helping younger children to memorize the Koran. Her work tutoring has made her an important figure in this world; many of the younger girls greet her shyly as they pass.
The school accepts girls as young as 5, who begin memorizing the Koran from the back, where the shortest verses are found. The youngest girls are being taught with the aid of hand gestures, games and treats.
The atmosphere is relaxed. The children share candy and snacks as they study, and the room hums with the sound of high-pitched voices reciting in unison. Several girls, preparing for the tests that will allow them to progress to higher-level classes, swing one-handed around the smooth columns that support the roof of the mosque, dreamily murmuring verses aloud to themselves.
After girls in the Zahra school have committed the Koran to memory, they are taught to recite the holy book with the prescribed rhythm and cadences, a process called tajweed, which usually takes at least several years of devoted study. Along the way they are taught the principles of Koranic reasoning. [***********]
It is this art of Koranic reasoning, Ms. Kaldi and her friends say, that most sets them apart from previous generations of Syrian Muslim women.
Fatima Ghayeh, 16, an aspiring graphic designer and Ms. Kaldi’s best friend, said she believed that “the older generation,” by which she meant women now in their late 20’s and their 30’s, too often allowed their fathers and husbands to dictate their faith to them.
They came of age before the Islamic revivalist movement that has swept Syria, she explained, and as a result many of them do not feel an intellectual ownership of Islamic teaching in the way that their younger sisters do. [***********]
“The older girls were told, ‘This is Islam, and so you should do this,’ ” Ms. Ghayeh said. “They feel that they can’t really ask questions. [*********]
“It’s because 10 years ago Syria was really closed, and there weren’t so many Islamic schools. But society has really changed. Today girls are saying, ‘We want to do something with Islam, and for Islam.’ We’re more active, and we ask questions.”
Ms. Ghayeh and Ms. Kaldi each remember with emotion the day, early in President Bashar al-Assad’s tenure, when he changed the law to allow the wearing of Islamic head scarves in public schools, a practice that was forbidden under his father, Hafez al-Assad. The current president, who took office in 2000, also reduced the hours that students must spend each week in classes where the ruling Baath Party’s ideology is taught, and began allowing soldiers to pray in mosques. [*************]
Those changes have been popular among Sunnis, who make up 70 percent of the country’s population, [*******] but they carry political risks for a government that has long been allergic to public displays of religious fervor. [*********]
The government has been eager to demonstrate in recent years, through changes like these and increasing references to Syria’s Islamic heritage in official speeches, that it does not fear Islam as such.
During the weeks of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the government frequently used references to the Islamic cause and to the “Lebanese resistance,” as Hezbollah is called in the Syrian state-controlled news media, to play to the feelings of Syrians and consolidate its support. But it is still deeply anxious about Islamic groups acting outside the apparatus of the state, and the threat that they may lose to state control. [*********] [they will find, as did Nasser and Sadaat in Egypt that once they unleash it they ultimately exert little control over it] [**************]
The girls at the madrasa say that by plunging more deeply into their faith, they learn to understand their rights within Islam.
In upper-level courses at the Zahra school, the girls debate questions like whether a woman has the right to vote differently from her husband. The question is moot in Syria, one classmate joked, because President Assad inevitably wins elections by a miraculous 99 percent, just as his father did before him.
When the occasion arises, they say, they are able to reason from the Koran on an equal footing with men.
“People mistake tradition for religion,” Ms. Kaldi said. “Men are always saying, ‘Women can’t do that because of religion,’ when in fact it is only tradition. It’s important for us to study so that we will know the difference.” [*******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:27 AM | Permalink

U.S. Envoy Rejected by Sudan’s President

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/africa/29sudan.html
August 29, 2006
U.S. Envoy Rejected by Sudan’s President
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************]
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Aug. 28 — Sudan’s president declined Monday to meet a senior American diplomat who came here to press for United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur. [********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/africa/29sudan.html
August 29, 2006
U.S. Envoy Rejected by Sudan’s President
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [sudan] [UN and Western peacekeepers were to have deployed in Sudan in September] [however, the Sudanese govt has now said it would fight any non-Muslim troops on its land] [President Bashir] [followup to earlier this year when peace plan brokered—Zoelick and Bush closely involved—which Sudanese govt accepted but one of the rebel groups did not endorse] [now everything is in chaos again] [recently the govt has deployed more troops near Darfur] [****************]
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Aug. 28 — Sudan’s president declined Monday to meet a senior American diplomat who came here to press for United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur. [********]
The Security Council is discussing the transfer of peacekeeping from African Union troops, whose mandate ends Sept. 30, to a much larger United Nations force.
The American envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi E. Frazer, was to see President Omar al-Bashir, but Mr. Bashir was unable to meet her “due to his crowded schedule,” his office said. [*********]
Other officials repeated to Ms. Frazer Mr. Bashir’s rejection of the United Nations force, said a spokesman for the president, [******]Mahjub Badry.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:27 AM | Permalink

