An Intray
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Wolfowitz Says War Decided on Best Available Intel
Excite - News: "Wolfowitz Says War Decided on Best Available Intel | Jan 31, 2:26 pm ET | By Tabassum Zakaria
WUERZBURG, Germany (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Saturday dismissed criticism of the U.S. decision to wage war in Iraq on the basis of intelligence that has now become the focus of growing skepticism.
Former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay sparked a storm of controversy this week when he directly refuted pre-war intelligence which asserted that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons programs and was an imminent threat to international peace.
'You have to make decisions based on the intelligence you have, not on the intelligence you're going to discover later,' Wolfowitz said during a visit to U.S. troops based in Germany. It's very important to try to have the best intelligence you possibly can have.'
U.S. intelligence agencies are under attack from critics at home and abroad for pre-war assessments which officials of President Bush's administration held up to Americans, their allies abroad and at the United Nations as justification for mounting a pre-emptive war against Iraq in March.
Democrats, in a U.S. presidential election year, have been accusing the Republican White House of exaggerating the intelligence on Iraqi weapons to build a case for war."
Excite - News: "Wolfowitz Says War Decided on Best Available Intel | Jan 31, 2:26 pm ET | By Tabassum Zakaria
WUERZBURG, Germany (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Saturday dismissed criticism of the U.S. decision to wage war in Iraq on the basis of intelligence that has now become the focus of growing skepticism.
Former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay sparked a storm of controversy this week when he directly refuted pre-war intelligence which asserted that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons programs and was an imminent threat to international peace.
'You have to make decisions based on the intelligence you have, not on the intelligence you're going to discover later,' Wolfowitz said during a visit to U.S. troops based in Germany. It's very important to try to have the best intelligence you possibly can have.'
U.S. intelligence agencies are under attack from critics at home and abroad for pre-war assessments which officials of President Bush's administration held up to Americans, their allies abroad and at the United Nations as justification for mounting a pre-emptive war against Iraq in March.
Democrats, in a U.S. presidential election year, have been accusing the Republican White House of exaggerating the intelligence on Iraqi weapons to build a case for war."
Wall is bulldozing relationship with Jordan: "wall would kill every opportunity for a viable Palestinian state" "revive transfer option"
Building a Wall, Breaking a Relationship (washingtonpost.com): "By David Ignatius | Friday, January 30, 2004; Page A21
Israel's plan to build a security fence inside the West Bank is beginning to bulldoze its friendly relationship with neighboring Jordan, which for decades has been one of its few reliable Arab partners.
...
... to Israel's consternation, Jordan has taken a leading role in opposing the barrier. The Jordanian foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, told his country's parliament on Jan. 21: "Construction of the wall would kill every opportunity for a viable Palestinian state." He said it would pose a "direct threat . . . to Jordanian national security because it might revive the transfer [ethnic cleansing] option [of Palestinians to Jordan] despite all Israeli assertions to the contrary."
Sharon has warned Jordan to keep quiet. He blamed the Hashemite kingdom for "leading" the campaign against the wall and said it had "much to lose in [a] worsening of its relations with Israel" if it continued with its anti-wall campaign. Jordan countered that it wouldn't be intimidated by Sharon's threats. As the bickering continued, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Muasher explained in a telephone interview that Jordan fears that the barrier, by undermining a viable Palestinian state, may revive the "Jordanian option." That argument, which was often made by right-wing Israeli politicians in the early 1980s, held that there was no need to create a Palestinian state because one already existed in Jordan [Perle apparently presented such a map at a pentagon briefing during the current administration], where a majority of the population is Palestinian. Shalom canceled a visit to Amman planned for this week.
...
"We are afraid that the day might come when Israeli leaders might argue 'Jordan is Palestine,' " Muasher said. "Why are we worried?" he went on. "The wall will effectively divide the West Bank into three parts. It will make life impossible for Palestinians: dividing them from their work, their schools, their lands. If that happens, what options do Palestinians have? They will leave, voluntarily or by force, for Jordan."
Building a Wall, Breaking a Relationship (washingtonpost.com): "By David Ignatius | Friday, January 30, 2004; Page A21
Israel's plan to build a security fence inside the West Bank is beginning to bulldoze its friendly relationship with neighboring Jordan, which for decades has been one of its few reliable Arab partners.
...
... to Israel's consternation, Jordan has taken a leading role in opposing the barrier. The Jordanian foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, told his country's parliament on Jan. 21: "Construction of the wall would kill every opportunity for a viable Palestinian state." He said it would pose a "direct threat . . . to Jordanian national security because it might revive the transfer [ethnic cleansing] option [of Palestinians to Jordan] despite all Israeli assertions to the contrary."
Sharon has warned Jordan to keep quiet. He blamed the Hashemite kingdom for "leading" the campaign against the wall and said it had "much to lose in [a] worsening of its relations with Israel" if it continued with its anti-wall campaign. Jordan countered that it wouldn't be intimidated by Sharon's threats. As the bickering continued, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Muasher explained in a telephone interview that Jordan fears that the barrier, by undermining a viable Palestinian state, may revive the "Jordanian option." That argument, which was often made by right-wing Israeli politicians in the early 1980s, held that there was no need to create a Palestinian state because one already existed in Jordan [Perle apparently presented such a map at a pentagon briefing during the current administration], where a majority of the population is Palestinian. Shalom canceled a visit to Amman planned for this week.
...
"We are afraid that the day might come when Israeli leaders might argue 'Jordan is Palestine,' " Muasher said. "Why are we worried?" he went on. "The wall will effectively divide the West Bank into three parts. It will make life impossible for Palestinians: dividing them from their work, their schools, their lands. If that happens, what options do Palestinians have? They will leave, voluntarily or by force, for Jordan."
Friday, January 30, 2004
Bush Administrations claims about Iraq: In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat
Center for American Progress - In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat - Page: "January 29, 2004
synonymous phrases "mortal threat," "urgent threat," "immediate threat", "serious and mounting threat", "unique threat," and claiming that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction" – all just months after Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that Iraq was "contained" and "threatens not the United States." While Iraq was certainly a dangerous country, the Administration's efforts to claim it never hyped the threat in the lead-up to war is belied by its statements.
"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
• White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03
"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
• President Bush, 7/17/03
Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03
"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
• President Bush, 7/2/03
"Absolutely."
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03
"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
• President Bush 4/24/03
"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03
"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
• Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03
"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
• President Bush, 3/19/03
"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
• President Bush, 3/16/03
"This is about imminent threat."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03
Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03
Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03
Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03
"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03
"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03
"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03
"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03
"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
• President Bush, 11/23/02
"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
• President Bush, 11/3/02
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
• President Bush, 11/1/02
"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
• President Bush, 10/28/02
"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
• President Bush, 10/16/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
• President Bush, 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
• President Bush, 10/2/02
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
• President Bush, 10/2/02
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
• President Bush, 9/26/02
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02
"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02
"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02
Center for American Progress - In Their Own Words: Iraq's 'Imminent' Threat - Page: "January 29, 2004
synonymous phrases "mortal threat," "urgent threat," "immediate threat", "serious and mounting threat", "unique threat," and claiming that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction" – all just months after Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that Iraq was "contained" and "threatens not the United States." While Iraq was certainly a dangerous country, the Administration's efforts to claim it never hyped the threat in the lead-up to war is belied by its statements.
"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
• White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03
"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
• President Bush, 7/17/03
Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03
"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
• President Bush, 7/2/03
"Absolutely."
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03
"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
• President Bush 4/24/03
"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03
"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
• Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03
"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
• President Bush, 3/19/03
"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
• President Bush, 3/16/03
"This is about imminent threat."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03
Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03
Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03
Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03
"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03
"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03
"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03
"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03
"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
• President Bush, 11/23/02
"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
• President Bush, 11/3/02
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
• President Bush, 11/1/02
"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
• President Bush, 10/28/02
"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
• President Bush, 10/16/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
• President Bush, 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
• President Bush, 10/2/02
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
• President Bush, 10/2/02
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
• President Bush, 9/26/02
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02
"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02
"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02
How the Bush Administration repeatedly and deliberately refused to listen to intelligence agencies
Center for American Progress - Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings - Page: "January 28, 2004 | Updated January 29, 2004
A chronology of how the Bush Administration repeatedly and deliberately refused to listen to intelligence agencies that said its case for war was weak
Former weapons inspector David Kay now says Iraq probably did not have WMD before the war, a major blow to the Bush Administration which used the WMD argument as the rationale for war. Unfortunately, Kay and the Administration are now attempting to shift the blame for misleading America onto the intelligence community. But a review of the facts shows the intelligence community repeatedly warned the Bush Administration about the weakness of its case, but was circumvented, overruled, and ignored. The following is year-by-year timeline of those warnings.
2001: WH Admits Iraq Contained; Creates Agency to Circumvent Intel Agencies
In 2001 and before, intelligence agencies noted that Saddam Hussein was effectively contained after the Gulf War. In fact, former weapons inspector David Kay now admits that the previous policy of containment – including the 1998 bombing of Iraq – destroyed any remaining infrastructure of potential WMD programs.
OCTOBER 8, 1997 – IAEA SAYS IRAQ FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: "As reported in detail in the progress report dated 8 October 1997…and based on all credible information available to date, the IAEA's verification activities in Iraq, have resulted in the evolution of a technically coherent picture of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme. These verification activities have revealed no indications that Iraq had achieved its programme objective of producing nuclear weapons or that Iraq had produced more than a few grams of weapon-usable nuclear material or had clandestinely acquired such material. Furthermore, there are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for t he production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." [Source: IAEA Report, 10/8/98]
FEBRUARY 23 & 24, 2001 – COLIN POWELL SAYS IRAQ IS CONTAINED: "I think we ought to declare [the containment policy] a success. We have kept him contained, kept him in his box." He added Saddam "is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" and that "he threatens not the United States." [Source: State Department, 2/23/01 and 2/24/01]
SEPTEMBER 16, 2001 – CHENEY ACKNOWLEDGES IRAQ IS CONTAINED: Vice President Dick Cheney said that "Saddam Hussein is bottled up" – a confirmation of the intelligence he had received. [Source: Meet the Press, 9/16/2001]
SEPTEMBER 2001 – WHITE HOUSE CREATES OFFICE TO CIRCUMVENT INTEL AGENCIES: The Pentagon creates the Office of Special Plans "in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true-that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States…The rising influence of the Office of Special Plans was accompanied by a decline in the influence of the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. bringing about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community." The office, hand-picked by the Administration, specifically "cherry-picked intelligence that supported its pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest" while officials deliberately "bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence." [Sources: New Yorker, 5/12/03; Atlantic Monthly, 1/04; New Yorker, 10/20/03]
2002: Intel Agencies Repeatedly Warn White House of Its Weak WMD Case
Throughout 2002, the CIA, DIA, Department of Energy and United Nations all warned the Bush Administration that its selective use of intelligence was painting a weak WMD case. Those warnings were repeatedly ignored.
JANUARY, 2002 – TENET DOES NOT MENTION IRAQ IN NUCLEAR THREAT REPORT: "In CIA Director George Tenet's January 2002 review of global weapons-technology proliferation, he did not even mention a nuclear threat from Iraq, though he did warn of one from North Korea." [Source: The New Republic, 6/30/03]
FEBRUARY 6, 2002 – CIA SAYS IRAQ HAS NO WMD, AND HAS NOT PROVIDED AL QAEDA WMD: "The Central Intelligence Agency has no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups, according to several American intelligence officials." [Source: NY Times, 2/6/02]
APRIL 15, 2002 – WOLFOWITZ ANGERED AT CIA FOR NOT UNDERMINING U.N. REPORT: After receiving a CIA report that concluded that Hans Blix had conducted inspections of Iraq's declared nuclear power plants "fully within the parameters he could operate" when Blix was head of the international agency responsible for these inspections prior to the Gulf War, a report indicated that "Wolfowitz ‘hit the ceiling’ because the CIA failed to provide sufficient ammunition to undermine Blix and, by association, the new U.N. weapons inspection program." [Source: W. Post, 4/15/02]
SUMMER, 2002 – CIA WARNINGS TO WHITE HOUSE EXPOSED: "In the late summer of 2002, Sen. Graham had requested from Tenet an analysis of the Iraqi threat. According to knowledgeable sources, he received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies--noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA's classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes." [Source: The New Republic, 6/30/03]
SEPTEMBER, 2002 – DIA TELLS WHITE HOUSE NO EVIDENCE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS: "An unclassified excerpt of a 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency study on Iraq's chemical warfare program in which it stated that there is ‘no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.’" The report also said, "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) actions." [Source: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 6/13/03; DIA report, 2002]
SEPTEMBER 20, 2002 – DEPT. OF ENERGY TELLS WHITE HOUSE OF NUKE DOUBTS: "Doubts about the quality of some of the evidence that the United States is using to make its case that Iraq is trying to build a nuclear bomb emerged Thursday. While National Security Adviser Condi Rice stated on 9/8 that imported aluminum tubes ‘are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs’ a growing number of experts say that the administration has not presented convincing evidence that the tubes were intended for use in uranium enrichment rather than for artillery rocket tubes or other uses. Former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright said he found significant disagreement among scientists within the Department of Energy and other agencies about the certainty of the evidence." [Source: UPI, 9/20/02]
OCTOBER 2002 – CIA DIRECTLY WARNS WHITE HOUSE: "The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa." [Source: Washington Post, 7/23/03]
OCTOBER 2002 — STATE DEPT. WARNS WHITE HOUSE ON NUKE CHARGES: The State Department’s Intelligence and Research Department dissented from the conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD capabilities that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. "The activities we have detected do not ... add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons." INR accepted the judgment by Energy Department technical experts that aluminum tubes Iraq was seeking to acquire, which was the central basis for the conclusion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, were ill-suited to build centrifuges for enriching uranium. [Source, Declassified Iraq NIE released 7/2003]
OCTOBER 2002 – AIR FORCE WARNS WHITE HOUSE: "The government organization most knowledgeable about the United States' UAV program -- the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center -- had sharply disputed the notion that Iraq's UAVs were being designed as attack weapons" – a WMD claim President Bush used in his October 7 speech on Iraqi WMD, just three days before the congressional vote authorizing the president to use force. [Source: Washington Post, 9/26/03]
2003: WH Pressures Intel Agencies to Conform; Ignores More Warnings
Instead of listening to the repeated warnings from the intelligence community, intelligence officials say the White House instead pressured them to conform their reports to fit a pre-determined policy. Meanwhile, more evidence from international institutions poured in that the White House’s claims were not well-grounded.
LATE 2002-EARLY 2003 – CHENEY PRESSURES CIA TO CHANGE INTELLIGENCE: "Vice President Dick Cheney's repeated trips to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war for unusual, face-to-face sessions with intelligence analysts poring over Iraqi data. The pressure on the intelligence community to document the administration's claims that the Iraqi regime had ties to al-Qaida and was pursuing a nuclear weapons capacity was ‘unremitting,’ said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro, echoing several other intelligence veterans interviewed." Additionally, CIA officials "charged that the hard-liners in the Defense Department and vice president's office had 'pressured' agency analysts to paint a dire picture of Saddam's capabilities and intentions." [Sources: Dallas Morning News, 7/28/03; Newsweek, 7/28/03]
JANUARY, 2003 – STATE DEPT. INTEL BUREAU REITERATE WARNING TO POWELL: "The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the State Department's in-house analysis unit, and nuclear experts at the Department of Energy are understood to have explicitly warned Secretary of State Colin Powell during the preparation of his speech that the evidence was questionable. The Bureau reiterated to Mr. Powell during the preparation of his February speech that its analysts were not persuaded that the aluminum tubes the Administration was citing could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium." [Source: Financial Times, 7/30/03]
FEBRUARY 14, 2003 – UN WARNS WHITE HOUSE THAT NO WMD HAVE BEEN FOUND: "In their third progress report since U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed in November, inspectors told the council they had not found any weapons of mass destruction." Weapons inspector Hans Blix told the U.N. Security Council they had been unable to find any WMD in Iraq and that more time was needed for inspections. [Source: CNN, 2/14/03]
FEBRUARY 15, 2003 – IAEA WARNS WHITE HOUSE NO NUCLEAR EVIDENCE: The head of the IAEA told the U.N. in February that "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." The IAEA examined "2,000 pages of documents seized Jan. 16 from an Iraqi scientist's home -- evidence, the Americans said, that the Iraqi regime was hiding government documents in private homes. The documents, including some marked classified, appear to be the scientist's personal files." However, "the documents, which contained information about the use of laser technology to enrich uranium, refer to activities and sites known to the IAEA and do not change the agency's conclusions about Iraq's laser enrichment program." [Source: Wash. Post, 2/15/03]
FEBURARY 24, 2003 – CIA WARNS WHITE HOUSE ‘NO DIRECT EVIDENCE’ OF WMD: "A CIA report on proliferation released this week says the intelligence community has no ‘direct evidence’ that Iraq has succeeded in reconstituting its biological, chemical, nuclear or long-range missile programs in the two years since U.N. weapons inspectors left and U.S. planes bombed Iraqi facilities. ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its Weapons of Mass Destruction programs,’ said the agency in its semi-annual report on proliferation activities." [NBC News, 2/24/03]
MARCH 7, 2003 – IAEA REITERATES TO WHITE HOUSE NO EVIDENCE OF NUKES: IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said nuclear experts have found "no indication" that Iraq has tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes or specialized ring magnets for centrifuge enrichment of uranium. For months, American officials had "cited Iraq's importation of these tubes as evidence that Mr. Hussein's scientists have been seeking to develop a nuclear capability." ElBaradei also noted said "the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that documents which formed the basis for the [President Bush’s assertion] of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic." When questioned about this on Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney simply said "Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong." [Source: NY Times, 3/7/03: Meet the Press, 3/16/03]
MAY 30, 2003 – INTEL PROFESSIONALS ADMIT THEY WERE PRESSURED: "A growing number of U.S. national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the $30 billion intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq . A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terrorist groups. This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, 'cherry-picked the intelligence stream' in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a official at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he said. Greg Thielmann, an intelligence official in the State Department, said it appeared to him that intelligence had been shaped 'from the top down.'" [Reuters, 5/30/03 ]
JUNE 6, 2003 – INTELLIGENCE HISTORIAN SAYS INTEL WAS HYPED: "The CIA bowed to Bush administration pressure to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs ahead of the U.S.-led war in Iraq , a leading national security historian concluded in a detailed study of the spy agency's public pronouncements." [Reuters, 6/6/03]
Center for American Progress - Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings - Page: "January 28, 2004 | Updated January 29, 2004
A chronology of how the Bush Administration repeatedly and deliberately refused to listen to intelligence agencies that said its case for war was weak
Former weapons inspector David Kay now says Iraq probably did not have WMD before the war, a major blow to the Bush Administration which used the WMD argument as the rationale for war. Unfortunately, Kay and the Administration are now attempting to shift the blame for misleading America onto the intelligence community. But a review of the facts shows the intelligence community repeatedly warned the Bush Administration about the weakness of its case, but was circumvented, overruled, and ignored. The following is year-by-year timeline of those warnings.