Young Muslims in Britain Hear Competing Appeals

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/europe/29recruit.html
August 29, 2006
Young Muslims in Britain Hear Competing Appeals
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI [London][UK’s Muslims] [competing forces shape their views] [quite different that their 1st-generation parents] [Pakistan’s connection] [Jihadis central] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [use psci 469] [*******]
LONDON, Aug. 25 — In the midst of an afternoon drizzle in June, Ali Zafar, 19, was approached by several young men who nonchalantly mentioned that they were affiliated with the East London Youth Forum and were curious about his views on the war in Iraq.
To Mr. Zafar, it seemed like a strange solicitation, because the forum promoted itself as a community organization that sponsors paintball games and works with Muslims on social problems like drug abuse. [******]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/europe/29recruit.html
August 29, 2006
Young Muslims in Britain Hear Competing Appeals
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI [London][UK’s Muslims] [competing forces shape their views] [quite different that their 1st-generation parents] [Pakistan’s connection] [Jihadis central] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [use psci 469] [*******]
LONDON, Aug. 25 — In the midst of an afternoon drizzle in June, Ali Zafar, 19, was approached by several young men who nonchalantly mentioned that they were affiliated with the East London Youth Forum and were curious about his views on the war in Iraq.
To Mr. Zafar, it seemed like a strange solicitation, because the forum promoted itself as a community organization that sponsors paintball games and works with Muslims on social problems like drug abuse. [******]
“They ask you about Iraq or Lebanon and then they go on about stuff like the caliphate and that things are not the way they should be,” he said. “When you are just walking home, they will tell you to come to a meeting, and that they will get you on the right path.” [*************]
Mr. Zafar said he shunned the youth forum. He has strong suspicions it is dominated by Hizb ut-Tahrir, [*****] a radical Islamic group that preaches the establishment of a caliphate, or a pan-Islamic government, and the dismantling of Israel, but says it eschews violence. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in most Arab countries and in some European nations. [furthermore, it is hardly plausible that it eschews violence] [how does one dismantle Israel—which Israelis would surely resist—non violently?] [similarly, how does one re-establish caliphate non violently?] [I suspect it takes a position rather like the Muslim Brothers] [tacticly they eschew violence] [once in power, they too are Jihadis] [*********]
Like Mr. Zafar, there are Muslims who worry about the true ambitions of the youth forum, one in a constellation of such groups that operate around mosques and universities in Britain. These groups have drawn heightened attention after the arrests and charges this month in what the police say was a plot by Muslims, all of them British citizens, to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners.
“These groups are essentially Islamist cults, hidden communities, open only to ‘believers’ who exist within open communities,” [*****]said Anthony Glees, director of the Brunel University Center for Intelligence and Security Studies in London.
Mohammed Khodabocus, 29, a founding member of the youth forum, said he and other principals of the volunteer organization endorsed the tenets of Hizb ut-Tahrir. But he said the forum has no association with it, nor is his group political. [********]
Organizations like the youth forum endear themselves to communities by arranging soccer and cricket tournaments, career fairs, tutoring programs and fund-raisers for Muslim causes abroad. [*******]They also offer social sounding boards on issues ranging from a recent rise in knife crime in parts of London to British foreign policy in the Middle East.
“They engage in social welfare projects, to tackle issues like Muslim underachievement in schools and to be seen as providing for people the way Western, godless governments cannot,” said Shiraz Maher, 25, who was a Hizb ut-Tahrir member in Leeds for two years until he left the group in early 2005. [************]
“It gives them social legitimacy and a foothold in the community,” he said. “In some respects, they do a lot of good by helping to get people off drugs and things, but they radicalize them in other ways.” [*************]
Hizb ut-Tahrir [******] Britain, along with successor groups to Al Muhajiroun, [****]a London-based group that was ostensibly disbanded in Britain in 2004, and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, are engaged in some of the most aggressive activities to recruit followers, according to British terrorism experts. [*************]
Al Muhajiroun had been led by Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, [*****] a cleric who praised the Sept. 11 hijackers as “the magnificent 19.” He has been in exile in Lebanon since last year, when Britain barred him from returning to the country.
After the London bombings of July 7, 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to outlaw Al Muhajiroun and Hizb ut-Tahrir, as part of a crackdown on groups that he said had spread intolerance and hate. [**********]
David Capitanchik, a terrorism authority and an honorary lecturer at Aberdeen University, said Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun operated covertly through a shifting set of front groups with seemingly benign names. [*******]
They include the Debate Society, the Muslim Women’s Cultural Forum, the Islamic Society, the One Nation Society, the Millennium Society, the Pakistan Society and the 1924 Committee, according to Mr. Capitanchik and other experts. [*****]
“The point of the front groups is to appear more acceptable,’’ Mr. Capitanchik said. “But once people get a sense of what they are about, they disappear and reappear with different names and structures.”
Groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir say they are simply trying to raise consciousness and channel popular anger among Muslims about issues like the war in Iraq and the limited economic opportunities for them in Britain. [*************]
Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, said that what radicalized people was not his group but “what they see on TV and read in newspapers about the actions of Western governments in the Muslim world.” [doubtless is increases their anger] [however, Jihadis groups have goals that are fundamentally antithetical to Western modernity] [**********] [thus while changing USFP or the UK’s, only a segment would be assuaged] [************]
Mr. Mustafa also denied that the Islamic organization had any ties to the East London Youth Forum or used any front groups to spread its message.
But Hizb ut-Tahrir and the youth forum have worked together in the past. An Internet site listing Muslim events in Britain carried a notice last year that listed the youth forum and Hizb ut-Tahrir, along with a British cola company, as the main supporters of a dinner to raise money for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Catherine Hossain, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said her group was regarded as extremist because of its position on Israel. “We are unashamedly anti-Zionist,” she said.
Unlike Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee urges Muslims to take part in the British political system.
Mr. Maher, the former Hizb ut-Tahrir member, said university settings were particularly beneficial for radical groups, because they provided a platform for someone with extremist views to openly express them “without the social conservatism of the Muslim community.” [****************]
He explained that he broke with Hizb ut-Tahrir because he found the organization’s world view — including the group’s opposition to Muslims’ voting in Britain — too extreme and not viable. “I saw no conflict in being British and Muslim,” he said.
Mr. Maher said he was initially engaged by Hizb ut-Tahrir the way many other people are: outside of a mosque as he was leaving after Friday Prayer. It was about a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, and several people enticed him with the notion that the United States would start a war against Islam. “The mosques were not addressing this issue,’’ he said. “They were only condemning 9/11.”[*********]
Extremist literature and a tape made by Al Muhajiroun were found recently at a temporary prayer room used by the Islamic Society of London at Metropolitan University, [********]according to a school official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing criminal inquiry into the airline bombing plot.
One of the suspects charged in the bombing plot case, Waheed Zaman, 22, was president of that religious society. A pamphlet, “The Reality of the Unknown Sect, Hizb ut-Tahrir,” has been circulated among Muslim students at British universities, and on the Internet, by opponents of the radical groups. [********]
In East London, Hamzah Mahmood, 15, said that he had encounters with people linked with the youth forum, and that they had asked for his e-mail and home addresses. He said he declined. “They try to pump you up with football and paintball so they can get in your head,” he said. [********]
Abu Khadeejah, a lecturer for the Salafi Institute in Birmingham, which endorses a purist strand of Islam, said it had used brochures, speeches and conferences to counter the radical thinking. [********]
“We put the theological texts back in their proper place,” he said. “It shows that what these people are doing is beyond the pale.” [***************]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:26 AM | Permalink

Britain Seeks Extradition Of Suspect in Terror Plot

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801240.html
Britain Seeks Extradition Of Suspect in Terror Plot
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A12 [London][UK 8-10-06] [Pakistan’s connection] [Jihadis central] [more evidence in London plots] [extradition issues] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [use psci 469] [*******]
LONDON, Aug. 28 -- British officials on Monday asked Pakistan to extradite a British man whom officials in Pakistan have described as a central figure in an alleged plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the United States. [***********] [Rashid Rauf] [******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801240.html
Britain Seeks Extradition Of Suspect in Terror Plot
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A12 [London][UK 8-10-06] [Pakistan’s connection] [Jihadis central] [more evidence in London plots] [extradition issues] [context: aftermath of thwarted plot] [London] [UK] [EU] [followup] [thwarted jihadis plot, from 8-10-2006] [use psci 469] [*******]
LONDON, Aug. 28 -- British officials on Monday asked Pakistan to extradite a British man whom officials in Pakistan have described as a central figure in an alleged plot to blow up jetliners flying from Britain to the United States. [***********] [Rashid Rauf] [******]
Rashid Rauf, 25, is being sought in connection with a 2002 killing, according to a spokesman for Britain's Home Office. Rauf moved to Pakistan shortly after his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, 54, was stabbed to death in Birmingham in April of that year, according to British media reports. [the supposed honor killing] [Rauf left UK shortly after it] [he and his father and one other implicated] [*************]
Home Office officials declined to say whether the extradition request was related to the bomb plot, [**********]which allegedly involved plans to sneak liquid explosives onto jetliners and detonate them on board. So far, British police have arrested 25 people in the investigation, which began with raids on numerous homes on the night of Aug. 9. Twelve people have been charged with terrorism-related offenses, eight more are being held while police continue to investigate and question them, and five have been released without charge, police said.
Rauf's younger brother, Tayib, 22, of Birmingham, was among those arrested in England. But he was released without charge, [******]according to British media reports. British police have released little information about the investigation, including the names of those released without charge or still not formally charged.
The Rauf family, which runs a bakery in Birmingham, is also connected to Crescent Relief, [*****] an Islamic charity group that is under investigation by British officials. British media have reported that the Rauf's father, Abdul Rauf, 54, established the organization in 2000 and that it was involved in raising money for victims of last year's earthquake in Pakistan. The Charity Commission, which oversees British charities, last week announced that it had frozen Crescent Relief's bank accounts [*****] while it investigated whether the group was involved in the bomb plot or any other illegal activities.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:25 AM | Permalink

Another Arrest Made in German Rail Plot

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs29.3aug29,1,265812.story?coll=la-headlines-world
IN BRIEF / LEBANON
Another Arrest Made in German Rail Plot
From Times Wire Reports
August 29, 2006 [Germany] [followup from August 25 and 26] [germany] [EU] [hydra?] [followup] [two days ago—external] [apparently last month, July] [a plot to detonate German passenger trains] [now suggestions that it was broader than a couple of Muslims angry over Lebanon] [I’ve heard nothing of this or the Bonsian Muslims on cable news] [only in NYTs and occasionally other newspapers] [use psci 469] [********] [ditto]
Lebanese authorities arrested another suspect believed to be involved in a failed attempt to detonate bombs on two trains in Germany, [*******]a senior Lebanese judicial source said.

The source said the man, identified only by the initials A.H., was arrested based on information provided by two suspects in Lebanese custody. [********]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs29.3aug29,1,265812.story?coll=la-headlines-world
IN BRIEF / LEBANON
Another Arrest Made in German Rail Plot
From Times Wire Reports
August 29, 2006 [Germany] [followup from August 25 and 26] [germany] [EU] [hydra?] [followup] [two days ago—external] [apparently last month, July] [a plot to detonate German passenger trains] [now suggestions that it was broader than a couple of Muslims angry over Lebanon] [I’ve heard nothing of this or the Bonsian Muslims on cable news] [only in NYTs and occasionally other newspapers] [use psci 469] [********] [ditto]
Lebanese authorities arrested another suspect believed to be involved in a failed attempt to detonate bombs on two trains in Germany, [*******]a senior Lebanese judicial source said.