2001: WH Admits Iraq Contained; Creates Agency to Circumvent Intel Agencies
In 2001 and before, intelligence agencies noted that Saddam Hussein was effectively contained after the Gulf War. In fact, former weapons inspector David Kay now admits that the previous policy of containment – including the 1998 bombing of Iraq – destroyed any remaining infrastructure of potential WMD programs.
OCTOBER 8, 1997 – IAEA SAYS IRAQ FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: "As reported in detail in the progress report dated 8 October 1997…and based on all credible information available to date, the IAEA's verification activities in Iraq, have resulted in the evolution of a technically coherent picture of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme. These verification activities have revealed no indications that Iraq had achieved its programme objective of producing nuclear weapons or that Iraq had produced more than a few grams of weapon-usable nuclear material or had clandestinely acquired such material. Furthermore, there are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for t he production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." [Source: IAEA Report, 10/8/98]
FEBRUARY 23 & 24, 2001 – COLIN POWELL SAYS IRAQ IS CONTAINED: "I think we ought to declare [the containment policy] a success. We have kept him contained, kept him in his box." He added Saddam "is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" and that "he threatens not the United States." [Source: State Department, 2/23/01 and 2/24/01]
SEPTEMBER 16, 2001 – CHENEY ACKNOWLEDGES IRAQ IS CONTAINED: Vice President Dick Cheney said that "Saddam Hussein is bottled up" – a confirmation of the intelligence he had received. [Source: Meet the Press, 9/16/2001]
SEPTEMBER 2001 – WHITE HOUSE CREATES OFFICE TO CIRCUMVENT INTEL AGENCIES: The Pentagon creates the Office of Special Plans "in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true-that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States…The rising influence of the Office of Special Plans was accompanied by a decline in the influence of the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. bringing about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community." The office, hand-picked by the Administration, specifically "cherry-picked intelligence that supported its pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest" while officials deliberately "bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence." [Sources: New Yorker, 5/12/03; Atlantic Monthly, 1/04; New Yorker, 10/20/03]
2002: Intel Agencies Repeatedly Warn White House of Its Weak WMD Case
Throughout 2002, the CIA, DIA, Department of Energy and United Nations all warned the Bush Administration that its selective use of intelligence was painting a weak WMD case. Those warnings were repeatedly ignored.
JANUARY, 2002 – TENET DOES NOT MENTION IRAQ IN NUCLEAR THREAT REPORT: "In CIA Director George Tenet's January 2002 review of global weapons-technology proliferation, he did not even mention a nuclear threat from Iraq, though he did warn of one from North Korea." [Source: The New Republic, 6/30/03]
FEBRUARY 6, 2002 – CIA SAYS IRAQ HAS NO WMD, AND HAS NOT PROVIDED AL QAEDA WMD: "The Central Intelligence Agency has no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups, according to several American intelligence officials." [Source: NY Times, 2/6/02]
APRIL 15, 2002 – WOLFOWITZ ANGERED AT CIA FOR NOT UNDERMINING U.N. REPORT: After receiving a CIA report that concluded that Hans Blix had conducted inspections of Iraq's declared nuclear power plants "fully within the parameters he could operate" when Blix was head of the international agency responsible for these inspections prior to the Gulf War, a report indicated that "Wolfowitz ‘hit the ceiling’ because the CIA failed to provide sufficient ammunition to undermine Blix and, by association, the new U.N. weapons inspection program." [Source: W. Post, 4/15/02]
SUMMER, 2002 – CIA WARNINGS TO WHITE HOUSE EXPOSED: "In the late summer of 2002, Sen. Graham had requested from Tenet an analysis of the Iraqi threat. According to knowledgeable sources, he received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies--noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA's classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes." [Source: The New Republic, 6/30/03]
SEPTEMBER, 2002 – DIA TELLS WHITE HOUSE NO EVIDENCE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS: "An unclassified excerpt of a 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency study on Iraq's chemical warfare program in which it stated that there is ‘no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.’" The report also said, "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) actions." [Source: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 6/13/03; DIA report, 2002]
SEPTEMBER 20, 2002 – DEPT. OF ENERGY TELLS WHITE HOUSE OF NUKE DOUBTS: "Doubts about the quality of some of the evidence that the United States is using to make its case that Iraq is trying to build a nuclear bomb emerged Thursday. While National Security Adviser Condi Rice stated on 9/8 that imported aluminum tubes ‘are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs’ a growing number of experts say that the administration has not presented convincing evidence that the tubes were intended for use in uranium enrichment rather than for artillery rocket tubes or other uses. Former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright said he found significant disagreement among scientists within the Department of Energy and other agencies about the certainty of the evidence." [Source: UPI, 9/20/02]
OCTOBER 2002 – CIA DIRECTLY WARNS WHITE HOUSE: "The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa." [Source: Washington Post, 7/23/03]
OCTOBER 2002 — STATE DEPT. WARNS WHITE HOUSE ON NUKE CHARGES: The State Department’s Intelligence and Research Department dissented from the conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD capabilities that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. "The activities we have detected do not ... add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons." INR accepted the judgment by Energy Department technical experts that aluminum tubes Iraq was seeking to acquire, which was the central basis for the conclusion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, were ill-suited to build centrifuges for enriching uranium. [Source, Declassified Iraq NIE released 7/2003]
OCTOBER 2002 – AIR FORCE WARNS WHITE HOUSE: "The government organization most knowledgeable about the United States' UAV program -- the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center -- had sharply disputed the notion that Iraq's UAVs were being designed as attack weapons" – a WMD claim President Bush used in his October 7 speech on Iraqi WMD, just three days before the congressional vote authorizing the president to use force. [Source: Washington Post, 9/26/03]
2003: WH Pressures Intel Agencies to Conform; Ignores More Warnings
Instead of listening to the repeated warnings from the intelligence community, intelligence officials say the White House instead pressured them to conform their reports to fit a pre-determined policy. Meanwhile, more evidence from international institutions poured in that the White House’s claims were not well-grounded.
LATE 2002-EARLY 2003 – CHENEY PRESSURES CIA TO CHANGE INTELLIGENCE: "Vice President Dick Cheney's repeated trips to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war for unusual, face-to-face sessions with intelligence analysts poring over Iraqi data. The pressure on the intelligence community to document the administration's claims that the Iraqi regime had ties to al-Qaida and was pursuing a nuclear weapons capacity was ‘unremitting,’ said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro, echoing several other intelligence veterans interviewed." Additionally, CIA officials "charged that the hard-liners in the Defense Department and vice president's office had 'pressured' agency analysts to paint a dire picture of Saddam's capabilities and intentions." [Sources: Dallas Morning News, 7/28/03; Newsweek, 7/28/03]
JANUARY, 2003 – STATE DEPT. INTEL BUREAU REITERATE WARNING TO POWELL: "The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the State Department's in-house analysis unit, and nuclear experts at the Department of Energy are understood to have explicitly warned Secretary of State Colin Powell during the preparation of his speech that the evidence was questionable. The Bureau reiterated to Mr. Powell during the preparation of his February speech that its analysts were not persuaded that the aluminum tubes the Administration was citing could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium." [Source: Financial Times, 7/30/03]
FEBRUARY 14, 2003 – UN WARNS WHITE HOUSE THAT NO WMD HAVE BEEN FOUND: "In their third progress report since U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed in November, inspectors told the council they had not found any weapons of mass destruction." Weapons inspector Hans Blix told the U.N. Security Council they had been unable to find any WMD in Iraq and that more time was needed for inspections. [Source: CNN, 2/14/03]
FEBRUARY 15, 2003 – IAEA WARNS WHITE HOUSE NO NUCLEAR EVIDENCE: The head of the IAEA told the U.N. in February that "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." The IAEA examined "2,000 pages of documents seized Jan. 16 from an Iraqi scientist's home -- evidence, the Americans said, that the Iraqi regime was hiding government documents in private homes. The documents, including some marked classified, appear to be the scientist's personal files." However, "the documents, which contained information about the use of laser technology to enrich uranium, refer to activities and sites known to the IAEA and do not change the agency's conclusions about Iraq's laser enrichment program." [Source: Wash. Post, 2/15/03]
FEBURARY 24, 2003 – CIA WARNS WHITE HOUSE ‘NO DIRECT EVIDENCE’ OF WMD: "A CIA report on proliferation released this week says the intelligence community has no ‘direct evidence’ that Iraq has succeeded in reconstituting its biological, chemical, nuclear or long-range missile programs in the two years since U.N. weapons inspectors left and U.S. planes bombed Iraqi facilities. ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its Weapons of Mass Destruction programs,’ said the agency in its semi-annual report on proliferation activities." [NBC News, 2/24/03]
MARCH 7, 2003 – IAEA REITERATES TO WHITE HOUSE NO EVIDENCE OF NUKES: IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said nuclear experts have found "no indication" that Iraq has tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes or specialized ring magnets for centrifuge enrichment of uranium. For months, American officials had "cited Iraq's importation of these tubes as evidence that Mr. Hussein's scientists have been seeking to develop a nuclear capability." ElBaradei also noted said "the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that documents which formed the basis for the [President Bush’s assertion] of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic." When questioned about this on Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney simply said "Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong." [Source: NY Times, 3/7/03: Meet the Press, 3/16/03]
MAY 30, 2003 – INTEL PROFESSIONALS ADMIT THEY WERE PRESSURED: "A growing number of U.S. national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts and hijacking the $30 billion intelligence apparatus to justify its rush to war in Iraq . A key target is a four-person Pentagon team that reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terrorist groups. This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, 'cherry-picked the intelligence stream' in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a official at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he said. Greg Thielmann, an intelligence official in the State Department, said it appeared to him that intelligence had been shaped 'from the top down.'" [Reuters, 5/30/03 ]
JUNE 6, 2003 – INTELLIGENCE HISTORIAN SAYS INTEL WAS HYPED: "The CIA bowed to Bush administration pressure to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs ahead of the U.S.-led war in Iraq , a leading national security historian concluded in a detailed study of the spy agency's public pronouncements." [Reuters, 6/6/03]
Thursday, January 29, 2004
The day the road map died: Sharon received the freedom of action he wanted: real problem is the disintegration of the PA
Haaretz - Israel News - The day the road map died: "The day the road map died | By Aluf Benn | January 29, 2004
The 'road map' for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict died last Thursday. The funeral took place in the office of Condoleezza Rice in the White House, during a pleasant conversation among the U.S. national security adviser and her aides and on the Israeli side, the prime minister's bureau chief Dov Weisglass, Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon and the prime minister's foreign policy adviser, Shalom Tourgeman. ...
The public may have difficulty distinguishing between the concepts, but for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the death of the road map is a great political victory. The plan for an imposed international agreement has already been removed from the path, the political process has been frozen until the departure of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Israel is enjoying freedom of action.
...
The public may have difficulty distinguishing between the concepts, but for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the death of the road map is a great political victory. The plan for an imposed international agreement has already been removed from the path, the political process has been frozen until the departure of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Israel is enjoying freedom of action.
Sharon spoke of several months of waiting, during which he will try to implement the road map, before he abandons it and goes over to unilateral disengagement. But the waiting period has been drastically shortened, and Washington is now willing to hear about disengagement steps, on condition that they suit the Bush vision.
It was less enthusiastic about the road map, which was designed to translate the vision into a plan of action acceptable to the United States and Europe. The map called for calming things down, for establishing a Palestinian state within temporary borders until the end of 2003, and for a final agreement by 2005. Its demands of the sides were "balanced" and detailed, in other words, less convenient for Israel than Bush's overall vision, which focused on demands made on the Palestinians.
Sharon used delaying and evasive tactics, and presented firm reservations about the map, In his June 2002 speech, President George W. Bush called for a change in leadership as a condition for Palestinian independence. Israel rejoiced at the public letter of dismissal to Yasser Arafat. but was careful to avoid conflict with the U.S. administration. After the Iraq war, he gave in to the American pressure and succeeded in getting the road map approved, conditionally, in the government. From that moment Sharon embraced it verbally, even if he was miserly about implementing it. Its removal from the agenda and the return of the "Bush vision" logo are very convenient for Israel. They move political contacts in the region back by more than a year.
...
Sharon's tactics paid off. The Americans blame the Palestinians for the failure. The U.S. administration is partner to the Israeli assessment that there is nobody to talk to on the Palestinian side. A senior White House official last week described Arafat as Robert Mugabe, the ruler of Zimbabwe, who destroyed his country and gave no hope to his people, as opposed to his South African neighbor Nelson Mandela.
...
The administration is making sure that Israel doesn't block the future establishment of a "viable Palestinian state" that enjoys "territorial contiguity." It is willing to understand the separation fence and even to accept high-rise construction in the settlements, without expansion on the ground. But the United States will not agree to Sharon's "eastern fence," which will close the Palestinians into a large cage. He will be forced to give it up, if he wants his disengagement plan to conform to Bush's vision of Palestinian independence.
The road map is dead, Sharon has received the freedom of action that he wanted. But the real problem lies in another place. The disintegration of the PA, which has turned into a useless mechanism for distributing salaries, presents a challenge to Israel. Some are happy about the decline of Arafat and the Tunis and Oslo institutions, and some fear the return of full occupation to the territories, with its high economic and moral cost. But nobody knows who will govern on the Palestinian side, and it is doubtful whether the solution lies in Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's appointing an ombudsman to deal with Palestinian complaints, or in the partial unilateral disengagement planned by Sharon.
Haaretz - Israel News - The day the road map died: "The day the road map died | By Aluf Benn | January 29, 2004
The 'road map' for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict died last Thursday. The funeral took place in the office of Condoleezza Rice in the White House, during a pleasant conversation among the U.S. national security adviser and her aides and on the Israeli side, the prime minister's bureau chief Dov Weisglass, Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon and the prime minister's foreign policy adviser, Shalom Tourgeman. ...
The public may have difficulty distinguishing between the concepts, but for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the death of the road map is a great political victory. The plan for an imposed international agreement has already been removed from the path, the political process has been frozen until the departure of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Israel is enjoying freedom of action.
...
The public may have difficulty distinguishing between the concepts, but for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the death of the road map is a great political victory. The plan for an imposed international agreement has already been removed from the path, the political process has been frozen until the departure of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Israel is enjoying freedom of action.
Sharon spoke of several months of waiting, during which he will try to implement the road map, before he abandons it and goes over to unilateral disengagement. But the waiting period has been drastically shortened, and Washington is now willing to hear about disengagement steps, on condition that they suit the Bush vision.
It was less enthusiastic about the road map, which was designed to translate the vision into a plan of action acceptable to the United States and Europe. The map called for calming things down, for establishing a Palestinian state within temporary borders until the end of 2003, and for a final agreement by 2005. Its demands of the sides were "balanced" and detailed, in other words, less convenient for Israel than Bush's overall vision, which focused on demands made on the Palestinians.
Sharon used delaying and evasive tactics, and presented firm reservations about the map, In his June 2002 speech, President George W. Bush called for a change in leadership as a condition for Palestinian independence. Israel rejoiced at the public letter of dismissal to Yasser Arafat. but was careful to avoid conflict with the U.S. administration. After the Iraq war, he gave in to the American pressure and succeeded in getting the road map approved, conditionally, in the government. From that moment Sharon embraced it verbally, even if he was miserly about implementing it. Its removal from the agenda and the return of the "Bush vision" logo are very convenient for Israel. They move political contacts in the region back by more than a year.
...
Sharon's tactics paid off. The Americans blame the Palestinians for the failure. The U.S. administration is partner to the Israeli assessment that there is nobody to talk to on the Palestinian side. A senior White House official last week described Arafat as Robert Mugabe, the ruler of Zimbabwe, who destroyed his country and gave no hope to his people, as opposed to his South African neighbor Nelson Mandela.
...
The administration is making sure that Israel doesn't block the future establishment of a "viable Palestinian state" that enjoys "territorial contiguity." It is willing to understand the separation fence and even to accept high-rise construction in the settlements, without expansion on the ground. But the United States will not agree to Sharon's "eastern fence," which will close the Palestinians into a large cage. He will be forced to give it up, if he wants his disengagement plan to conform to Bush's vision of Palestinian independence.
The road map is dead, Sharon has received the freedom of action that he wanted. But the real problem lies in another place. The disintegration of the PA, which has turned into a useless mechanism for distributing salaries, presents a challenge to Israel. Some are happy about the decline of Arafat and the Tunis and Oslo institutions, and some fear the return of full occupation to the territories, with its high economic and moral cost. But nobody knows who will govern on the Palestinian side, and it is doubtful whether the solution lies in Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's appointing an ombudsman to deal with Palestinian complaints, or in the partial unilateral disengagement planned by Sharon.
Indiscriminate killing: With a kind of collective shrug: growing impression that the army's finger is too quick on the trigger
Haaretz - Israel News - Indiscriminate killing: "January 29, 2004
The dry account provided by the army said an armored force entered the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza early yesterday morning to strike at Islamic Jihad activists. According to the Israel Defense Forces report, a firefight ensued between armed Palestinians and the armored force and the IDF identified direct hits on 10 armed men. The result is that at least nine Palestinians were killed in the incident, five of them from the Islamic Jihad. The Palestinians said an 11-year-old boy and three workers were killed and an ambulance driver was wounded.
It was another one of those routine reports that the Israeli public has grown used to. Apparently the public is accepting a situation in which military activity in Palestinian towns is accompanied by indiscriminate killing.
With a kind of collective shrug, the killing is excused as something self-evident in the circumstances of the war, in which it is difficult to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians. Nobody disputes the need to chase down activists from terror groups that want to strike in Israeli population centers, and the circumstances of the incident are such that occasionally innocent civilians can be accidentally harmed because terrorists operate in their midst.
But lately, there's a growing impression that the army's finger is too quick on the trigger and its senior commanders are forgiving toward soldiers and junior officers responsible for the fighting and its consequences. The IDF must provide a more serious explanation about the unnecessary deaths left behind after its operations.
The IDF is trying to persuade us that the focused preventive operations, even when lethal, are necessary and that these operations are conducted against terrorists when there is near certainty that terror attacks against Israelis will take place. The IDF operation yesterday does not adhere to either of those two principles.
...
Reality shows that under Ariel Sharon's government, violent friction has become the only contact between Israelis and Palestinians and the government is doing nothing to instruct the army to behave in a restrained manner in its ongoing security operations.
That is not meant to absolve the Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's government of responsibility for the political crisis, but the Israeli side is apparently not making any effort to renew dialogue.
And now, as American mediators come to the region, when Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman are trying to revive the negotiations or at least get a cease-fire, and when Arab leaders are trying to find a reasonable formula for a solution, such a grave incident takes place in Gaza.
Haaretz - Israel News - Indiscriminate killing: "January 29, 2004
The dry account provided by the army said an armored force entered the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza early yesterday morning to strike at Islamic Jihad activists. According to the Israel Defense Forces report, a firefight ensued between armed Palestinians and the armored force and the IDF identified direct hits on 10 armed men. The result is that at least nine Palestinians were killed in the incident, five of them from the Islamic Jihad. The Palestinians said an 11-year-old boy and three workers were killed and an ambulance driver was wounded.
It was another one of those routine reports that the Israeli public has grown used to. Apparently the public is accepting a situation in which military activity in Palestinian towns is accompanied by indiscriminate killing.
With a kind of collective shrug, the killing is excused as something self-evident in the circumstances of the war, in which it is difficult to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians. Nobody disputes the need to chase down activists from terror groups that want to strike in Israeli population centers, and the circumstances of the incident are such that occasionally innocent civilians can be accidentally harmed because terrorists operate in their midst.
But lately, there's a growing impression that the army's finger is too quick on the trigger and its senior commanders are forgiving toward soldiers and junior officers responsible for the fighting and its consequences. The IDF must provide a more serious explanation about the unnecessary deaths left behind after its operations.
The IDF is trying to persuade us that the focused preventive operations, even when lethal, are necessary and that these operations are conducted against terrorists when there is near certainty that terror attacks against Israelis will take place. The IDF operation yesterday does not adhere to either of those two principles.
...
Reality shows that under Ariel Sharon's government, violent friction has become the only contact between Israelis and Palestinians and the government is doing nothing to instruct the army to behave in a restrained manner in its ongoing security operations.
That is not meant to absolve the Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's government of responsibility for the political crisis, but the Israeli side is apparently not making any effort to renew dialogue.
And now, as American mediators come to the region, when Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman are trying to revive the negotiations or at least get a cease-fire, and when Arab leaders are trying to find a reasonable formula for a solution, such a grave incident takes place in Gaza.
U.S. Acknowledges Flaws in Iraq Intelligence: Condoleezza Rice brushed aside calls for an independent investigation into the matter
Excite - News: "U.S. Acknowledges Flaws in Iraq Intelligence | Jan 29, 3:18 pm ET | By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's national security adviser on Thursday acknowledged there may have been flaws in prewar intelligence about Iraq but brushed aside calls for an independent investigation into the matter.
'I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground,' Condoleezza Rice told CBS.
But she added: 'That's not surprising in a country that was as closed and secretive as Iraq, a country that was doing everything that it could to deceive the United Nations, to deceive the world.'
Bush based his decision to invade Iraq last year on what he called a 'grave and gathering danger' posed by Iraq's weapons. He acted without United Nations backing, cutting short efforts by U.N. inspectors to check out the weapons reports in Iraq.
In a series of television interviews, Rice defended Bush's decision and said the United States may never learn the whole truth about Iraq's arms capabilities because of looting, which U.S. forces failed to stop immediately after the invasion.
For months administration officials had expressed confidence banned weapons would be found."
Excite - News: "U.S. Acknowledges Flaws in Iraq Intelligence | Jan 29, 3:18 pm ET | By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's national security adviser on Thursday acknowledged there may have been flaws in prewar intelligence about Iraq but brushed aside calls for an independent investigation into the matter.
'I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground,' Condoleezza Rice told CBS.
But she added: 'That's not surprising in a country that was as closed and secretive as Iraq, a country that was doing everything that it could to deceive the United Nations, to deceive the world.'
Bush based his decision to invade Iraq last year on what he called a 'grave and gathering danger' posed by Iraq's weapons. He acted without United Nations backing, cutting short efforts by U.N. inspectors to check out the weapons reports in Iraq.
In a series of television interviews, Rice defended Bush's decision and said the United States may never learn the whole truth about Iraq's arms capabilities because of looting, which U.S. forces failed to stop immediately after the invasion.
For months administration officials had expressed confidence banned weapons would be found."
Near Sharon's house, Jerusalem: Suicide bomber on bus; 10 Israeli dead, 40 wounded
Yahoo! News - Bombing Plunges Jerusalem Street Into Nightmare: "Thu Jan 29, 7:50 AM ETAdd World - Reuters to My Yahoo! | By Corinne Heller and Steven Scheer
...
A Palestinian suicide bombing on a crowded Israeli bus on Thursday again brought scenes of carnage to Jerusalem, a city that had been spared such attacks for more than four months.
Ofer Mozes was walking nearby when the explosion ripped Bus Number 19 apart before his eyes, hurling body parts into the street and sending black smoke into the sky. At least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded.
"People were lying on the floor, burned and half-naked," he said. "There was the smell of death. Hair was burning and blood was dripping everywhere."
...
Another witness, Drora Resnick, said she watched in horror as the "pastoral serenity" of a residential neighborhood was shattered.
She peered inside the bus, its roof partly peeled back and its insides gutted by the blast near the official residence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites).
...
The Palestinian militant group al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the bombing. A statement from the group quoted the bomber as saying he carried out the attack to avenge an Israeli army raid in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) on Wednesday in which troops killed eight Palestinians, including five fighters.
Police said the bomb was packed with nuts and bolts to maximize casualties.
Yahoo! News - Bombing Plunges Jerusalem Street Into Nightmare: "Thu Jan 29, 7:50 AM ETAdd World - Reuters to My Yahoo! | By Corinne Heller and Steven Scheer
...
A Palestinian suicide bombing on a crowded Israeli bus on Thursday again brought scenes of carnage to Jerusalem, a city that had been spared such attacks for more than four months.
Ofer Mozes was walking nearby when the explosion ripped Bus Number 19 apart before his eyes, hurling body parts into the street and sending black smoke into the sky. At least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded.
"People were lying on the floor, burned and half-naked," he said. "There was the smell of death. Hair was burning and blood was dripping everywhere."
...
Another witness, Drora Resnick, said she watched in horror as the "pastoral serenity" of a residential neighborhood was shattered.
She peered inside the bus, its roof partly peeled back and its insides gutted by the blast near the official residence of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites).
...
The Palestinian militant group al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the bombing. A statement from the group quoted the bomber as saying he carried out the attack to avenge an Israeli army raid in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) on Wednesday in which troops killed eight Palestinians, including five fighters.
Police said the bomb was packed with nuts and bolts to maximize casualties.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
TV Covers the Bush [Irqaq WMD] 'Dodge' -- Leno: Up for best actor: George W. Bush for 'Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.'"
washingtonpost.com � White House Briefing: "TV Covers the Bush 'Dodge'
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2004; 9:59 AM
The broadcast press corps is hot on the story of what some correspondents are calling President Bush's 'retreat,' or at least 'dodge,' on the issue of Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
On ABC, Terry Moran pulls no punches: 'Asked directly whether he still believes weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, President Bush simply dodged the question.'
On CBS, John Roberts sees danger for the White House. "President Bush refused to even entertain the notion today that he received bad intelligence, but if what David Kay says is true, he is facing another massive intelligence failure, right on the heels of 9/11 -- only this time, it's an election year."
On CNN, Dana Bash lays it out this way: "As he made his case for war last year, the president was unequivocal about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. . . . For months, the weapons hunt progressed and none was found, but the White House remained publicly confident illicit weapons would be unearthed.
"Now, a retreat. No prediction from the president at all, only a reminder that the inspectors are still looking."
On Fox News [where viewers are most likely to have significant misperceptions about Iraq], Jim Angle reports that Bush remains "steadfast in his view of Saddam, calling him a dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world."
Angle's report uses these Bush sound bites: "I said in the run-up that Saddam was a grave and gathering danger, that's what I said. And I believed it then, and I know it was true now. . . . And given the events of September the 11th, we know we could not trust the good intentions of Saddam Hussein, because he didn't have any."
But Angle says that because inspectors need more time, the issue will emerge again closer to the election, "making this even more of a political football than it already is."
Finally, Jay Leno weighed in last night, on NBC's "Tonight Show": "Oscar nominations came out today. Up for best actor, Sean Penn for 'Mystic River,' Jude Law for 'Cold Mountain,' and of course, George W. Bush for 'Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" ...
washingtonpost.com � White House Briefing: "TV Covers the Bush 'Dodge'
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2004; 9:59 AM
The broadcast press corps is hot on the story of what some correspondents are calling President Bush's 'retreat,' or at least 'dodge,' on the issue of Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
On ABC, Terry Moran pulls no punches: 'Asked directly whether he still believes weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, President Bush simply dodged the question.'
On CBS, John Roberts sees danger for the White House. "President Bush refused to even entertain the notion today that he received bad intelligence, but if what David Kay says is true, he is facing another massive intelligence failure, right on the heels of 9/11 -- only this time, it's an election year."
On CNN, Dana Bash lays it out this way: "As he made his case for war last year, the president was unequivocal about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. . . . For months, the weapons hunt progressed and none was found, but the White House remained publicly confident illicit weapons would be unearthed.
"Now, a retreat. No prediction from the president at all, only a reminder that the inspectors are still looking."
On Fox News [where viewers are most likely to have significant misperceptions about Iraq], Jim Angle reports that Bush remains "steadfast in his view of Saddam, calling him a dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world."
Angle's report uses these Bush sound bites: "I said in the run-up that Saddam was a grave and gathering danger, that's what I said. And I believed it then, and I know it was true now. . . . And given the events of September the 11th, we know we could not trust the good intentions of Saddam Hussein, because he didn't have any."
But Angle says that because inspectors need more time, the issue will emerge again closer to the election, "making this even more of a political football than it already is."
Finally, Jay Leno weighed in last night, on NBC's "Tonight Show": "Oscar nominations came out today. Up for best actor, Sean Penn for 'Mystic River,' Jude Law for 'Cold Mountain,' and of course, George W. Bush for 'Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" ...
American attitudes: Program on International Policy Attitudes: Dawning realization that Americans were misinformed about Iraq
American attitudes: Program on International Policy Attitudes: "
Americans Reevaluate Going to War with Iraq --- A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Study [Nov. 13, 2003]
Report of Findings [330KB]
Press Release [27KB]
Majority believe US Acted on Incorrect Assumptions in rush to war
Does not believe evidence on Iraqi WMD, Al-Qaeda Links, Human rights met proper standards for going to war
Believe Bush was determined to go to war irrespective of evidence
No clear consensus for or against going to war
Support for Iraq reconstruction undaunted
Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War -- A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Study -- [Oct. 2 , 2003]
Report of Findings [315KB]
Press Release [25KB]
Questionnaire [52KB]
Study finds widespread misperceptions on Iraq highly related to support for war
Misperceptions vary widely depending on news source
Fox viewers more likely to misperceive, [CBS second] NPR/PBS less likely
Americans on Terrorism Two Years After 9/11 -- A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll -- [Sept. 31, 2003]
Report of Findings [315KB]
Press Release [25KB]
War on Terrorism has not made public feel safer
Majority think Bush is overemphasizing assertive and military approaches
Perceives growing criticism in Islamic world of US foreign policy, creating climate favorable for terrorist groups
Worries US Patriot Act may have gone too far but want more priority on homeland security
American attitudes: Program on International Policy Attitudes: "
Americans Reevaluate Going to War with Iraq --- A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Study [Nov. 13, 2003]
Report of Findings [330KB]
Press Release [27KB]
Majority believe US Acted on Incorrect Assumptions in rush to war
Does not believe evidence on Iraqi WMD, Al-Qaeda Links, Human rights met proper standards for going to war
Believe Bush was determined to go to war irrespective of evidence
No clear consensus for or against going to war
Support for Iraq reconstruction undaunted
Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War -- A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Study -- [Oct. 2 , 2003]
Report of Findings [315KB]
Press Release [25KB]
Questionnaire [52KB]
Study finds widespread misperceptions on Iraq highly related to support for war
Misperceptions vary widely depending on news source
Fox viewers more likely to misperceive, [CBS second] NPR/PBS less likely
Americans on Terrorism Two Years After 9/11 -- A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll -- [Sept. 31, 2003]
Report of Findings [315KB]
Press Release [25KB]
War on Terrorism has not made public feel safer
Majority think Bush is overemphasizing assertive and military approaches
Perceives growing criticism in Islamic world of US foreign policy, creating climate favorable for terrorist groups
Worries US Patriot Act may have gone too far but want more priority on homeland security
US opposes elections becuase of no census: but Iraq has advanced food rationing database with 96-98% of Iraqis in it
FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa: "Iraq election debate hinges on food rationing system | By Charles Clover in Baghdad | Published: January 27 2004 18:41 | Last Updated: January 27 2004 18:41
[... where there's a will, there's a way?]
How long it would take to generate paper lists of Iraqis over voting age, according to province, district, or other consituency? Ahmed Al-Mukhtar, a director general in Iraq's Ministry of Trade, does a quick calculaion.
'We have eight printers, and each prints 1600 lines per minute. Let's see. It would take three weeks - less if we got more printers,' he says.