The source said the man, identified only by the initials A.H., was arrested based on information provided by two suspects in Lebanese custody. [********]

The source said the man, from the northern Lebanese town of Akkar, was in his 20s. [*****]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:25 AM | Permalink

German Suspects From Opposite Sides of a Lebanese Town

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/europe/29lebanon.html
August 29, 2006
German Suspects From Opposite Sides of a Lebanese Town
By HASSAN M. FATTAH [Germany] [followup from August 25 and 26] [germany] [EU] [hydra?] [followup] [two days ago—external] [apparently last month, July] [a plot to detonate German passenger trains] [now suggestions that it was broader than a couple of Muslims angry over Lebanon] [I’ve heard nothing of this or the Bonsian Muslims on cable news] [only in NYTs and occasionally other newspapers] [use psci 469] [********] [use psci 469]
TRIPOLI, Lebanon, Aug. 28— One came from a struggling middle-class family aspiring to economic mobility. The other grew up in a poor section of town where extremist groups jostle for members and speak freely of holy war. [*****]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/world/europe/29lebanon.html
August 29, 2006
German Suspects From Opposite Sides of a Lebanese Town
By HASSAN M. FATTAH [Germany] [followup from August 25 and 26] [germany] [EU] [hydra?] [followup] [two days ago—external] [apparently last month, July] [a plot to detonate German passenger trains] [now suggestions that it was broader than a couple of Muslims angry over Lebanon] [I’ve heard nothing of this or the Bonsian Muslims on cable news] [only in NYTs and occasionally other newspapers] [use psci 469] [********] [use psci 469]
TRIPOLI, Lebanon, Aug. 28— One came from a struggling middle-class family aspiring to economic mobility. The other grew up in a poor section of town where extremist groups jostle for members and speak freely of holy war. [*****]
Jihad Hamad [*****] and Youssef Muhammad el-Hajdib [****]would probably never have met at home, but fate apparently brought them together in Germany, [****]where they had gone to help lift their families out of Tripoli’s social and economic stagnation. [********]
Instead, the two young men became prime suspects last week in what German authorities say was the gravest terrorist threat there since the hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, [*******] [implication is that this was plotted for somed time and therefore plausibly set for 5-year anniversary of 9/11] [but rushed ahead when Israel went to war with Hezbollah] [*****] were plotted in Hamburg. In this case, only a technical fault prevented the explosion of homemade bombs left on two regional trains in Germany on July 31. [*******]
Mr. Hajdib, 21, was arrested Aug. 19 in Kiel, in northern Germany, after Lebanese authorities intercepted a phone call he made. [****]Mr. Hamad, 20, turned himself in to Lebanese authorities last Thursday and is under interrogation by German and Lebanese officials in Beirut, a Lebanese security official said. Officials of the countries, which have no extradition treaty, are in discussions about his transfer to Germany. [******]
Two other men have been arrested in connection with the incident, which rattled Germany and raised new questions about that country’s antiterrorism measures. [*******]
Officials said they expected further arrests to be made in a plot that one German terrorism expert has described as the work of “semi-professionals” who may have been influenced by Al Qaeda but had no direct ties to the terrorist group. [****] “You can’t compare these guys to the ones who did the Madrid bombing, or those who planned the plot against the planes in London,” said the expert, Rolf Tophoven. “If this was Al Qaeda, the bombs would have exploded.” [*******]
The arrests of Mr. Hamad and Mr. Hajdib have placed Tripoli in the spotlight as a burgeoning center of Islamic militancy, [*******] where insurgents returned from Iraq mingle with Islamists in an environment of growing religious fervor. And if there were one place in Tripoli that seemed likely to spawn a disgruntled militant, it would seem to be Mr. Hajdib’s neighborhood of Mankoobeen, [*****] which literally means “the discarded.”
Just past a forgotten Palestinian refugee camp lined with posters remembering the fallen martyrs of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, past a spray-painted emblem marking the pro-insurgency “Falluja’s Corner,” Youssef Hajdib grew up amid an amalgam of Islamist political movements that flourished here in recent years. [*******]
The neighborhood was created in the 1950’s when a river flooded the town and the government relocated many poor families into government apartment buildings. Miles away from Beirut and a world away from its nightclubs and restaurants, the neighborhood has languished largely forgotten, with almost no city services, its sewers and water supply mixed. There are no schools here, and no mukhtar, or mayor, to keep a registry of residents, as there is in most Lebanese neighborhoods.
It was here, two years ago, that Youssef el-Hajdib kissed his father farewell and left for Germany with the family’s dreams on his back. He did not want to go, one local resident said, but his father insisted. [*******]
Officials say Mr. Hajdib’s family had long been under surveillance because the father is a known member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, [**********]a militant Islamic movement that seeks the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the Muslim world. The group, which was given legal status in Lebanon last year and describes itself as an intellectual movement, is banned in Germany and other European countries as well as in most Arab countries.
“He had finished high school and wanted to study so he went to Germany ,” said Othman al-Hajdib, Mr. Hajdib’s older brother, who stood outside the family’s apartment seeking to ward off reporters. Guarded and nervous, Othman Hajdib insisted that his brother was innocent of the charges, noting that he was normally a lighthearted young man who enjoyed life.
“He was still a young man with big dreams,’’ Othman Hajdib insisted. “If any of this is true, it came from outside, not from here. He was not even that religious.” [*******]
Across town, the Hamad family had struggled to shelter their children from a growing militancy taking hold near their home, the parents said.
“I can’t possibly understand it,” said Shaheed Hamad, Mr. Hamad’s father, a retired army officer, who insisted Monday that his son, too, was innocent of the charges. “We didn’t let him go out, we were very strict with him. The allegation simply can’t be true.” [*****]
The elder Mr. Hamad had spent his life in the military and sought to instill discipline in their home. The children were not allowed to go out on the street alone, he said, and they were kept busy with activities. All his children were enrolled in Christian schools in the area, which they believed would offer the best education and the best chance to avoid trouble. [***********]
Mr. Hamad wanted his eldest son to attend Lebanon’s military academy. But sometime last year an uncle in Germany persuaded Jihad to apply to a university there, Mr. Hamad said. [******] His son was accepted in mechanical engineering and left in January to begin his education.
Mr. Hamad said Jihad had spent two months or so with his uncle before taking an apartment and a roommate whom he had met in an Internet cafe. The roommate, it later appeared, was Mr. Hajdib, [****]Mr. Hamad said.
In early August, almost three weeks into Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon, Jihad appeared at his father’s door, insisting he was concerned for his family. The family begged him to return to his schooling, but he refused. [***********]
“He was very nervous during the war and came home to see us,” said his mother, Bushra Jaber. She said her husband quarreled with his son and at one point threw him out. Jihad disappeared for several days; the timing coincided with the arrest of Mr. Hajdib by German authorities. [*****]
Days later, Lebanese security officials searched the family’s seventh-floor apartment. Last Wednesday, Mr. Hamad said, Lebanese security officials took him in for questioning and he promised to persuade his son to turn himself in. When he finally found Jihad in a nearby monastery, Mr. Hamad said, his son told him: “I am innocent. Take me to the police.” [**************]
“If he was a bad guy, I would say he deserved this, but my son is very polite and well-mannered,” Mrs. Jaber said. “If you see him, you would cry for him.”
Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Tripoli for this article, and Mark Landler from Frankfurt, Germany.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:24 AM | Permalink