Iraq has no up-to-date census, which US officials have given as a prime reason for oppposing direct elections later this year. But Mr al-Mukhtar says Iraq has something even better: a database for a national food rationing system which has been in place since sanctions were imposed in 1990.
This database contains the names of 22.9m Iraqis, with another 3m in a separate database used in Iraq's three northern provinces. It is a key chess piece in the political game unfolding between the US and Iraqi Shia clerics demanding direct elections to a sovereign government against US objections.
Iraq is perhaps the only country with a food rationing programme open to the entire popualtion, and Mr al-Mukhtar estimates that 96-98 per cent of all Iraqis in the country are on it.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has called for direct elections, has homed in on the rationing system as the potential basis for a readily-available voter roll. ...
...
Mr al-Mukhtar reckons that the database - with the additional registrations - would be even more accurate than a census, especially one taken in the lead-up to an election, which could be highly politicised.
Perhaps the most important consideration, however, is whether Iraqis would have confidence in the results of an elections based on food ration lists. Already, politicians opposed to elections have begun criticising "high levels" of falsification and corruption in the ration programme.
But Mr al-Mukhtar believes the people trust the system and that this confidence can be harnessed to hold legitimate elections. "The Iraqi people have a lot of confidence in the ration programme," he said. "The people trust this system." ...
FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa: "Iraq election debate hinges on food rationing system | By Charles Clover in Baghdad | Published: January 27 2004 18:41 | Last Updated: January 27 2004 18:41
[... where there's a will, there's a way?]
How long it would take to generate paper lists of Iraqis over voting age, according to province, district, or other consituency? Ahmed Al-Mukhtar, a director general in Iraq's Ministry of Trade, does a quick calculaion.
'We have eight printers, and each prints 1600 lines per minute. Let's see. It would take three weeks - less if we got more printers,' he says.
Iraq has no up-to-date census, which US officials have given as a prime reason for oppposing direct elections later this year. But Mr al-Mukhtar says Iraq has something even better: a database for a national food rationing system which has been in place since sanctions were imposed in 1990.
This database contains the names of 22.9m Iraqis, with another 3m in a separate database used in Iraq's three northern provinces. It is a key chess piece in the political game unfolding between the US and Iraqi Shia clerics demanding direct elections to a sovereign government against US objections.
Iraq is perhaps the only country with a food rationing programme open to the entire popualtion, and Mr al-Mukhtar estimates that 96-98 per cent of all Iraqis in the country are on it.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has called for direct elections, has homed in on the rationing system as the potential basis for a readily-available voter roll. ...
...
Mr al-Mukhtar reckons that the database - with the additional registrations - would be even more accurate than a census, especially one taken in the lead-up to an election, which could be highly politicised.
Perhaps the most important consideration, however, is whether Iraqis would have confidence in the results of an elections based on food ration lists. Already, politicians opposed to elections have begun criticising "high levels" of falsification and corruption in the ration programme.
But Mr al-Mukhtar believes the people trust the system and that this confidence can be harnessed to hold legitimate elections. "The Iraqi people have a lot of confidence in the ration programme," he said. "The people trust this system." ...
Bush Backs Away From His Claims About Iraq Arms: Rockerfeller: intelligence issue remained "was this a predetermined war or not?"
Bush Backs Away From His Claims About Iraq Arms: "Bush Backs Away From His Claims About Iraq Arms | By DAVID E. SANGER | Published: January 28, 2004
President Bush declined Tuesday to repeat his claims that evidence that Saddam Hussein had illicit weapons would eventually be found in Iraq, but he insisted that the war was nonetheless justified because Mr. Hussein posed "a grave and gathering threat to America and the world"
Asked by reporters if he would repeat earlier expressions of confidence that the weapons would be found in light of recent statements by the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David A. Kay, that Mr. Hussein had gotten rid of them well before the war, Mr. Bush did not answer directly.
"I think it's very important for us to let the Iraq Survey Group do its work, so we can find out the facts and compare the facts to what was thought," he said at an appearance with the visiting president of Poland.
Mr. Bush praised Dr. Kay's work and came to the defense of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose reporting on Iraq's weapons programs Dr. Kay sharply criticized in interviews over the weekend. "These are unbelievably hard-working, dedicated people who are doing a great job for America," Mr. Bush said of the intelligence community. ...
...
Two Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that senior members of the administration continue to exaggerate evidence about unconventional weapons.
"Just within the last few days, Vice President Cheney has said that it is clear that a couple of vehicles that were found in Iraq were mobile biological weapons labs, exactly the opposite of what David Kay is reportedly saying," said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said the "overwhelming question" surrounding the intelligence issue remained "was this a predetermined war or not?"
...
For example, on Oct. 7, 2002, during a speech in Cincinnati that laid out how America was threatened by Mr. Hussein, Mr. Bush said: "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?"
...
Moreover, international law has been far more forgiving of "pre-emptive war" against a country about to begin a strike of its own than it is of "preventive war" against a country that may, some day, pose a challenge to another state. That is seen more as an act of raw power than of self-defense.
Bush Backs Away From His Claims About Iraq Arms: "Bush Backs Away From His Claims About Iraq Arms | By DAVID E. SANGER | Published: January 28, 2004
President Bush declined Tuesday to repeat his claims that evidence that Saddam Hussein had illicit weapons would eventually be found in Iraq, but he insisted that the war was nonetheless justified because Mr. Hussein posed "a grave and gathering threat to America and the world"
Asked by reporters if he would repeat earlier expressions of confidence that the weapons would be found in light of recent statements by the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David A. Kay, that Mr. Hussein had gotten rid of them well before the war, Mr. Bush did not answer directly.
"I think it's very important for us to let the Iraq Survey Group do its work, so we can find out the facts and compare the facts to what was thought," he said at an appearance with the visiting president of Poland.
Mr. Bush praised Dr. Kay's work and came to the defense of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose reporting on Iraq's weapons programs Dr. Kay sharply criticized in interviews over the weekend. "These are unbelievably hard-working, dedicated people who are doing a great job for America," Mr. Bush said of the intelligence community. ...
...
Two Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that senior members of the administration continue to exaggerate evidence about unconventional weapons.
"Just within the last few days, Vice President Cheney has said that it is clear that a couple of vehicles that were found in Iraq were mobile biological weapons labs, exactly the opposite of what David Kay is reportedly saying," said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said the "overwhelming question" surrounding the intelligence issue remained "was this a predetermined war or not?"
...
For example, on Oct. 7, 2002, during a speech in Cincinnati that laid out how America was threatened by Mr. Hussein, Mr. Bush said: "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?"
...
Moreover, international law has been far more forgiving of "pre-emptive war" against a country about to begin a strike of its own than it is of "preventive war" against a country that may, some day, pose a challenge to another state. That is seen more as an act of raw power than of self-defense.
In '48, Israels 'transfer'--ethnic cleansing--expelled 750,000: "not unprecedented, nor. ...necessarily immoral"
In '48, Israel Did What It Had to Do: "In '48, Israel Did What It Had to Do | By Benny Morris | January 26, 2004
Benny Morris is a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited' is being published by Cambridge University Press this month."
On July 12, 1948, Israeli soldiers battling the Arab Legion and local irregulars in the towns of Lydda and Ramle, just south of Tel Aviv, were ordered to empty the two towns of their Arab residents. Over two days, between 50,000 and 60,000 inhabitants were driven from their homes. Many were forced to walk eastward to the Arab Legion lines; others were carried in trucks or buses. Clogging the roads, tens of thousands of refugees marched, shedding their possessions along the way.
The expulsions, conducted under orders from then-Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin, were an element of the partial ethnic cleansing that rid Israel of the majority of its Arab inhabitants at the very moment of its birth. Earlier, in the 1930s and 1940s, a near consensus had emerged among Zionist leaders on the necessity of "transfer." They believed that it was critical to buy out or drive out the Arab inhabitants from the areas destined for Jewish statehood, both to make way for Jewish immigrants and to remove the Arabs who opposed, often violently, the establishment of such a state.
The idea of transfer never crystallized into a formal Zionist policy — there was no master plan and, of course, not all Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were expelled like the Arabs of Lydda and Ramle. Indeed, most fled because they feared the ravages of war or because they were advised to do so by their leaders. But one way or another, transfer was accomplished; 700,000 Palestinians left the country, and the refugee problem that has haunted Israel ever since was born.
For unearthing that dark side of 1948 in my book "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949," which appeared in 1988, I was vilified by the Zionist establishment as "anti-Zionist" and "pro-PLO" — which I never was. As one of the country's "new historians," I was accused of seeking to shatter the founding myths of the Israeli state and of going out of my way to lend moral weight to the Palestinian cause.
That, of course, is untrue. I was simply a historian seeking to describe what happened.
In fact, today — after looking afresh at the events of 1948 and at the context of the whole Arab-Zionist conflict from its inception in 1881 until the present day — I find myself as convinced as ever that the Israelis played a major role in ridding the country of tens of thousands of Arabs during the 1948 war, but I also believe their actions were inevitable and made sense. Had the belligerent Arab population inhabiting the areas destined for Jewish statehood not been uprooted, no Jewish state would have arisen, or it would have emerged so demographically and politically hobbled that it could not have survived. It was an ugly business. Such is history.
How can what happened be justified? In November 1947, the leadership of Palestine's Arabs had rejected the United Nations' plan to partition the country into a Jewish and an Arab state [... a plan where 55% of the land was given to 35% of the population who actually owned 6% or it. Was the UN a little ethnically biased, manipulated?] — and instead launched attacks on the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, to prevent the emergence of the state of Israel. These attacks snowballed into full-scale civil war. In May 1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq invaded the country to support their Palestinian "brothers" (or simply to seize chunks of Palestine for themselves). It was three years after the Holocaust. For Israelis, it was a war for survival; had they lost, there would have been, they had no doubt, a vast slaughter.
The 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced came from the villages and urban neighborhoods that had served as bases of the militia and irregulars who had for months assaulted Jewish convoys and settlements. They were seen as an existential threat and, when conquered, their villages were leveled. Subsequently, Israel, with a total of about 750,000 Jews, refused to allow back the displaced Palestinians, many of whom had fought against it and would have constituted a massive potential fifth column. Denied absorption in the host Arab states, they became, and remain, along with their descendants, "refugees."
Israel's decision was not unprecedented, nor was it necessarily immoral. Something similar had happened in the early 1920s when a Greek invasion of the Turkish mainland triggered a Turkish counterattack, in which almost all the Greeks living in Asia Minor were expelled. ... [... do 2 wrongs make a right? In 1900 there were less than 10% Jews in Israel and only 35% in 1948 so the 1948 minority systematically drove out the large majority! Is this a true comparison?]
In '48, Israel Did What It Had to Do: "In '48, Israel Did What It Had to Do | By Benny Morris | January 26, 2004
Benny Morris is a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited' is being published by Cambridge University Press this month."
On July 12, 1948, Israeli soldiers battling the Arab Legion and local irregulars in the towns of Lydda and Ramle, just south of Tel Aviv, were ordered to empty the two towns of their Arab residents. Over two days, between 50,000 and 60,000 inhabitants were driven from their homes. Many were forced to walk eastward to the Arab Legion lines; others were carried in trucks or buses. Clogging the roads, tens of thousands of refugees marched, shedding their possessions along the way.
The expulsions, conducted under orders from then-Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin, were an element of the partial ethnic cleansing that rid Israel of the majority of its Arab inhabitants at the very moment of its birth. Earlier, in the 1930s and 1940s, a near consensus had emerged among Zionist leaders on the necessity of "transfer." They believed that it was critical to buy out or drive out the Arab inhabitants from the areas destined for Jewish statehood, both to make way for Jewish immigrants and to remove the Arabs who opposed, often violently, the establishment of such a state.
The idea of transfer never crystallized into a formal Zionist policy — there was no master plan and, of course, not all Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 were expelled like the Arabs of Lydda and Ramle. Indeed, most fled because they feared the ravages of war or because they were advised to do so by their leaders. But one way or another, transfer was accomplished; 700,000 Palestinians left the country, and the refugee problem that has haunted Israel ever since was born.
For unearthing that dark side of 1948 in my book "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949," which appeared in 1988, I was vilified by the Zionist establishment as "anti-Zionist" and "pro-PLO" — which I never was. As one of the country's "new historians," I was accused of seeking to shatter the founding myths of the Israeli state and of going out of my way to lend moral weight to the Palestinian cause.
That, of course, is untrue. I was simply a historian seeking to describe what happened.
In fact, today — after looking afresh at the events of 1948 and at the context of the whole Arab-Zionist conflict from its inception in 1881 until the present day — I find myself as convinced as ever that the Israelis played a major role in ridding the country of tens of thousands of Arabs during the 1948 war, but I also believe their actions were inevitable and made sense. Had the belligerent Arab population inhabiting the areas destined for Jewish statehood not been uprooted, no Jewish state would have arisen, or it would have emerged so demographically and politically hobbled that it could not have survived. It was an ugly business. Such is history.
How can what happened be justified? In November 1947, the leadership of Palestine's Arabs had rejected the United Nations' plan to partition the country into a Jewish and an Arab state [... a plan where 55% of the land was given to 35% of the population who actually owned 6% or it. Was the UN a little ethnically biased, manipulated?] — and instead launched attacks on the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, to prevent the emergence of the state of Israel. These attacks snowballed into full-scale civil war. In May 1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq invaded the country to support their Palestinian "brothers" (or simply to seize chunks of Palestine for themselves). It was three years after the Holocaust. For Israelis, it was a war for survival; had they lost, there would have been, they had no doubt, a vast slaughter.
The 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced came from the villages and urban neighborhoods that had served as bases of the militia and irregulars who had for months assaulted Jewish convoys and settlements. They were seen as an existential threat and, when conquered, their villages were leveled. Subsequently, Israel, with a total of about 750,000 Jews, refused to allow back the displaced Palestinians, many of whom had fought against it and would have constituted a massive potential fifth column. Denied absorption in the host Arab states, they became, and remain, along with their descendants, "refugees."
Israel's decision was not unprecedented, nor was it necessarily immoral. Something similar had happened in the early 1920s when a Greek invasion of the Turkish mainland triggered a Turkish counterattack, in which almost all the Greeks living in Asia Minor were expelled. ... [... do 2 wrongs make a right? In 1900 there were less than 10% Jews in Israel and only 35% in 1948 so the 1948 minority systematically drove out the large majority! Is this a true comparison?]
Zeitoun, Gaza: IDF raid, gunbattles: 8 Pal dead (inlc 17yr-old); 17 wounded
Excite - News: "Israel Army Kills 8 During Gaza Gunbattles | Jan 28, 7:27 am ET | By Nidal al-MughrabiGAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians Wednesday in the deadliest raid in the Gaza Strip in more than a month, casting a shadow over a new U.S. push to salvage a battered peace plan.
Islamic Jihad, one of the main groups behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, vowed revenge, saying four of its fighters including two field commanders were among those killed during fierce gunbattles in Gaza City.
"The bloody message has been received...and the Palestinian people will know how to respond to it," Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed Al-Hindi told Reuters.
The raid, which Israel said was aimed at rooting out militants who frequently attack a nearby Jewish settlement, began as U.S. envoy John Wolf headed for talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Returning after months of absence, Wolf pressed Qurie and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to hold a long-delayed summit crucial to reviving a peace "road map," and demanded that Palestinians curb militant violence, officials said.
"This continuous aggression against our people should be stopped," Qurie said he told Wolf, who was accompanied by State Department official David Satterield.
...
Gunbattles erupted with dozens of militants in Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood. Medics said five of those killed were militants and three were civilians, including a 17-year-old.
Seven Palestinians were wounded, including an ambulance worker whose vehicle was struck by what medics said was Israeli fire while on the way to pick up casualties. The army denied troops fired at an ambulance. Medics said an 11-year-old boy was shot and blinded in one eye.
Excite - News: "Israel Army Kills 8 During Gaza Gunbattles | Jan 28, 7:27 am ET | By Nidal al-MughrabiGAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians Wednesday in the deadliest raid in the Gaza Strip in more than a month, casting a shadow over a new U.S. push to salvage a battered peace plan.
Islamic Jihad, one of the main groups behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, vowed revenge, saying four of its fighters including two field commanders were among those killed during fierce gunbattles in Gaza City.
"The bloody message has been received...and the Palestinian people will know how to respond to it," Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed Al-Hindi told Reuters.
The raid, which Israel said was aimed at rooting out militants who frequently attack a nearby Jewish settlement, began as U.S. envoy John Wolf headed for talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Returning after months of absence, Wolf pressed Qurie and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to hold a long-delayed summit crucial to reviving a peace "road map," and demanded that Palestinians curb militant violence, officials said.
"This continuous aggression against our people should be stopped," Qurie said he told Wolf, who was accompanied by State Department official David Satterield.
...
Gunbattles erupted with dozens of militants in Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood. Medics said five of those killed were militants and three were civilians, including a 17-year-old.
Seven Palestinians were wounded, including an ambulance worker whose vehicle was struck by what medics said was Israeli fire while on the way to pick up casualties. The army denied troops fired at an ambulance. Medics said an 11-year-old boy was shot and blinded in one eye.
WMD inspector David Kay to testify: Saddam destroyed [some] weapons in mid-1990s, well before Bush made case for war
Excite News: "Ex-U.S. Inspector to Testify on Iraq WMD | Jan 28, 8:02 AM (ET) | By KATHERINE PFLEGER
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators want to speak with the former top U.S. weapons inspector who said he couldn't find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a primary justification by President Bush for the war in Iraq.
David Kay, who was scheduled to testify before a Senate committee Wednesday, is one of a number of U.S. officials who have recently adjusted their position on Saddam's weapons capabilities. ...
...
While inspectors have been unable to unearth weapons of mass destruction, they have found new evidence that Saddam's regime quietly destroyed some stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s, Kay told The Washington Post in an interview in Tuesday editions.
Kay said the evidence consisted of contemporaneous documents and confirmations from interviews with Iraqis and indicated Saddam did make efforts to disarm well before Bush began making the case for war.
...
When asked Tuesday by reporters about Kay's assertions, Bush didn't say that the banned weapons would eventually be discovered: "We know from years of intelligence - not only our own intelligence services, but other intelligence gathering organizations - that he had weapons - after all, he used them." [an example of disinformation and perhaps deliberate deception by Bush, since Saddam used them in the 1980's, well before the first Gulf war, and well before UN inspections started]
...
This weekend, Powell began to backpedal, saying the United States thought Saddam had banned weapons, but "we had questions that needed to be answered."
"What was it?" he asked. "One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?"
Excite News: "Ex-U.S. Inspector to Testify on Iraq WMD | Jan 28, 8:02 AM (ET) | By KATHERINE PFLEGER
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators want to speak with the former top U.S. weapons inspector who said he couldn't find evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, a primary justification by President Bush for the war in Iraq.
David Kay, who was scheduled to testify before a Senate committee Wednesday, is one of a number of U.S. officials who have recently adjusted their position on Saddam's weapons capabilities. ...
...
While inspectors have been unable to unearth weapons of mass destruction, they have found new evidence that Saddam's regime quietly destroyed some stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s, Kay told The Washington Post in an interview in Tuesday editions.
Kay said the evidence consisted of contemporaneous documents and confirmations from interviews with Iraqis and indicated Saddam did make efforts to disarm well before Bush began making the case for war.
...
When asked Tuesday by reporters about Kay's assertions, Bush didn't say that the banned weapons would eventually be discovered: "We know from years of intelligence - not only our own intelligence services, but other intelligence gathering organizations - that he had weapons - after all, he used them." [an example of disinformation and perhaps deliberate deception by Bush, since Saddam used them in the 1980's, well before the first Gulf war, and well before UN inspections started]
...
This weekend, Powell began to backpedal, saying the United States thought Saddam had banned weapons, but "we had questions that needed to be answered."
"What was it?" he asked. "One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?"
UN to send team to help break impasse over elections vs US caucuses: when can coalition provide adequate security? major policy reversal by Bush
Excite News: "Iraq Bombings Kill 6 U.S. Soldiers | Jan 27, 10:02 PM (ET) | By HAMZA HENDAWI
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The United Nations agreed Tuesday to send a team to Iraq to help break the impasse over electing a new government, as the deaths of six more American soldiers in roadside bombings underscored concerns about security in the volatile nation.
...
The United States has cited the ongoing violence in arguing against demands by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani for the direct election of a provisional legislature, which in turn will select a government to take power by July 1.
Instead, Washington wants the lawmakers chosen in 18 regional caucuses. ...
...
In Paris, Annan said he believes the United Nations can play "a constructive role" in helping to break the impasse, and would send such a team to Iraq "once I am satisfied that the (coalition) will provide adequate security arrangements. ...
...
The decision to seek U.N. help marked a major policy reversal by the Bush administration, which had sought to minimize the U.N. role since U.S.-led forces invaded the country on March 20. The latest U.S. blueprint for Iraq, announced Nov. 15, made no mention of the United Nations.
...
The Bush administration has sought international help as rising American casualties and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction threaten to make the Iraq policy an issue in the presidential campaign.
Excite News: "Iraq Bombings Kill 6 U.S. Soldiers | Jan 27, 10:02 PM (ET) | By HAMZA HENDAWI
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The United Nations agreed Tuesday to send a team to Iraq to help break the impasse over electing a new government, as the deaths of six more American soldiers in roadside bombings underscored concerns about security in the volatile nation.
...
The United States has cited the ongoing violence in arguing against demands by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani for the direct election of a provisional legislature, which in turn will select a government to take power by July 1.
Instead, Washington wants the lawmakers chosen in 18 regional caucuses. ...
...
In Paris, Annan said he believes the United Nations can play "a constructive role" in helping to break the impasse, and would send such a team to Iraq "once I am satisfied that the (coalition) will provide adequate security arrangements. ...
...
The decision to seek U.N. help marked a major policy reversal by the Bush administration, which had sought to minimize the U.N. role since U.S.-led forces invaded the country on March 20. The latest U.S. blueprint for Iraq, announced Nov. 15, made no mention of the United Nations.
...
The Bush administration has sought international help as rising American casualties and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction threaten to make the Iraq policy an issue in the presidential campaign.
Khaldiyah: roadside bomb(s): 3 US dead; 2 Iraqis dead
Excite News: "3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Blasts | Jan 27, 9:40 AM (ET) | By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
KHALDIYAH, Iraq (AP) - A roadside bomb exploded next to a passing U.S. military convoy west of Baghdad Tuesday followed by a second bomb when reinforcements arrived, witnesses said. Three American soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were killed.
A U.S. military spokeswoman said the casualties occurred in a 'large explosion,' but gave no other details.
He said three American soldiers and one Iraqi civilian were killed and several Iraqis were injured. Hospital staff, however, put the Iraqi death toll at two.
...
Witnesses, however, spoke of two explosions. The first one hit a Humvee and when more troops arrived at the scene to help the second bomb went off, blasting another military vehicle.
...
Abdul Hamid Marzouq, a nurse at the Ramadi Hospital where the casualties were brought, said two Iraqis were killed -- Hadi Abd Shehab, the director of agriculture of Khaldiyah, and Hamd Nayef, a taxi driver.
Nayef, who was driving by at the time of the explosion, was injured in the head and face, said Marzouq. He said three people were injured.
Marzouq said Shehab died of a gunshot wound to the stomach. Witnesses said he was shot while standing in his office close the blast scene, and died on way to the hospital.
It was not clear who shot him. ...
Excite News: "3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Blasts | Jan 27, 9:40 AM (ET) | By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
KHALDIYAH, Iraq (AP) - A roadside bomb exploded next to a passing U.S. military convoy west of Baghdad Tuesday followed by a second bomb when reinforcements arrived, witnesses said. Three American soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were killed.
A U.S. military spokeswoman said the casualties occurred in a 'large explosion,' but gave no other details.
He said three American soldiers and one Iraqi civilian were killed and several Iraqis were injured. Hospital staff, however, put the Iraqi death toll at two.
...
Witnesses, however, spoke of two explosions. The first one hit a Humvee and when more troops arrived at the scene to help the second bomb went off, blasting another military vehicle.
...
Abdul Hamid Marzouq, a nurse at the Ramadi Hospital where the casualties were brought, said two Iraqis were killed -- Hadi Abd Shehab, the director of agriculture of Khaldiyah, and Hamd Nayef, a taxi driver.
Nayef, who was driving by at the time of the explosion, was injured in the head and face, said Marzouq. He said three people were injured.
Marzouq said Shehab died of a gunshot wound to the stomach. Witnesses said he was shot while standing in his office close the blast scene, and died on way to the hospital.
It was not clear who shot him. ...
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Militant Says He Was Abused by Israel: tortured, sodomized, raped, naked and shackled for a month
Excite News: "Militant Says He Was Abused by Israel | Jan 27, 2:17 PM (ET) | By PETER ENAV
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A Lebanese guerrilla leader about to be freed in a prisoner swap testified Tuesday that Israeli interrogators raped him, sodomized him with a club and kept him naked for weeks in a round-the-clock effort to extract information on a missing Israeli aviator.
State prosecutor Shamai Becker said interrogators never touched Mustafa Dirani. The prosecutor said Dirani 'sang like a bird' and made up allegations of abuse to explain why he gave Israel information.
Human rights groups have accused Israel of routinely mistreating Arab prisoners, but rarely to the extremes Dirani alleged to a Tel Aviv court in his $1.3 million lawsuit against the Israeli government.
...
Dirani is among the most prominent of the prisoners named. Israeli forces burst into his home in Lebanon in 1994, kidnapped him and held him without charges for a decade, yet allowed him access to its court system to sue the government for torture.
On Tuesday, Dirani testified that interrogators kept him naked and shackled in a secret facility for a month as six men tortured him, splashing him with hot and freezing water, shaking him until he fainted and sexually assaulting him as they demanded to know the whereabouts of missing airman Ron Arad.
Israel accuses Dirani of helping capture Arad, who was caught alive after ejecting from his plane over Lebanon in 1986 and remains missing.
Israeli and international human rights groups say Israel has mistreated Arab security detainees during interrogation by depriving them of sleep, tying them in painful positions and forcing them to wear hoods.
In 1999, Israel's Supreme Court banned the blanket use of such practices, saying they could be used only in specific instances. Human rights activists said abuse fell off after the ruling but has become more frequent in the past three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Dirani's accusations of torture - which he said took place before the court ruling - were far more severe than those usually reported, said Yael Stein, research director at B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
"Accusations of rape are not common," she said. "If it is true, it is very severe."
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the Tel Aviv court room. He spoke only reluctantly and had to be coaxed into giving details.
Dirani said he was interrogated around the clock for a month by six people, including a man known only as George, who threatened him, cursed him and repeatedly squeezed his testicles "until I felt I would die," Dirani said.
One day a uniformed soldier nicknamed "Kojak" came into the room and dropped his pants, and George told Dirani the soldier would sodomize him if he did not talk, Dirani said.
Days later, Dirani was shackled and pushed down onto a bench, he said. "I couldn't see or resist ... I was raped by the soldier. He said he would rape me, and he did," he told the court.
"Two or three days later they started raping me with a police baton," he said. "It's impossible to describe the pain. I yelled to high heaven."
The interrogators took him to a doctor to stop the bleeding, he said. They also forced him to drink castor oil, which made him incontinent, and gave him large diapers as his only clothing.
Becker, the prosecutor, denied Dirani's accusations.
"All the interrogators said you sang like a bird and there was no reason to touch a hair on your head," Becker said as he cross-examined Dirani.
"What's all this about? You are going back to Lebanon. People will ask how could you give out this and that information. You'll answer that you are a heterosexual Muslim. This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tortured and thus forced you to talk," Becker said.
Excite News: "Militant Says He Was Abused by Israel | Jan 27, 2:17 PM (ET) | By PETER ENAV
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A Lebanese guerrilla leader about to be freed in a prisoner swap testified Tuesday that Israeli interrogators raped him, sodomized him with a club and kept him naked for weeks in a round-the-clock effort to extract information on a missing Israeli aviator.
State prosecutor Shamai Becker said interrogators never touched Mustafa Dirani. The prosecutor said Dirani 'sang like a bird' and made up allegations of abuse to explain why he gave Israel information.
Human rights groups have accused Israel of routinely mistreating Arab prisoners, but rarely to the extremes Dirani alleged to a Tel Aviv court in his $1.3 million lawsuit against the Israeli government.
...
Dirani is among the most prominent of the prisoners named. Israeli forces burst into his home in Lebanon in 1994, kidnapped him and held him without charges for a decade, yet allowed him access to its court system to sue the government for torture.
On Tuesday, Dirani testified that interrogators kept him naked and shackled in a secret facility for a month as six men tortured him, splashing him with hot and freezing water, shaking him until he fainted and sexually assaulting him as they demanded to know the whereabouts of missing airman Ron Arad.
Israel accuses Dirani of helping capture Arad, who was caught alive after ejecting from his plane over Lebanon in 1986 and remains missing.
Israeli and international human rights groups say Israel has mistreated Arab security detainees during interrogation by depriving them of sleep, tying them in painful positions and forcing them to wear hoods.
In 1999, Israel's Supreme Court banned the blanket use of such practices, saying they could be used only in specific instances. Human rights activists said abuse fell off after the ruling but has become more frequent in the past three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Dirani's accusations of torture - which he said took place before the court ruling - were far more severe than those usually reported, said Yael Stein, research director at B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
"Accusations of rape are not common," she said. "If it is true, it is very severe."
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the Tel Aviv court room. He spoke only reluctantly and had to be coaxed into giving details.
Dirani said he was interrogated around the clock for a month by six people, including a man known only as George, who threatened him, cursed him and repeatedly squeezed his testicles "until I felt I would die," Dirani said.
One day a uniformed soldier nicknamed "Kojak" came into the room and dropped his pants, and George told Dirani the soldier would sodomize him if he did not talk, Dirani said.
Days later, Dirani was shackled and pushed down onto a bench, he said. "I couldn't see or resist ... I was raped by the soldier. He said he would rape me, and he did," he told the court.
"Two or three days later they started raping me with a police baton," he said. "It's impossible to describe the pain. I yelled to high heaven."
The interrogators took him to a doctor to stop the bleeding, he said. They also forced him to drink castor oil, which made him incontinent, and gave him large diapers as his only clothing.
Becker, the prosecutor, denied Dirani's accusations.
"All the interrogators said you sang like a bird and there was no reason to touch a hair on your head," Becker said as he cross-examined Dirani.
"What's all this about? You are going back to Lebanon. People will ask how could you give out this and that information. You'll answer that you are a heterosexual Muslim. This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tortured and thus forced you to talk," Becker said.
Jordan Official Denounces Suicide Blasts: Israel has implement the 'roadmap" in full, unequivocally; Bush omits 'roadmap' from State of Union speech
Yahoo! News - Jordan Official Denounces Suicide Blasts: "Sun Jan 25, 9:03 AM ETAdd World - AP to My Yahoo! | By NICOLAS B. TATRO, Associated Press Writer
DAVOS, Switzerland - Jordan's Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said Sunday that Arab states need to explain their peace proposals to Israelis and take a strong stand against suicide bombings that have claimed hundreds of Israeli lives in the past three years of violence.
"We have not publicly, clearly, unequivocally taken a stand against suicide bombs," Muasher declared at a meeting of business and government leaders in the Swiss Alps. "We have not told the average Israeli citizen that suicide bombs are wrong from a moral and political point of view."
But he said Israel also had to state unequivocally that it would implement the U.S.-backed "roadmap" peace plan in full, including acceptance of a Palestinian state on the basis of the border from before the 1967 Mideast war.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, who also took part in the panel discussion on the final day of the five-day World Economic Forum (news - web sites), complained about an absence of U.S. diplomacy and said that President Bush (news - web sites) had not even mentioned the Arab-Israeli conflict in his State of the Union address last week.
"I already see how the election process is pulling the American role away, and that was very clear in the State of the Union message where the Middle East totally vanished into thin air," he told reporters. "Not only action but just mention has evaporated." ...
Yahoo! News - Jordan Official Denounces Suicide Blasts: "Sun Jan 25, 9:03 AM ETAdd World - AP to My Yahoo! | By NICOLAS B. TATRO, Associated Press Writer
DAVOS, Switzerland - Jordan's Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said Sunday that Arab states need to explain their peace proposals to Israelis and take a strong stand against suicide bombings that have claimed hundreds of Israeli lives in the past three years of violence.
"We have not publicly, clearly, unequivocally taken a stand against suicide bombs," Muasher declared at a meeting of business and government leaders in the Swiss Alps. "We have not told the average Israeli citizen that suicide bombs are wrong from a moral and political point of view."
But he said Israel also had to state unequivocally that it would implement the U.S.-backed "roadmap" peace plan in full, including acceptance of a Palestinian state on the basis of the border from before the 1967 Mideast war.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, who also took part in the panel discussion on the final day of the five-day World Economic Forum (news - web sites), complained about an absence of U.S. diplomacy and said that President Bush (news - web sites) had not even mentioned the Arab-Israeli conflict in his State of the Union address last week.
"I already see how the election process is pulling the American role away, and that was very clear in the State of the Union message where the Middle East totally vanished into thin air," he told reporters. "Not only action but just mention has evaporated." ...
'The Trouble With Islam;: Reform From Within: ''Let there be no compulsion in religion,'' says Chapter 2 of the Koran [... idea for all religions?]
'The Trouble With Islam': Reform From Within: "By ANDREW SULLIVAN | Published: January 25, 2004
...