Rumsfeld Unsure of Ability To Intercept Korean Missiles

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700500.html
Rumsfeld Unsure of Ability To Intercept Korean Missiles
From News Services
Monday, August 28, 2006; A02 [missile defense] [rummy’s pre-9/11 hobby horse] [back on agenda] [*******]
FORT GREELY, Alaska, Aug. 27 -- After his first look inside the nerve center of the U.S. missile defense system, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday sounded a note of caution about expectations that interceptors poised in 10 underground silos here would work in the event of a missile attack by North Korea.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700500.html
Rumsfeld Unsure of Ability To Intercept Korean Missiles
From News Services
Monday, August 28, 2006; A02 [missile defense] [rummy’s pre-9/11 hobby horse] [back on agenda] [*******]
FORT GREELY, Alaska, Aug. 27 -- After his first look inside the nerve center of the U.S. missile defense system, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday sounded a note of caution about expectations that interceptors poised in 10 underground silos here would work in the event of a missile attack by North Korea.
Asked at a news conference whether he believed the missile shield was ready for use against a North Korean missile like the one test-fired unsuccessfully on July 4, Rumsfeld said he would not be fully convinced until the multibillion-dollar defense system has undergone more complete and realistic testing.
"A full end-to-end" demonstration is needed, Rumsfeld said, "where we actually put all the pieces" of the highly complex and far-flung missile defense system together and see whether it would succeed in destroying a warhead in flight.
Rumsfeld also said North Korea does not pose a military threat to South Korea, calling Pyongyang more of a danger as a distributor of weapons to other countries and perhaps terrorists.
"I think the real threat that North Korea poses in the immediate future is more one of proliferation than a danger to South Korea," he said.
Rumsfeld said it is clear that the overall condition of the North Korean military has deteriorated.
Later Sunday, Rumsfeld met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov. They discussed the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as Russian concerns about an announced U.S. plan to remove nuclear warheads from some Trident long-range missiles aboard submarines and replace them with conventional warheads for potential use on short notice against terrorist targets.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:36 PM | Permalink

Rumsfeld Sees Some Progress in Missile Plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/washington/28missile.html
August 28, 2006
Rumsfeld Sees Some Progress in Missile Plan
By DAVID S. CLOUD [missile defense] [rummy’s pre-9/11 hobby horse] [back on agenda] [*******]
FORT GREELY, Alaska, Aug. 27 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said here Sunday that while the fledgling United States ballistic missile defense system was becoming more capable, he wanted to see a successful full-scale test before declaring it able to shoot down a ballistic missile.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/washington/28missile.html
August 28, 2006
Rumsfeld Sees Some Progress in Missile Plan
By DAVID S. CLOUD [missile defense] [rummy’s pre-9/11 hobby horse] [back on agenda] [*******]
FORT GREELY, Alaska, Aug. 27 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said here Sunday that while the fledgling United States ballistic missile defense system was becoming more capable, he wanted to see a successful full-scale test before declaring it able to shoot down a ballistic missile.
“I have a lot of confidence in these folks, and I have a lot of confidence in the work that’s been done,” Mr. Rumsfeld said after touring one of the system’s two interceptor sites. But he added that he wanted to see a test “where we actually put all the pieces together; that just hasn’t happened.”
Mr. Rumsfeld’s assessment was more cautious than that of the Missile Defense Agency director, Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III of the Air Force. General Obering said recently that he was confident the system could have shot down a ballistic missile test-fired July 4 by North Korea, [******]if it had been a live attack aimed at the United States. The two-stage rocket broke up shortly after launching and fell into the Sea of Japan.
The Bush administration has taken the unusual step of deploying the system, which is designed to shoot down a limited number of missiles, before testing is completed and before all the radars and sensors necessary to track incoming missiles are in place. Mr. Rumsfeld repeated Sunday that the system was aimed at protecting against attacks from North Korea and Iran, which he called “rogue states that are intent on developing long-range ballistic missiles.”
The first flight test of the American system in more than a year, involving the firing of an interceptor at a target, is planned for this week, but it is not the sort of full-blown trial Mr. Rumsfeld meant. [**********]
The goal this week is to see if sensors in the so-called kill vehicle can recognize an incoming warhead, not to actually hit it, General Obering said. A test in which the kill vehicle is supposed to hit the target warhead is planned for later this year, he said.
But General Obering said that this week’s test was “about as realistic as you can get” because it employed a target that in its size and speed was representative of missiles that might be fired at the United States.
In the last two flight tests, the system halted the firing sequence before the interceptor missile left its silo. General Obering said those setbacks were due to “minor glitches” in software and workmanship by contractors that had “nothing to do with the functionality of the system.”
Even so, after the second failed test in February 2005, the system was taken down until December. [*******]
On his tour of Fort Greely, a remote base 100 miles from Fairbanks, Mr. Rumsfeld climbed down a ladder into an underground silo containing one of the 10 54-foot-long interceptor missiles already deployed. Another of the three-stage missiles is scheduled to be put in the ground on Monday, officials said, and as many as 40 are supposed to be installed by next year. The other interceptor site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where two interceptors are in silos.
Once the sensors detect an incoming missile and the interceptor is launched, it flies 18,635 miles an hour until the kill vehicle separates from its missile and, if it works correctly, flies into the incoming one, destroying it. [********]
The Bush administration is also looking at locations for an interceptor site in Europe that would protect the United States and parts of Europe from missiles launched from the Middle East. [******]The administration is seeking $126 million this year to build the site and the interceptors, which could be in place in four years if Congress provides the money, General Obering said.
Later in the day, Mr. Rumsfeld met in Fairbanks with Sergei Ivanov, the defense minister of Russia, which has long been wary of the American antimissile system, fearing it could be expanded into a more robust shield that would threaten the strategic balance between the United States and Russia. [*******]
Mr. Ivanov did not directly criticize the American system, but he called for “transparency” by the Bush administration, a term meant to convey Russia’s concern about any modifications to the system that could take its capabilities beyond stopping a small number of missiles.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:36 PM | Permalink

Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/us/nationalspecial/28bush.html
August 28, 2006
Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [bush 9/11 image] [reconstructing post-9/11 consensus] [***********]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 — When the nation records the legacy of George W. Bush, 43rd president and self-described compassionate conservative, two competing images will help tell the tale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/us/nationalspecial/28bush.html
August 28, 2006
Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [bush 9/11 image] [reconstructing post-9/11 consensus] [***********]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 — When the nation records the legacy of George W. Bush, 43rd president and self-described compassionate conservative, two competing images will help tell the tale.
The first is of Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, bullhorn in hand, feet planted firmly in the rubble of the twin towers. The second is of him aboard Air Force One, on his way from Crawford, Tex., to Washington, peering out the window at the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina thousands of feet below.
If the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina called into question the president’s competence, that Air Force One snapshot, coupled with wrenching scenes on the ground of victims who were largely poor and black, called into question something equally important to Mr. Bush: his compassion.
A year later, he has yet to recover on either front.
Mr. Bush has prodded Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars for rebuilding and victim assistance, delivered a much-publicized fence-mending speech to the N.A.A.C.P. and made repeated trips to the Gulf Coast, where he plans to observe the anniversary of the storm Monday and Tuesday. Yet his public persona remains that of wartime president — the man standing in the Manhattan rubble — flying by as desperate and vulnerable Americans suffered.
His approval ratings have never rebounded from their post-hurricane plummet. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this month found that 51 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the way Mr. Bush had responded to the needs of hurricane victims, a figure statistically no different from last September, when 48 percent disapproved.
“This is a real black mark on his administration, and it’s going to stay with him for a long time,” said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “It will be in every textbook.”
The White House says it has allocated $110 billion toward rebuilding and victim assistance; of that, $44 billion has been spent. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided more than $6 billion directly to nearly 950,000 victims for temporary housing, the most money ever provided by the agency for a single natural disaster.
But Mr. Bush is not getting much credit. The poll found Americans critical about the pace of recovery and lacking full confidence in the government. Thirty-nine percent described themselves as dissatisfied with progress in the region, and an additional 11 percent said they were angry. Fifty-six percent had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in the government’s ability to respond to another natural disaster; 44 percent had little or no confidence at all.
The storm is generating a powerful undercurrent in this year’s midterm elections as well, as Democrats invoke it as a catchphrase for what they regard as mismanagement on a number of issues, including the war in Iraq and the economy. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who runs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said his candidates mentioned the storm at every turn.
“I might argue that this was the worst thing that’s happened to George Bush in the whole six years of his presidency,” Mr. Schumer said. “It was a perception-altering event. People had questioned his ideology. People had even questioned his intelligence. But before this, average people rarely questioned his competence or his caring.”
One year later, Democrats are not the only ones raising questions. In follow-up interviews to the Times/CBS News poll, Republicans and independents also expressed lingering doubts about Mr. Bush, using language suggesting that their memories of the storm and his handling of it remained fresh and deep.
“Bush did nothing for the people,” said one Republican, Joseph Ippolito, 75, a retired highway superintendent from Bayville, N.J. “Bush didn’t have the proper people in office to take care of Katrina. The whole administration is wacky — and I voted twice for him.”
White House officials and leading Republicans, while defending the president’s record, are not surprised by the anger.
Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said the White House was well aware that New Orleans residents “are skeptical about our commitment,” and that many Americans blamed Mr. Bush for their fellow citizens’ suffering. But Mr. Bartlett said the president would ultimately be judged on how the Gulf Coast was rebuilt and how the government handled the next crisis — a theme echoed by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, the chairwoman of the Senate committee charged with overseeing the recovery.
“If we have another devastating hurricane and the response is markedly more efficient, more compassionate,” Ms. Collins said, “then I think people will say, ‘Well, they learned.’ ”
But the senator said the damage to the president’s image would be difficult to undo.
“Unfortunately, it may be hard to erase the regrettable photo of him on Air Force One looking down at the destruction and devastation below,” she said. “That’s a searing and very unfortunate image that doesn’t reflect the president’s compassion.”
When Mr. Bush stood last September in Jackson Square, in the darkened city of New Orleans, and declared that Americans had “a duty to confront this poverty with bold action,” religious and civil rights leaders saw it as a hopeful turning point. Suddenly, a president who had defined himself as the lead prosecutor in the war on terror was turning his attention to jobs, housing and education for the poor, in language that evoked memories of the 1960’s.
Today, those same leaders are discouraged and critical.
“Here was an opportunity for a new conversation on race and class and poverty, and they blew it,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, a Bush supporter who runs a coalition that represents mainly black churches. “It’s not even just President Bush. Here was an opportunity for Republicans and conservatives in general to make a moral and intellectual case for a positive policy agenda for the black poor, and they did not advance it.”
Yet the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, who had been critical of the president, publicly praised him in his re-election victory speech in May, thanking Mr. Bush for “delivering for the citizens of New Orleans.”
Others who have worked with the president on the recovery, including prominent Democrats like Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Donna Brazile, a political strategist who spent 2000 trying to defeat Mr. Bush as campaign manager for Vice President Al Gore, say they do not doubt his sincerity or commitment.
Ms. Brazile, a New Orleans native who serves on a state recovery task force, describes the president as “very much engaged” and praises him for prodding Congress to spend more money on levee rebuilding.
“I said to him, ‘You’ll be a hero if you commit to rebuilding those levees,’ ” she said, recounting their first meeting last December. “I have to give him credit. Two weeks later, we got the additional money.”
But Ms. Landrieu calls the administration “slow and reluctant.” She sees Mr. Bush as being distracted by the war in Iraq and says he has fallen short on the one task he cannot delegate: using the power of the presidency to grab the nation’s attention.
“I understand that there have been many distractions and many important priorities for the nation — the war in Iraq, the unrest in the Mideast — but the president has not maintained the bully pulpit on Katrina,” she said, adding, “He does it so intermittently, I wonder if we are on his mind.”
Some members of the public wonder as well.
“I find that the concentration of the president is on the Middle East crisis and not on what’s at home,” said Carlton DeCosta, a 33-year-old Navy veteran from Patchogue, N.Y., who said he considered himself an independent, in a follow-up interview to the Times/CBS News poll. “When the president addresses the country it has nothing to do with Katrina, nothing to do with the rebuilding.”
But Mary Lou Ackley, a 69-year-old homemaker from Elmira, N.Y., who said she voted Republican, said state and local agencies bore responsibility for the pace of rebuilding. “I don’t think the president sits there and does the pencil work,” Ms. Ackley said, adding, “He’s got a lot more to do than just direct Louisiana and their hurricanes.”
As the midterm elections approach, analysts say dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of the hurricane could prompt the Republican faithful to stay home.
Professor Thurber, the American University scholar, says the competence issue will be central to history’s assessment of the president. Mr. Bartlett, the White House counselor, predicts historians will soften their criticism “if people see a better and more vibrant Gulf Coast emerge from this tragedy.”
With the rebuilding expected to continue long after Mr. Bush leaves office, Senator Landrieu says he still has a chance.
“I think there’s an opportunity for him to make this a real legacy of his presidency,” she said. “There’s still time to have people say he did a good job and he rose to the occasion. He’s writing the story himself.”
Megan Thee and Marina Stefan contributed reporting from New York for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:35 PM | Permalink

Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html
Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 28, 2006; A13 [FBI] [ten most wanted] [bin Laden] [********]
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is a longtime and prominent member of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, which notes his role as the suspected mastermind of the deadly U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa on Aug. 7, 1998.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html
Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 28, 2006; A13 [FBI] [ten most wanted] [bin Laden] [********]
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is a longtime and prominent member of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, which notes his role as the suspected mastermind of the deadly U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa on Aug. 7, 1998.
But another more infamous date -- Sept. 11, 2001 -- is nowhere to be found on the same FBI notice.
The curious omission underscores the Justice Department's decision, so far, to not seek formal criminal charges against bin Laden for approving al-Qaeda's most notorious and successful terrorist attack. The notice says bin Laden is "a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world" but does not provide details. [********]
The absence has also provided fodder for conspiracy theorists who think the U.S. government or another power was behind the Sept. 11 hijackings. From this point of view, the lack of a Sept. 11 reference suggests that the connection to al-Qaeda is uncertain.
Exhaustive government and independent investigations have concluded otherwise, of course, and bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders have proudly taken responsibility for the hijackings. FBI officials say the wanted poster merely reflects the government's long-standing practice of relying on actual criminal charges in the notices. [********]
"There's no mystery here," said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. "They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don't need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it." [*******]
David N. Kelley, the former U.S. attorney in New York who oversaw terrorism cases when bin Laden was indicted for the embassy bombings there in 1998, said he is not at all surprised by the lack of a reference to Sept. 11 on the official wanted poster. Kelley said the issue is a matter of legal restrictions and the need to be fair to any defendant. [******]
"It might seem a little strange from the outside, but it makes sense from a legal point of view," [******] said Kelley, now in private practice. "If I were in government, I'd be troubled if I were asked to put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed, no matter who it was." [********]
Bin Laden was placed on the Ten Most Wanted list in June 1999 after being indicted for murder, conspiracy and other charges in connection with the embassy bombings, and a $5 million reward was put on his head at that time. The listing was updated after Sept. 11, 2001, to include a higher reward of $25 million, but no mention of the attacks was added. [*********]
Others on the list include Colombian drug cartel leader Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez and fugitive Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, charged with a role in "numerous murders" in the 1970s and 1980s.
The FBI maintains a separate "Most Wanted Terrorists" list, which includes bin Laden and 25 others who have been indicted in U.S. federal courts in connection with terror plots. But this second bin Laden listing also makes no mention of Sept. 11. [********]
"The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice," the FBI says in a note accompanying the terrorist list on its Web site. "Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."
Staff writer Sari Horwitz contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:34 PM | Permalink

What if the Heathrow Bombers Succeeded?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ferguson28aug28,0,1785725.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
NIALL FERGUSON
What if the Heathrow Bombers Succeeded?
8/27 would have been far different than 9/11.
Niall Ferguson
August 28, 2006
MAYBE IT'S because I know I have to catch a transatlantic flight on Sept. 11. Maybe I'm just too fond of "What if?" historical questions. Whatever the reason, I can't get over how quickly the world has moved on since the exposure of the Heathrow bomb plot. Ever since the revelation that a terrorist ring intended "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," I've been finding it all too easy to imagine what it would have been like if the plotters had succeeded.