Her basic argument is that the Koran is a complex, contradictory, human book. Its proscriptions are many and conflicting. Abandoning the role of a thinking person is not something that should be required of any religious individual. Reason and faith, Manji wants to believe, are not in conflict. And yet, as Islam is frequently practiced, reason is deplored as something that should defer in every instance not simply to the Koran but to the political authoritarians who reserve to themselves the sole right to interpret it.
What Manji discovered in the madrasa was a symptom of what she sees as a broader and deeper problem: that Muslims have stopped thinking, that their faith has been hijacked by tyrants and bullies, and that it has become infested with all kinds of hatred -- of Jews, of women, of gays, of the West. And instead of confronting these issues directly and openly, most Western Muslims -- perhaps the only group of Muslims with the actual freedom to question, criticize and debate -- have decided to retreat into victimology and appeasement. Aided and abetted by the moral nihilism of academic postmodernism, these people have surrendered to the new fascists of the Arab world.
I just hope Manji is ready for a very rough ride ahead. She is not exactly diplomatic. Here's one typical rhetorical flourish: ''Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis, and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?''
Her answer to her own question is guilelessly to challenge certain givens. The Koran mandates the veiling of the wives of the Prophet. So why are all women now required to be covered from head to foot? In the distant past, Islam integrated and celebrated human diversity, and honored Christian and Jewish culture. So why has Islam degenerated into a maelstrom of the most virulent anti-Semitism? ''Let there be no compulsion in religion,'' says Chapter 2 of the Koran. So why do many Arab Muslim states persecute or ostracize nonbelievers?
...
Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at The New Republic and a columnist for Time.
'The Trouble With Islam': Reform From Within: "By ANDREW SULLIVAN | Published: January 25, 2004
...
Her basic argument is that the Koran is a complex, contradictory, human book. Its proscriptions are many and conflicting. Abandoning the role of a thinking person is not something that should be required of any religious individual. Reason and faith, Manji wants to believe, are not in conflict. And yet, as Islam is frequently practiced, reason is deplored as something that should defer in every instance not simply to the Koran but to the political authoritarians who reserve to themselves the sole right to interpret it.
What Manji discovered in the madrasa was a symptom of what she sees as a broader and deeper problem: that Muslims have stopped thinking, that their faith has been hijacked by tyrants and bullies, and that it has become infested with all kinds of hatred -- of Jews, of women, of gays, of the West. And instead of confronting these issues directly and openly, most Western Muslims -- perhaps the only group of Muslims with the actual freedom to question, criticize and debate -- have decided to retreat into victimology and appeasement. Aided and abetted by the moral nihilism of academic postmodernism, these people have surrendered to the new fascists of the Arab world.
I just hope Manji is ready for a very rough ride ahead. She is not exactly diplomatic. Here's one typical rhetorical flourish: ''Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis, and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?''
Her answer to her own question is guilelessly to challenge certain givens. The Koran mandates the veiling of the wives of the Prophet. So why are all women now required to be covered from head to foot? In the distant past, Islam integrated and celebrated human diversity, and honored Christian and Jewish culture. So why has Islam degenerated into a maelstrom of the most virulent anti-Semitism? ''Let there be no compulsion in religion,'' says Chapter 2 of the Koran. So why do many Arab Muslim states persecute or ostracize nonbelievers?
...
Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at The New Republic and a columnist for Time.
Blair: accused the Palestinians of having caused the peace process to fail: Palestinians "asking us to provide security for the Israelis"
Haaretz - Israel News - Withdrawing from the Arabs to the embrace of the Europeans: "By Sharon Sadeh | January 27, 2004
LONDON - For the first time since the outbreak of the intifada, British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week accused the Palestinians of having caused the peace process to fail. At a press conference at 10, Downing Street, he said that 'it is impossible to get this process restarted unless there is a credible security plan that allows people to believe genuinely that every attempt is being made to stop the support of terrorism, the flow of terrorists into either the Palestinian Authority or into Israel, and to give a clear message that terrorism is the enemy of progress for the Palestinian people.'
He added that terror attacks are no longer considered a legitimate expression of the struggle for independence: "[T]errorists used to say - without the terrorism people will never listen to our argument." However, said Blair, "in today's world, particularly post-11 September, terrorism is the obstacle to political progress, and it is the obstacle to political progress whether it is in Northern Ireland, or it is in the Middle East, or it is out in Kashmir, or it's in Chechnya, or it is any of the difficult trouble spots of the world." The British prime minister also said that "terrorism is the enemy of progress for the Palestinian people."
The Palestinian Authority was swift to deplore this statement: According to the official news agency Wafa. "Finally, Blair has done it by revealing himself in an unprecedented fashion. He is asking us to provide security for the Israelis without taking into consideration our security, which is being threatened and terrorized by Israel." The Arab League also expressed its outrage, and its secretary general, Amr Moussa, hastened to blame Israel for the stagnation of the peace process, saying that as long as Israel enjoys international immunity and continues to build Jewish settlements in the territories and the racist separation wall, it will be impossible to get the peace process going. ...
...
Blair has warm feelings toward Israel, says Hollis. "Tony Blair personally has some close friends who are Jewish, and didn't have any close friends who are Palestinians or Arabs. He didn't come to office with a developed position on this but did see that the UK has regretted this perception, that Britain is pro-Arab, and so number 10 is guarded about Israel because they wanted to reverse that image. Under Blair's auspices, the idea was that Britain is going to get along better with Israel." Relations between the two countries reached their peak during the period of Ehud Barak's government, but even after Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister, Blair has taken care to maintain good relations and to intervene personally in cases of disagreement. If Blair survives the conclusions of the inquiry into the death of Defense Ministry adviser David Kelly this week, perhaps he will be able to lead the move that Hollis is proposing.
Haaretz - Israel News - Withdrawing from the Arabs to the embrace of the Europeans: "By Sharon Sadeh | January 27, 2004
LONDON - For the first time since the outbreak of the intifada, British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week accused the Palestinians of having caused the peace process to fail. At a press conference at 10, Downing Street, he said that 'it is impossible to get this process restarted unless there is a credible security plan that allows people to believe genuinely that every attempt is being made to stop the support of terrorism, the flow of terrorists into either the Palestinian Authority or into Israel, and to give a clear message that terrorism is the enemy of progress for the Palestinian people.'
He added that terror attacks are no longer considered a legitimate expression of the struggle for independence: "[T]errorists used to say - without the terrorism people will never listen to our argument." However, said Blair, "in today's world, particularly post-11 September, terrorism is the obstacle to political progress, and it is the obstacle to political progress whether it is in Northern Ireland, or it is in the Middle East, or it is out in Kashmir, or it's in Chechnya, or it is any of the difficult trouble spots of the world." The British prime minister also said that "terrorism is the enemy of progress for the Palestinian people."
The Palestinian Authority was swift to deplore this statement: According to the official news agency Wafa. "Finally, Blair has done it by revealing himself in an unprecedented fashion. He is asking us to provide security for the Israelis without taking into consideration our security, which is being threatened and terrorized by Israel." The Arab League also expressed its outrage, and its secretary general, Amr Moussa, hastened to blame Israel for the stagnation of the peace process, saying that as long as Israel enjoys international immunity and continues to build Jewish settlements in the territories and the racist separation wall, it will be impossible to get the peace process going. ...
...
Blair has warm feelings toward Israel, says Hollis. "Tony Blair personally has some close friends who are Jewish, and didn't have any close friends who are Palestinians or Arabs. He didn't come to office with a developed position on this but did see that the UK has regretted this perception, that Britain is pro-Arab, and so number 10 is guarded about Israel because they wanted to reverse that image. Under Blair's auspices, the idea was that Britain is going to get along better with Israel." Relations between the two countries reached their peak during the period of Ehud Barak's government, but even after Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister, Blair has taken care to maintain good relations and to intervene personally in cases of disagreement. If Blair survives the conclusions of the inquiry into the death of Defense Ministry adviser David Kelly this week, perhaps he will be able to lead the move that Hollis is proposing.
PLC members oppose 'refugee' solution in latest Saudi plan: 2 million Palestinians to return to Palestine, 2 million to Arab states, none to Israel
Haaretz - Israel News: "26/01/2004 15:25 | PLC members oppose 'refugee' solution in latest Saudi plan | By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and Itim
Palestinian lawmakers expressed opposition Monday to a section of a new Saudi-led peace initiative that calls for more than 2 million Palestinian refugees to be absorbed by other Arab states.
Hatam Abdel Khader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was quoted Monday as saying that while logic dictates that Israel would not allow 5 million Palestinians in its territory, the Palestinians are not willing to give up on the right of return. He said any proposed change to this demand would have to be approved by Palestinian institutions.
Abdel Khader also said that Palestinians won't agree to any change regarding their right of return, unless it is based on United Nations resolution 194, which holds that refugees should be permitted to return to their homes "at the earliest practicable date."
According to the initiative, which is being prepared by Arab states, some 2 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to the Palestinian state that would be established. More than 2 million others would be absorbed by other Arab states, and compensated for the suffering they had endured.
Israel will not be required to absorb any Palestinian refugees.
Haaretz - Israel News: "26/01/2004 15:25 | PLC members oppose 'refugee' solution in latest Saudi plan | By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and Itim
Palestinian lawmakers expressed opposition Monday to a section of a new Saudi-led peace initiative that calls for more than 2 million Palestinian refugees to be absorbed by other Arab states.
Hatam Abdel Khader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was quoted Monday as saying that while logic dictates that Israel would not allow 5 million Palestinians in its territory, the Palestinians are not willing to give up on the right of return. He said any proposed change to this demand would have to be approved by Palestinian institutions.
Abdel Khader also said that Palestinians won't agree to any change regarding their right of return, unless it is based on United Nations resolution 194, which holds that refugees should be permitted to return to their homes "at the earliest practicable date."
According to the initiative, which is being prepared by Arab states, some 2 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to the Palestinian state that would be established. More than 2 million others would be absorbed by other Arab states, and compensated for the suffering they had endured.
Israel will not be required to absorb any Palestinian refugees.
Haaretz - Israel News - Suspects in the dark
Haaretz - Israel News - Suspects in the dark: "By Ze'ev Segal | January 26, 2004
Last week, the Tel Aviv District Court allowed the publication of the news that, at the beginning of the month, the central division of the Tel Aviv district police arrested Yishai Vanunu of Tel Aviv, who is suspected of being involved in attempts to murder alleged crime kingpin Ze'ev Rosenstein. Vanunu was arrested on January 7 and held for six days, during which, apparently, no one was informed of his arrest.
The possibility of anonymous arrests, which make it possible to conceal someone's arrest even from his closest relatives, is reminiscent of benighted regimes. It does not befit a democratic country like the State of Israel, which has recognized the constitutional status of the right to due process, in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom.
Despite this, the court that decided on the secret detention did not violate the law. Article 36 of the arrest law, which was passed in 1996, gives a District Court judge the authority - in cases of suspicion of a crime that carries a sentence of more than 10 years - not to inform anyone of the person's arrest. This is allowed if the chief of police has confirmed in writing that this is necessary for the good of the investigation, or if the defense minister has confirmed that such a secret arrest is necessary for reasons of state security.
This authority, which makes it possible to leave suspects completely in the dark for seven days, is draconian, and it is not for naught that the police refrain from asking the courts to use it. ...
Haaretz - Israel News - Suspects in the dark: "By Ze'ev Segal | January 26, 2004
Last week, the Tel Aviv District Court allowed the publication of the news that, at the beginning of the month, the central division of the Tel Aviv district police arrested Yishai Vanunu of Tel Aviv, who is suspected of being involved in attempts to murder alleged crime kingpin Ze'ev Rosenstein. Vanunu was arrested on January 7 and held for six days, during which, apparently, no one was informed of his arrest.
The possibility of anonymous arrests, which make it possible to conceal someone's arrest even from his closest relatives, is reminiscent of benighted regimes. It does not befit a democratic country like the State of Israel, which has recognized the constitutional status of the right to due process, in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom.
Despite this, the court that decided on the secret detention did not violate the law. Article 36 of the arrest law, which was passed in 1996, gives a District Court judge the authority - in cases of suspicion of a crime that carries a sentence of more than 10 years - not to inform anyone of the person's arrest. This is allowed if the chief of police has confirmed in writing that this is necessary for the good of the investigation, or if the defense minister has confirmed that such a secret arrest is necessary for reasons of state security.
This authority, which makes it possible to leave suspects completely in the dark for seven days, is draconian, and it is not for naught that the police refrain from asking the courts to use it. ...
Gadhafi says world is 'deaf and blind' to Israel's WMDs
Haaretz - Israel News: "26/01/2004 17:30 | Gadhafi says world is 'deaf and blind' to Israel's WMDs | By Reuters and Haaretz Service
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi accused Israel in an interview Monday of flooding Arab countries with drugs and said he hoped the international community would no longer be 'deaf and blind' to Israel's weapons of mass destruction.
...
But the Libyan leader remained critical of the Jewish state in the interview. "I would say that there is a terrorism of individuals and a state terrorism; both need to be stopped. If someone destroys an inhabited building with an air-launched missile you cannot say that it is not terrorism," he said.
"The Israelis are throwing hashish along the Egyptian coast, in Syria and in North Africa. Maybe even the hashish that arrives in Libya comes from Israel. In fact, we're certain," Gadhafi said.
"I hope that on this point, the international community isn't deaf and blind as it has been on the point of Israeli weapons of mass destruction. It has hundreds of atomic [war]heads and a large chemical and biological arsenal."
According to foreign reports, Israel is believed to have about 200 nuclear warheads, but it maintains a policy of nuclear "ambiguity," neither confessing to having the bomb nor denying it. ...
Haaretz - Israel News: "26/01/2004 17:30 | Gadhafi says world is 'deaf and blind' to Israel's WMDs | By Reuters and Haaretz Service
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi accused Israel in an interview Monday of flooding Arab countries with drugs and said he hoped the international community would no longer be 'deaf and blind' to Israel's weapons of mass destruction.
...
But the Libyan leader remained critical of the Jewish state in the interview. "I would say that there is a terrorism of individuals and a state terrorism; both need to be stopped. If someone destroys an inhabited building with an air-launched missile you cannot say that it is not terrorism," he said.
"The Israelis are throwing hashish along the Egyptian coast, in Syria and in North Africa. Maybe even the hashish that arrives in Libya comes from Israel. In fact, we're certain," Gadhafi said.
"I hope that on this point, the international community isn't deaf and blind as it has been on the point of Israeli weapons of mass destruction. It has hundreds of atomic [war]heads and a large chemical and biological arsenal."
According to foreign reports, Israel is believed to have about 200 nuclear warheads, but it maintains a policy of nuclear "ambiguity," neither confessing to having the bomb nor denying it. ...
Monday, January 26, 2004
Bush and Blair under fire: forced to step down, over either the case they made for war or the treatment of those officials who questioned it?
Economist.com | Iraq�s elusive banned weapons: "Bush and Blair under fire | Jan 26th 2004 | From The Economist Global Agenda
The American and British leaders are under renewed attack over their case for war and how they handled officials who questioned it
TEN months after America and Britain led the invasion of Iraq which successfully toppled Saddam Hussein, President George Bush and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, might have hoped that the rows over the case they made for war would have died down. Far from it. A report due on Wednesday January 28th from Lord Hutton, a senior British judge, may criticise Mr Blair’s claims over Saddam’s elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It may also say the Blair government contributed to the suicide of an official who was the source of a BBC report accusing the government of exaggerating the case for war. Mr Bush’s Democratic opponents are demanding an official inquiry after America’s chief WMD-hunter resigned, saying Saddam did not appear to have had any. And an investigation is under way into claims that Mr Bush’s officials disclosed the identity of an American undercover agent, whose husband, a diplomat, had contradicted Mr Bush’s claims about Saddam’s weapons.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair built their case for war principally on the argument that Saddam was a menace to world security because he had chemical and biological weapons, and was seeking nuclear arms. Mr Blair published a dossier in the run-up to the war claiming that Iraq had some WMD ready to be fired within 45 minutes of an order from Saddam. And Mr Bush, in his state-of-the-union speech last January, claimed that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa for its nuclear-arms programme. Neither of these claims is now thought to be true and, despite months of searching in postwar Iraq by American inspectors, no banned arms have been found. Last Friday, David Kay, the head of the WMD-hunting team, resigned after concluding that Saddam’s regime had all but abandoned making chemical and biological weapons after the 1991 Gulf war. ...
...
Mr Blair has emphatically denied authorising the leaking of Kelly’s name and has said he would resign if Lord Hutton blamed him personally for this. Mr Blair will get an advance copy of the Hutton report on Tuesday, the same day as he faces a possible defeat in Parliament over a proposal to increase university tuition fees. If he loses this vote, the prime minister is expected to call a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on Thursday. Those parliamentarians from Mr Blair’s Labour Party who will rebel over tuition fees are expected to back him in the vote of confidence. But if he is criticised in Lord Hutton’s report and this prompts a significant number of abstentions by Labour rebels in the confidence vote, then Mr Blair’s authority may be irreparably damaged.
Mr Bush faces a potentially damaging official inquiry with similar overtones to the Kelly affair. The Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a newspaper columnist. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former American ambassador, has accused Bush administration officials of leaking her name in retaliation for his contradicting Mr Bush’s claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium. The prosecutor in the inquiry has reportedly begun presenting evidence to a grand jury, a step towards a possible criminal investigation in which Mr Bush’s officials would be forced to give testimony under oath.
A worst-case scenario is just about imaginable: both Mr Bush and Mr Blair are forced to step down, over either the case they made for war or the treatment of those officials who questioned it. This is unlikely, though it is quite possible that the British and American inquiries, added to the failure to find Saddam’s fabled WMD, will damage the two leaders’ reputations sufficiently to cut short their political careers (Mr Blair must decide whether to seek a third term as prime minister in the next 18 months or so). There may have been other good reasons for toppling Saddam, but having rested their case mainly on his supposed arsenal of banned weapons, they will find it hard to complain if it is this issue on which the American and British public judge the two leaders' conduct in their Iraqi venture.
Economist.com | Iraq�s elusive banned weapons: "Bush and Blair under fire | Jan 26th 2004 | From The Economist Global Agenda
The American and British leaders are under renewed attack over their case for war and how they handled officials who questioned it
TEN months after America and Britain led the invasion of Iraq which successfully toppled Saddam Hussein, President George Bush and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, might have hoped that the rows over the case they made for war would have died down. Far from it. A report due on Wednesday January 28th from Lord Hutton, a senior British judge, may criticise Mr Blair’s claims over Saddam’s elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It may also say the Blair government contributed to the suicide of an official who was the source of a BBC report accusing the government of exaggerating the case for war. Mr Bush’s Democratic opponents are demanding an official inquiry after America’s chief WMD-hunter resigned, saying Saddam did not appear to have had any. And an investigation is under way into claims that Mr Bush’s officials disclosed the identity of an American undercover agent, whose husband, a diplomat, had contradicted Mr Bush’s claims about Saddam’s weapons.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair built their case for war principally on the argument that Saddam was a menace to world security because he had chemical and biological weapons, and was seeking nuclear arms. Mr Blair published a dossier in the run-up to the war claiming that Iraq had some WMD ready to be fired within 45 minutes of an order from Saddam. And Mr Bush, in his state-of-the-union speech last January, claimed that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa for its nuclear-arms programme. Neither of these claims is now thought to be true and, despite months of searching in postwar Iraq by American inspectors, no banned arms have been found. Last Friday, David Kay, the head of the WMD-hunting team, resigned after concluding that Saddam’s regime had all but abandoned making chemical and biological weapons after the 1991 Gulf war. ...
...
Mr Blair has emphatically denied authorising the leaking of Kelly’s name and has said he would resign if Lord Hutton blamed him personally for this. Mr Blair will get an advance copy of the Hutton report on Tuesday, the same day as he faces a possible defeat in Parliament over a proposal to increase university tuition fees. If he loses this vote, the prime minister is expected to call a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on Thursday. Those parliamentarians from Mr Blair’s Labour Party who will rebel over tuition fees are expected to back him in the vote of confidence. But if he is criticised in Lord Hutton’s report and this prompts a significant number of abstentions by Labour rebels in the confidence vote, then Mr Blair’s authority may be irreparably damaged.
Mr Bush faces a potentially damaging official inquiry with similar overtones to the Kelly affair. The Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a newspaper columnist. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former American ambassador, has accused Bush administration officials of leaking her name in retaliation for his contradicting Mr Bush’s claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium. The prosecutor in the inquiry has reportedly begun presenting evidence to a grand jury, a step towards a possible criminal investigation in which Mr Bush’s officials would be forced to give testimony under oath.
A worst-case scenario is just about imaginable: both Mr Bush and Mr Blair are forced to step down, over either the case they made for war or the treatment of those officials who questioned it. This is unlikely, though it is quite possible that the British and American inquiries, added to the failure to find Saddam’s fabled WMD, will damage the two leaders’ reputations sufficiently to cut short their political careers (Mr Blair must decide whether to seek a third term as prime minister in the next 18 months or so). There may have been other good reasons for toppling Saddam, but having rested their case mainly on his supposed arsenal of banned weapons, they will find it hard to complain if it is this issue on which the American and British public judge the two leaders' conduct in their Iraqi venture.
Sharon under investigation: Bribery and corruption charges my be last stand
Economist.com | Sharon under investigation: "Sharon fights on | Jan 26th 2004 | From The Economist Global Agenda
It looks increasingly likely that bribery and corruption allegations against the Israeli prime minister will force him from office
WITH a new attorney-general now in place, Israel has begun a final countdown to a potentially fateful decision: will Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, be indicted on bribery and corruption charges? If he is, he will almost inevitably have to leave office at once—a move that would have big implications not only for Israeli politics but also, by extension, for the stalled Middle East peace process. Until the new attorney-general makes his mind up, a pall of uncertainty hangs over the country and the wider region.
The man in the hot spot is Menachem Mazuz, a long-time government lawyer. His confirmation by the cabinet on Sunday January 25th was itself a reflection of the extreme awkwardness of Mr Sharon’s situation. Neither the prime minister nor his deputy, Ehud Olmert, participated in the vote, because of their involvement in the ongoing corruption investigations.
Well-placed sources say the state prosecutor and the team of lawyers working under her have, in effect, resolved to recommend to Mr Mazuz that Mr Sharon be indicted. Under the law, only the attorney-general in person can indict a serving prime minister. The same sources say the file against Mr Olmert is likely to be closed. This could be enormously significant politically, since Mr Olmert is one of the candidates to succeed Mr Sharon should he fall.
...
Some in the Sharon coterie claim the prime minister would not step down even if an indictment were filed. The law on this point is open to differing interpretations. But the predominant view is that the high court would step in and force him to quit. In the weeks ahead, Mr Mazuz must decide whether to make that happen. ...
Economist.com | Sharon under investigation: "Sharon fights on | Jan 26th 2004 | From The Economist Global Agenda
It looks increasingly likely that bribery and corruption allegations against the Israeli prime minister will force him from office
WITH a new attorney-general now in place, Israel has begun a final countdown to a potentially fateful decision: will Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, be indicted on bribery and corruption charges? If he is, he will almost inevitably have to leave office at once—a move that would have big implications not only for Israeli politics but also, by extension, for the stalled Middle East peace process. Until the new attorney-general makes his mind up, a pall of uncertainty hangs over the country and the wider region.
The man in the hot spot is Menachem Mazuz, a long-time government lawyer. His confirmation by the cabinet on Sunday January 25th was itself a reflection of the extreme awkwardness of Mr Sharon’s situation. Neither the prime minister nor his deputy, Ehud Olmert, participated in the vote, because of their involvement in the ongoing corruption investigations.
Well-placed sources say the state prosecutor and the team of lawyers working under her have, in effect, resolved to recommend to Mr Mazuz that Mr Sharon be indicted. Under the law, only the attorney-general in person can indict a serving prime minister. The same sources say the file against Mr Olmert is likely to be closed. This could be enormously significant politically, since Mr Olmert is one of the candidates to succeed Mr Sharon should he fall.
...
Some in the Sharon coterie claim the prime minister would not step down even if an indictment were filed. The law on this point is open to differing interpretations. But the predominant view is that the high court would step in and force him to quit. In the weeks ahead, Mr Mazuz must decide whether to make that happen. ...
Hamas Proposes 10-Year Truce for 1967 borders: did not expect Israel to respond favorably [1967 borders = international law]
Excite - News: "Hamas Proposes 10-Year Truce for Israeli Pullback | Jan 25, 6:29 pm ET | By Wafa Amr
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A top official of the main Palestinian militant group, Hamas, has said it could declare a 10-year truce with Israel if the Jewish state withdrew from territory occupied since 1967.
Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi told Reuters late on Sunday Hamas had come to the conclusion that it was 'difficult to liberate all our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation.'
'We accept a state in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. We propose a 10-year truce in return for (Israeli) withdrawal and the establishment of a state,' he said in a telephone interview from hiding in the Gaza Strip.
His comments appeared to strengthen signs of a big political shift by a faction sworn to destroy Israel and now seeming to move closer to the aims of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
...
Israeli officials also say it would be impossible to return to pre-1967 borders, emphasizing that the Palestinians could not expect East Jerusalem, some major Jewish settlements or other land deemed vital for security.
...
Rantissi said he did not expect Israel to respond favorably to the new suggestion, "when it has rejected the Palestinian Authority's offer for less land than what we are proposing."
Excite - News: "Hamas Proposes 10-Year Truce for Israeli Pullback | Jan 25, 6:29 pm ET | By Wafa Amr
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - A top official of the main Palestinian militant group, Hamas, has said it could declare a 10-year truce with Israel if the Jewish state withdrew from territory occupied since 1967.
Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi told Reuters late on Sunday Hamas had come to the conclusion that it was 'difficult to liberate all our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation.'
'We accept a state in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. We propose a 10-year truce in return for (Israeli) withdrawal and the establishment of a state,' he said in a telephone interview from hiding in the Gaza Strip.
His comments appeared to strengthen signs of a big political shift by a faction sworn to destroy Israel and now seeming to move closer to the aims of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
...
Israeli officials also say it would be impossible to return to pre-1967 borders, emphasizing that the Palestinians could not expect East Jerusalem, some major Jewish settlements or other land deemed vital for security.
...
Rantissi said he did not expect Israel to respond favorably to the new suggestion, "when it has rejected the Palestinian Authority's offer for less land than what we are proposing."
Israel Finds It Harder to Mend Arab Ties: Jordan fears forced Palestinian exodus because of wall: Sharon used to say Jordan is Palestine [as did Perle
Excite News: "Israel Finds It Harder to Mend Arab Ties | Jan 26, 8:12 AM (ET) | By JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) - Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom says improving Israel's relations with the Arab and Muslim world is a top priority.
That is proving increasingly difficult.
Israel last week found itself in an embarrassing public spat with Jordan, its closest Arab friend, and has recently muffed apparent overtures from Libya, Syria and Pakistan.
Shalom is heading to Jordan this week on the highest-level Israeli visit in 3 1/2 years, hoping to repair at least some of the damage.
...
It comes at a particularly tense time. Jordan is leading international opposition to a barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank and will argue against it before the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands. A ruling against Israel, while nonbinding, would deliver a sharp diplomatic blow.
Israel says the barrier is meant only to protect its citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers. Jordan fears it will make life so hard for Palestinians that they will flood across the Jordan River and into the kingdom, straining its resources and upsetting a delicate demographic balance.
...
Analysts said Israel's dispute with Jordan reflects a larger problem with Sharon's hard-line leadership style. He is thought to have neglected relations with Arab nations during his three years in office, focusing instead on the conflict with the Palestinians.
Jordan's reaction to the barrier may also stem in part from suspicion of Sharon who, before he became prime minister, advocated a radical solution to the Palestinian problem - overthrow the Jordanian monarchy and make Jordan a Palestinian state. He has since disavowed those views. ...
Excite News: "Israel Finds It Harder to Mend Arab Ties | Jan 26, 8:12 AM (ET) | By JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) - Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom says improving Israel's relations with the Arab and Muslim world is a top priority.
That is proving increasingly difficult.
Israel last week found itself in an embarrassing public spat with Jordan, its closest Arab friend, and has recently muffed apparent overtures from Libya, Syria and Pakistan.
Shalom is heading to Jordan this week on the highest-level Israeli visit in 3 1/2 years, hoping to repair at least some of the damage.
...
It comes at a particularly tense time. Jordan is leading international opposition to a barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank and will argue against it before the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands. A ruling against Israel, while nonbinding, would deliver a sharp diplomatic blow.
Israel says the barrier is meant only to protect its citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers and other attackers. Jordan fears it will make life so hard for Palestinians that they will flood across the Jordan River and into the kingdom, straining its resources and upsetting a delicate demographic balance.
...
Analysts said Israel's dispute with Jordan reflects a larger problem with Sharon's hard-line leadership style. He is thought to have neglected relations with Arab nations during his three years in office, focusing instead on the conflict with the Palestinians.
Jordan's reaction to the barrier may also stem in part from suspicion of Sharon who, before he became prime minister, advocated a radical solution to the Palestinian problem - overthrow the Jordanian monarchy and make Jordan a Palestinian state. He has since disavowed those views. ...
Cheney Defends Iraq War, Skirts Arms Issue: U.S. intelligence findings were "not cooked up by this administration" [ ?? ]
Excite - News: "Cheney Defends Iraq War, Skirts Arms Issue | Jan 26, 7:10 am ET | By Randall Mikkelsen
ROME (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney defended the U.S.-led Iraq war Monday amid mounting criticism over failure to find unconventional weapons.
'Today the former dictator (of Iraq) sits in captivity; he can no longer harbor and support terrorists, and his long efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction are at an end,' Cheney told Italian political and business leaders.
In his speech in the Italian Senate, he made no mention of earlier U.S. charges that Iraq possessed threatening chemical and biological weapons -- the heart of the U.S. case for the war on Iraq.
The chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, David Kay, stepped down Friday and said he doubted Iraq possessed unconventional weapons, and that he believed 'the intelligence community owes the president (George W. Bush)' an explanation.
But critics including Democratic presidential candidates have stepped up their charges against the Bush administration and Cheney in particular over the missing weapons, and called for an investigation.
'They ought to be held accountable for using the weapons of mass destruction argument,' Democratic candidate John Kerry of Massachusetts said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation' program.
"Dick Cheney and others in the administration misled the American people with respect to the true status of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Cheney, who meets Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi later on Monday and Pope John Paul Tuesday, ignored a question on Iraqi weapons in his only public appearance Sunday during a European trip.
A senior U.S. official in Cheney's delegation said on Saturday the vice president believed the allegations of Iraqi weapons stockpiles were based on long-standing U.S. intelligence findings that were "not cooked up by this administration" but conceded "we don't know yet what was in Iraq." ...
Excite - News: "Cheney Defends Iraq War, Skirts Arms Issue | Jan 26, 7:10 am ET | By Randall Mikkelsen
ROME (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney defended the U.S.-led Iraq war Monday amid mounting criticism over failure to find unconventional weapons.
'Today the former dictator (of Iraq) sits in captivity; he can no longer harbor and support terrorists, and his long efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction are at an end,' Cheney told Italian political and business leaders.
In his speech in the Italian Senate, he made no mention of earlier U.S. charges that Iraq possessed threatening chemical and biological weapons -- the heart of the U.S. case for the war on Iraq.
The chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, David Kay, stepped down Friday and said he doubted Iraq possessed unconventional weapons, and that he believed 'the intelligence community owes the president (George W. Bush)' an explanation.
But critics including Democratic presidential candidates have stepped up their charges against the Bush administration and Cheney in particular over the missing weapons, and called for an investigation.
'They ought to be held accountable for using the weapons of mass destruction argument,' Democratic candidate John Kerry of Massachusetts said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation' program.
"Dick Cheney and others in the administration misled the American people with respect to the true status of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Cheney, who meets Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi later on Monday and Pope John Paul Tuesday, ignored a question on Iraqi weapons in his only public appearance Sunday during a European trip.
A senior U.S. official in Cheney's delegation said on Saturday the vice president believed the allegations of Iraqi weapons stockpiles were based on long-standing U.S. intelligence findings that were "not cooked up by this administration" but conceded "we don't know yet what was in Iraq." ...
Sunday, January 25, 2004
October 2002, Bush said Iraq had "a massive stockpile of biological weapons: Kay: U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research
Excite News: "Kay: Lack of Iraqi WMD Requires Review | Jan 25, 5:51 PM (ET) | By SCOTT LINDLAW
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue."
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information," Kay said. Asked whether President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people."
The CIA would not comment Sunday on Kay's remarks, although one intelligence official pointed out that Kay himself had predicted last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.
Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt me in the sense of 'Why could we all be so wrong?'"
The White House stuck by its assertions that illicit weapons will be found in Iraq but had no additional response on Sunday to Kay's remarks. ...
...
It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we were misled - misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war," Kerry, a White House contender, said on "Fox News Sunday.""I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."
Hans Blix, the former chief U.N. inspector whose work was heavily criticized by Kay and ended when the United States went to war with Iraq, said Sunday the United States should have known the intelligence was flawed last year when leads followed up by U.N. inspectors didn't produce any results.
...
In October 2002, Bush said Iraq had "a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions." In his television address two days before launching the invasion, Bush said U.S. troops would enter Iraq "to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
...
Kay said he resigned Friday because the Pentagon began peeling away his staff of weapons-searchers as the military struggled to put down the Iraqi insurgency last fall. ...
Excite News: "Kay: Lack of Iraqi WMD Requires Review | Jan 25, 5:51 PM (ET) | By SCOTT LINDLAW
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue."
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information," Kay said. Asked whether President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people."