We cannot assume, for obvious legal reasons, that the suspects who were charged in London are anything other than innocent, as they themselves maintain. Nor should we speculate about those who haven't yet been released or charged. So let us merely hypothesize that some young British Muslims really were plotting to assemble bombs out of liquid-based explosives and iPod-shaped detonators and to detonate them aboard multiple transatlantic planes. Suppose it had happened yesterday. [***]Imagine yourself, in a parallel universe, turning on the radio and hearing the following bulletin:

"Five passenger aircraft have blown up in midair and crashed into the Atlantic. The planes — believed to be operated by American Airlines and United Airlines — left this morning from Heathrow Airport, bound for the United States. There are no reported survivors."

Such a calamity would at once have been dubbed "8/27." But the political consequences would have been very different from those that followed 9/11. [******]

Five years ago, the world reacted with astounding unanimity. "Nous sommes tous Américains," wrote Jean-Marie Colombani in Le Monde. Londoners felt an intense empathy with New Yorkers. [********] [we are all Americans] [******]

At the same time, 9/11 generated a surge of patriotic feeling in the targeted country. Americans rallied around a president who had been in office less than a year, having come to power by the most contentious of margins. [******]

An 8/27 would have been diametrically different. From an American vantage point, a successful terrorist plot launched from Heathrow would have been doubly Britain's fault. Its proximate cause would have been a lapse in British security. Its root cause would have been the infiltration of British society by radical Islamism.

As details emerged about the perpetrators, Americans' worst suspicions about Britain would have been confirmed. It has been clear for a while that Britain's Muslim communities are proving fertile recruiting grounds for Islamist extremists, and that it is the disaffected sons and grandsons of Pakistani immigrants who are most susceptible. [*******]

Perhaps even more troubling, it has been evident since the arrest of attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid that ordinary British dropouts can also be lured, via religious conversion, into the terrorist network. Imagine if it had been established that one of the perpetrators of the worst terrorist outrage since 9/11 had been the son of a respected Conservative Party official.

Far from editorializing that "We are all British now," the American media might well have reacted to 8/27 by saying, "The British are all suspects now." The Atlantic would have drastically widened.

The domestic consequences within Britain of 8/27 would have been different too. Far from rallying around a beleaguered leader, British voters would have turned on Tony Blair. Even as things stand, there is complete disillusionment with him. According to a poll published Tuesday in the Guardian newspaper, just 1% of voters think that the government's policy toward the Middle East has improved the country's safety, while 72% think it has made Britain more of a target. An earlier poll for the Spectator found that although 73% of Brits agree with President Bush that we are engaged in a "global war against Islamic terrorists," only 15% believe that Britain should continue to align itself closely with the U.S., compared with 46% who favor closer ties with Europe. [******]

Moreover, whereas 9/11 united Americans (albeit ephemerally), Britain would have been torn apart by 8/27. According to a YouGov poll published in Friday's Daily Telegraph, nearly one in five people believe that "a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism." Five years ago, only 32% of those polled said they felt "threatened" by Islam; today, that figure is 53%.

The feeling of alienation is decidedly mutual. A recent Pew global survey found that 81% of British Muslims consider themselves to be Muslims first and British second. (Only Pakistan, at 87%, has a higher percentage of people who put their religion ahead of their nationality.)

Last week, New York magazine asked a diverse group of journalists to answer the question: "What if 9/11 never happened?" It inspired some fascinating answers. But the question "What if 8/27 had happened?" is much more important — because sooner or later something like it is bound to happen for real. [********]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:34 PM | Permalink

Order in the Courts

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/opinion/28thier.html
August 28, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Order in the Courts
By J ALEXANDER THIER
Washington [oped] [deteriorating situation in Afghan] [***********]
IT’S been a bad year for Afghanistan. Insurgents are gaining ground and killing more coalition soldiers, Afghan officials and civilians than at any time since the fall of the Taliban government. Reconstruction is faltering. A disenchanted population appears to be pulling back the welcome mat for foreign forces. [********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/opinion/28thier.html
August 28, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Order in the Courts
By J ALEXANDER THIER
Washington [oped] [deteriorating situation in Afghan] [***********]
IT’S been a bad year for Afghanistan. Insurgents are gaining ground and killing more coalition soldiers, Afghan officials and civilians than at any time since the fall of the Taliban government. Reconstruction is faltering. A disenchanted population appears to be pulling back the welcome mat for foreign forces. [********]
But a recent turn of events could have a significant positive impact on Afghanistan’s future. A few weeks ago the new Parliament approved a fresh slate of Supreme Court justices — a strong group of professionals and reformers that includes several of Afghanistan’s pre-eminent legal minds. [******]
This court represents a sea change from the judiciary that has been in place since the collapse of the Taliban. For the first time in its history, Afghanistan may have a real system of checks and balances. But the United States and its partners must seize this opportunity and act quickly to support the new court,and not squander another chance for meaningful reform.
It’s the big bang moment of democracy, when the three branches of government all come into being, each with its own powers and limitations. We are witnessing in Afghanistan today what the American founders understood so well: alone, factions and institutions will abuse their power, but in combination they will constrain and balance one another, creating stability amid competition and turmoil.
Afghanistan’s Parliament, still struggling to find its feet, has played a critical role in this constitutional drama. Last spring, the body rejected the previous chief justice, Fazel Hadi Shinwari, a fundamentalist firebrand whom President Hamid Karzai had appointed in deference to Islamist demands. Ris