The CIA would not comment Sunday on Kay's remarks, although one intelligence official pointed out that Kay himself had predicted last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.
Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt me in the sense of 'Why could we all be so wrong?'"
The White House stuck by its assertions that illicit weapons will be found in Iraq but had no additional response on Sunday to Kay's remarks. ...
...
It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we were misled - misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war," Kerry, a White House contender, said on "Fox News Sunday.""I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."
Hans Blix, the former chief U.N. inspector whose work was heavily criticized by Kay and ended when the United States went to war with Iraq, said Sunday the United States should have known the intelligence was flawed last year when leads followed up by U.N. inspectors didn't produce any results.
...
In October 2002, Bush said Iraq had "a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions." In his television address two days before launching the invasion, Bush said U.S. troops would enter Iraq "to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
...
Kay said he resigned Friday because the Pentagon began peeling away his staff of weapons-searchers as the military struggled to put down the Iraqi insurgency last fall. ...
In Mideast, a Soldier�s Duty Is to His Father, Too
In Mideast, a Soldier's Duty Is to His Father, Too: "By JAMES BENNET | Published: January 24, 2004
PEIROT CHECKPOINT, West Bank, Jan. 23 — It happens all the time to Palestinians who work illegally in Israel: they get caught, and they get expelled to the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
Adel Hussein's turn came on Friday.
Caught by an Israeli policeman, driven in an army jeep across this fortified checkpoint and dropped on a lonely stretch of West Bank road, he stood at dusk near an empty bus shelter, shivering, uncertain, waiting.
He had more reason than most expelled Palestinians to get back to Israel, and maybe more cause for hope of doing so: his son was racing from southern Israel to his side, and his son is an Israeli combat soldier.
...
He said he feared he would be killed by militants if he returned to his West Bank town, Tulkarm, which he fled a few years ago after Palestinian gunmen shot at his door, accusing him of being a Jew.
...
Wearing fatigues, Sergeant Hussein climbed out of the car and slung his M-16 rifle around his shoulders. He strode over to his father and enveloped him in his arms.
To a reporter who had seen the two together several times, their roles were strikingly reversed. Before, it was Sergeant Hussein, a young man with a divided home and a torn identity, who wept, and it was his father who gave comfort.
Now, Adel Hussein trembled and sobbed, and his barrel-chested son held him — even, it seemed, held him up.
"I'm here," Sergeant Hussein murmured in Hebrew. His father pulled his son's head down to kiss his forehead.
"You taught me how to be a man, so show me how to be a man," the sergeant said. "Don't collapse here in front of everyone. I'm going to bring you back across now, no matter what happens."
The barrier that Israel is building against West Bank Palestinians encloses Qalqilya, but it does not include this checkpoint. The checkpoint is a collection of waist-high concrete blocks that form narrow lanes, which are overseen by soldiers. Israeli settlers, soldiers and tradesmen use the road, as do rare Palestinians with permits.
The Yediot photographer had been asked by superiors to transport Mr. Hussein. Mr. Hussein climbed into the passenger seat of the photographer's car, and Sergeant Hussein climbed into the backseat. They drove to the checkpoint. ...
In Mideast, a Soldier's Duty Is to His Father, Too: "By JAMES BENNET | Published: January 24, 2004
PEIROT CHECKPOINT, West Bank, Jan. 23 — It happens all the time to Palestinians who work illegally in Israel: they get caught, and they get expelled to the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
Adel Hussein's turn came on Friday.
Caught by an Israeli policeman, driven in an army jeep across this fortified checkpoint and dropped on a lonely stretch of West Bank road, he stood at dusk near an empty bus shelter, shivering, uncertain, waiting.
He had more reason than most expelled Palestinians to get back to Israel, and maybe more cause for hope of doing so: his son was racing from southern Israel to his side, and his son is an Israeli combat soldier.
...
He said he feared he would be killed by militants if he returned to his West Bank town, Tulkarm, which he fled a few years ago after Palestinian gunmen shot at his door, accusing him of being a Jew.
...
Wearing fatigues, Sergeant Hussein climbed out of the car and slung his M-16 rifle around his shoulders. He strode over to his father and enveloped him in his arms.
To a reporter who had seen the two together several times, their roles were strikingly reversed. Before, it was Sergeant Hussein, a young man with a divided home and a torn identity, who wept, and it was his father who gave comfort.
Now, Adel Hussein trembled and sobbed, and his barrel-chested son held him — even, it seemed, held him up.
"I'm here," Sergeant Hussein murmured in Hebrew. His father pulled his son's head down to kiss his forehead.
"You taught me how to be a man, so show me how to be a man," the sergeant said. "Don't collapse here in front of everyone. I'm going to bring you back across now, no matter what happens."
The barrier that Israel is building against West Bank Palestinians encloses Qalqilya, but it does not include this checkpoint. The checkpoint is a collection of waist-high concrete blocks that form narrow lanes, which are overseen by soldiers. Israeli settlers, soldiers and tradesmen use the road, as do rare Palestinians with permits.
The Yediot photographer had been asked by superiors to transport Mr. Hussein. Mr. Hussein climbed into the passenger seat of the photographer's car, and Sergeant Hussein climbed into the backseat. They drove to the checkpoint. ...
Palestinians: Arabs Working on Peace Plan: 'Israel's unilateral actions and the lack of the U.S. interest.'
Excite News: "Palestinian: Arabs Working on Peace Plan | Jan 25, 1:31 PM (ET) | By JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) - Saudi Arabia has renewed an initiative calling for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Arab world, the Palestinian foreign minister said Sunday.
Nabil Shaath said the proposal would call for Israel to withdraw from the lands captured in the 1967 Mideast War and agree to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital in return for peace with the Arab world.
Saudi officials refused to confirm the report. But one Saudi official said 'there's a need to renew interest in the peace process.' Speaking on condition of anonymity, he cited 'Israel's unilateral actions and the lack of the U.S. interest.'...
The initiative amounts to an extension of a Saudi plan that was endorsed by the Arab League in March 2002, which called on Israel to withdraw from occupied land in return for normal relations with the Arab world.
Days later Israel launched a massive West Bank invasion in response to a wave of suicide bombings, and the plan never received a formal response. However, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opposes a total pullout from the areas won in 1967.
Shaath said the new Saudi plan would initially call for a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians, and a halt to Israel's construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank. Israel says it is meant to protect against suicide bombers. Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab. ...
Excite News: "Palestinian: Arabs Working on Peace Plan | Jan 25, 1:31 PM (ET) | By JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) - Saudi Arabia has renewed an initiative calling for a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Arab world, the Palestinian foreign minister said Sunday.
Nabil Shaath said the proposal would call for Israel to withdraw from the lands captured in the 1967 Mideast War and agree to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital in return for peace with the Arab world.
Saudi officials refused to confirm the report. But one Saudi official said 'there's a need to renew interest in the peace process.' Speaking on condition of anonymity, he cited 'Israel's unilateral actions and the lack of the U.S. interest.'...
The initiative amounts to an extension of a Saudi plan that was endorsed by the Arab League in March 2002, which called on Israel to withdraw from occupied land in return for normal relations with the Arab world.
Days later Israel launched a massive West Bank invasion in response to a wave of suicide bombings, and the plan never received a formal response. However, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opposes a total pullout from the areas won in 1967.
Shaath said the new Saudi plan would initially call for a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians, and a halt to Israel's construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank. Israel says it is meant to protect against suicide bombers. Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab. ...
Friday, January 23, 2004
Iraq Illicit Arms Gone Before War, Departing Inspector Says
Iraq Illicit Arms Gone Before War, Departing Inspector Says: "By RICHARD W. STEVENSON | Published: January 24, 2004
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 � David Kay, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year.
In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Kay said he now thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but that the subsequent combination of United Nations inspections and Iraq's own decisions 'got rid of them.'
Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Dr. Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made public by Reuters, 'That is correct.'
...
Dr. Kay's statements undermined one of the primary justifications set out by President Bush for the war with Iraq. Mr. Bush and other top administration officials repeatedly cited Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons as a threat to the United States, and the lack of evidence so far that Saddam Hussein actually had large caches of weapons has fueled criticism that Mr. Bush exaggerated the peril from Iraq.
...
... "It is increasingly clear that there has been a massive intelligence failure," Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. "The potential threat posed by Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and Iraq's nuclear weapons program was central to the case for war. In light of Dr. Kay's statement, the president owes the American public and the world an explanation." ...
Iraq Illicit Arms Gone Before War, Departing Inspector Says: "By RICHARD W. STEVENSON | Published: January 24, 2004
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 � David Kay, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year.
In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Kay said he now thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but that the subsequent combination of United Nations inspections and Iraq's own decisions 'got rid of them.'
Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Dr. Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made public by Reuters, 'That is correct.'
...
Dr. Kay's statements undermined one of the primary justifications set out by President Bush for the war with Iraq. Mr. Bush and other top administration officials repeatedly cited Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons as a threat to the United States, and the lack of evidence so far that Saddam Hussein actually had large caches of weapons has fueled criticism that Mr. Bush exaggerated the peril from Iraq.
...
... "It is increasingly clear that there has been a massive intelligence failure," Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. "The potential threat posed by Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and Iraq's nuclear weapons program was central to the case for war. In light of Dr. Kay's statement, the president owes the American public and the world an explanation." ...
Anti-Americanism May Be Fading, but Davos Is No Love Fest: "I don't think the United States comes across with any sense of moral authority."
Anti-Americanism May Be Fading, but Forum Is No Love Fest: "By ALAN COWELL | Published: January 24, 2004
AVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 23 � At a lunch on Friday, part of the World Economic Forum here, speakers were invited to answer a simple question: what advice would they give the next president of the United States?
"Listen to others," said Thierry de Montbrial, head of a French policy research institute. Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, said: "Look around the world. And remember the impact of your power."
These two remarks evoked some of the profound mistrust of Washington in Europe and many other places, and the sense of impotence against American might that was conjured up by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the campaign against terrorism.
But even now, many critics of the United States say that while some of the rawest emotions may have dissipated, many basic perceptions of the Bush administration as brusquely disregarding the rest of the world remain, albeit in a muted way.
"We may be getting used to the idea" of America's exclusive hold on global power, said Nabil Shaath, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority. "But that doesn't mean we change our views."
Mr. Shaath's appeal to the next American president was for a quick effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, it is the collapse of the administration's latest Middle East peace proposal last year that seems to have left many from that region as distressed with Washington as they were over the war in Iraq.
"Why are we assuming that there's less anti-American feeling?" asked Samer Majali, a high-ranking Jordanian executive. "If anything, there is more," because of continued upheaval in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate.
In Europe, too, Mr. Monbrial suggested, many still feel that Washington not only exercises power unilaterally, but wields it inconsistently in areas like human rights. "Try to have a more positive attitude vis-à-vis international law," he counseled. "Try to learn to and expect to have respect for others."
...
"Last year they were bidding for moral authority," said Andrew Williams, a British investor. This year, he said, "I don't think the United States comes across with any sense of moral authority." ...
Anti-Americanism May Be Fading, but Forum Is No Love Fest: "By ALAN COWELL | Published: January 24, 2004
AVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 23 � At a lunch on Friday, part of the World Economic Forum here, speakers were invited to answer a simple question: what advice would they give the next president of the United States?
"Listen to others," said Thierry de Montbrial, head of a French policy research institute. Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, said: "Look around the world. And remember the impact of your power."
These two remarks evoked some of the profound mistrust of Washington in Europe and many other places, and the sense of impotence against American might that was conjured up by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the campaign against terrorism.
But even now, many critics of the United States say that while some of the rawest emotions may have dissipated, many basic perceptions of the Bush administration as brusquely disregarding the rest of the world remain, albeit in a muted way.
"We may be getting used to the idea" of America's exclusive hold on global power, said Nabil Shaath, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority. "But that doesn't mean we change our views."
Mr. Shaath's appeal to the next American president was for a quick effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, it is the collapse of the administration's latest Middle East peace proposal last year that seems to have left many from that region as distressed with Washington as they were over the war in Iraq.
"Why are we assuming that there's less anti-American feeling?" asked Samer Majali, a high-ranking Jordanian executive. "If anything, there is more," because of continued upheaval in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate.
In Europe, too, Mr. Monbrial suggested, many still feel that Washington not only exercises power unilaterally, but wields it inconsistently in areas like human rights. "Try to have a more positive attitude vis-à-vis international law," he counseled. "Try to learn to and expect to have respect for others."
...
"Last year they were bidding for moral authority," said Andrew Williams, a British investor. This year, he said, "I don't think the United States comes across with any sense of moral authority." ...
GOP spied on Democratic Judiciary Committee in 2002-2003: Will Orrin Hatch still consider it "simply unacceptable breach of confidential files"?
Boston.com / News / Nation / GOP downplays reading of memos: "'Fact sheet' asserts no rules, laws broken | By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/23/2004
WASHINGTON -- Although Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle's investigation into GOP surveillance of Democratic Judiciary Committee communications from 2002 to 2003 is not yet complete, Republicans are preemptively trying to head off any criminal charges or even ethics complaints in the Senate or the D.C. Bar.
The Committee for Justice, headed by C. Boyden Gray, a former senior White House counsel during the first Bush administration, this week began circulating a "fact sheet" arguing that no rules or laws were broken by Republican staffers who exploited a computer glitch on a shared server that allowed them to access memos written by their Democratic counterparts without having to enter a password.
However, Democrats, including Beryl Howell, a former general counsel for the Judiciary Committee who left the Hill a year ago and now runs the D.C. office of the cybersecurity consulting firm Stroz Friedberg, were quick to dispute each of the major points advanced by the Committee for Justice.
The opening salvos in the argument over the law and ethics are revealing because they frame whether Republican staffers, whom the Pickle investigation is likely to identify as knowing about and exploiting the glitch, will be vulnerable to punishment that could include firing, disbarment, or even a year in prison.
The argument advanced by the Committee for Justice is that the behavior did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984, which makes it a criminal act to exceed one's authorization to access a government computer. It said staffers "were entitled to access their own desktop computers and committee network on which the documents were inadvertently disclosed" by the mistake of a Democratic technician.
Said Howell: "Just because you can do it doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's ethical, and doesn't mean it's legal."
The group also emphasizes a new assertion that a Democratic technician was told about the problem in mid-2002 but failed to repair it. Democrats say they were never informed. Under certain legal ethics guidelines, a lawyer who inadvertently receives confidential materials must inform the other side.
The Committee for Justice also argues that there is no expectation of privacy for materials stored on a government server because "such documents are automatically stored on tapes and archived in a federal facility" and "staff was advised to keep documents they wanted to better secure on their hard drive."
...
Asked to respond to the "fact sheet," a number of Democratic Senate staffers referred to a statement last November by Judiciary chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, after he conducted his own preliminary probe. He said he was "mortified that this improper, unethical, and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Boston.com / News / Nation / GOP downplays reading of memos: "'Fact sheet' asserts no rules, laws broken | By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/23/2004
WASHINGTON -- Although Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle's investigation into GOP surveillance of Democratic Judiciary Committee communications from 2002 to 2003 is not yet complete, Republicans are preemptively trying to head off any criminal charges or even ethics complaints in the Senate or the D.C. Bar.
The Committee for Justice, headed by C. Boyden Gray, a former senior White House counsel during the first Bush administration, this week began circulating a "fact sheet" arguing that no rules or laws were broken by Republican staffers who exploited a computer glitch on a shared server that allowed them to access memos written by their Democratic counterparts without having to enter a password.
However, Democrats, including Beryl Howell, a former general counsel for the Judiciary Committee who left the Hill a year ago and now runs the D.C. office of the cybersecurity consulting firm Stroz Friedberg, were quick to dispute each of the major points advanced by the Committee for Justice.
The opening salvos in the argument over the law and ethics are revealing because they frame whether Republican staffers, whom the Pickle investigation is likely to identify as knowing about and exploiting the glitch, will be vulnerable to punishment that could include firing, disbarment, or even a year in prison.
The argument advanced by the Committee for Justice is that the behavior did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984, which makes it a criminal act to exceed one's authorization to access a government computer. It said staffers "were entitled to access their own desktop computers and committee network on which the documents were inadvertently disclosed" by the mistake of a Democratic technician.
Said Howell: "Just because you can do it doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's ethical, and doesn't mean it's legal."
The group also emphasizes a new assertion that a Democratic technician was told about the problem in mid-2002 but failed to repair it. Democrats say they were never informed. Under certain legal ethics guidelines, a lawyer who inadvertently receives confidential materials must inform the other side.
The Committee for Justice also argues that there is no expectation of privacy for materials stored on a government server because "such documents are automatically stored on tapes and archived in a federal facility" and "staff was advised to keep documents they wanted to better secure on their hard drive."
...
Asked to respond to the "fact sheet," a number of Democratic Senate staffers referred to a statement last November by Judiciary chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, after he conducted his own preliminary probe. He said he was "mortified that this improper, unethical, and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
