The UN, US and Iraq IV

I didn't understand Suzette's last post. Did anyone?

In the same public service spirit which McT displayed in opening this thread, i've opened a new one . . . this one has gotten too damned long.

New US, UN and Iraq thread[/color]

WAR ON TERROR
Feds to cops: Prepare for al-Qaida car bombs
Memorandum advises taking high-threat measures for end of Ramadan

Posted: November 24, 2003
5:40 p.m. Eastern


By Paul Sperry
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has advised federal agencies to initiate emergency counterterrorism measures to prevent possible al-Qaida car bombings planned during the last days of the Muslim holiday Ramadan, according to an internal department memo obtained by WorldNetDaily.

Citing al-Qaida's "increasingly sophisticated" car-bombing tactics, it recommends security guards tow all vehicles parked illegally in and around government facilities, if their owners cannot be identified, and inspect the undercarriage and other areas of vehicles entering sensitive areas, among other high-threat protective measures.

Al-Qaida could also target "liquid natural gas, chemical or petrochemical sites near major population centers using multiple vehicle-born improvised explosive devices similar to those recently seen in the attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Istanbul, Turkey," warns the internal department advisory titled, "Continued al-Qaida Threats Abroad and in the Homeland."

Marked "For Official Use Only," the five-page memo was distributed Friday to federal departments and agencies, as well as state security managers and first responders.

"This advisory is intended to raise the security awareness of the recipients based on recent terrorist attacks overseas and information suggesting al-Qaida continues to plan attacks against U.S. targets," the memo says.

It notes there has been at least one major terrorist attack resulting in substantial casualties each week over the past several weeks, and that the attacks have coincided with Ramadan.

"These terrorist bombings, coupled with public proclamations regarding al-Qaida's intentions to target Western interests, heighten our concern that a threat against the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests abroad continues," the document states.

The Homeland Security memo warns that al-Qaida might launch attacks "near the end of Ramadan (Nov. 24-27)," which happens to coincide this year with the Thanksgiving holiday.

The government is closed on Thursday, Nov. 27, for Thanksgiving.

But millions of Americans will be traveling throughout the holiday week, and Homeland Security warns in its memo that "we cannot discount multiple attacks involving the use of general-aviation aircraft."

The department's current terror threat level stands at yellow, or elevated, indicating there is only a significant risk of terrorist attacks. Publicly, it has recommended Americans continue with plans for work or leisure.

Behind the scenes, however, it has directed federal and state law enforcement, as well as security personnel, to initiate protective measures under its highest threat level - red - a condition when there is an imminent risk of terrorist attacks.

For instance, "Measure R.2" of the department's internal Threat Level Red recommendations advises government agencies to, among other things: "Identify the owners of all vehicles already parked at state facilities. In those cases where the owner or presence of a vehicle cannot be explained (owner is not present and has no obvious agency affiliation), inspect the vehicle for dangerous items and take steps to remove the vehicle from the vicinity."

Homeland Security officials insist they have no specific threat. Indeed, the department memo states: "We have no tactical information identifying timing, targets, tactics or locations for these operations."

However, it goes on to say that "recent information" and attacks reflect "al-Qaida's desire to repeat a mass casualty attack and/or strike major political and symbolic and economic targets" in America.

The document expresses concern over al-Qaida's "increasingly refined capability and sophisticated tactic" in carrying out car-bomb attacks. Among examples, it cites the terror group's new "ramming tactic to gain access to the target" and the use of "innocuous-looking vehicles," such as "a food catering truck which was detonated by a suicide bomber as it rammed the British consulate."

It recommends U.S. security personnel take additional protective measures to thwart car-bomb attacks, including:


"Consider adjusting buffer zone further [sic] from target."

"Increase the number of visible security personnel wherever possible."

"Rearrange exterior vehicle barriers, traffic cones and road blocks to alter traffic patterns near facilities and monitored by alert security forces."

"Institute/increase vehicle, foot and roving security patrols varying in size, timing and routes."

"Limit the number of access points and strictly enforce access control procedures."

"Deploy explosive-detection devices and explosive-detection canine teams."

"Review surveillance tapes (if available) for indicators of suspicious activity."

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

Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.

EU takes firm stand ...

Quote:

European study on anti-Semitism is scrapped
By Irene Zoech in Vienna

against reality.

EU ANTI-RACISM BODY REJECTS ALLEGATIONS OF "SHELVED" ANTI-SEMITISM REPORT - REPORT TO BE PUBLISHED IN EARLY 2004

Doctoring the SOTU address. Shameless, dishonest, and quite possibly illegal.


When President Bush laid out the potential threat that unconventional weapons posed in Saddam Hussein's hands last year in his State of the Union address last year, he became tongue-tied at an inopportune moment.

The line read, "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate, slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." But Mr. Bush stumbled between the words "one" and "vial." And when at the word vial, he pronounced the "v" as if it were a "w."

Yet in a new Republican commercial that borrows excerpts from that speech, Mr. Bush delivers that line as smoothly as any other in the address, without a pause between "one" and "vial," and the v in "vial" sounds strong and sure.

...

The difference between the speech and excerpt was noticed by strategists for former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont. They saw it as they put together their own advertisement attacking the spot, which presents the Democratic candidates as undermining the fight against terrorism. Word trickled back to Democratic officials, who retrieved the tape and confirmed that there was, indeed, a difference.

The Democrats asked whether the Republican National Committee had gone to the White House with sound equipment to have Mr. Bush recite the line anew for what was the first Republican commercial of the campaign season here. That might have meant that the party was not being truthful when it said it had not coordinated with Mr. Bush when it made the advertisement, a possible violation of law.

washingtonpost.com > World > Middle East > The Gulf > Iraq
How Cleric Trumped U.S. Plan for Iraq
Ayatollah's Call for Vote Forced Occupation Leader to Rewrite Transition Strategy

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 26, 2003; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- The unraveling of the Bush administration's script for political transition in Iraq began with a fatwa.


The religious edict, handed down in June by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric, called for general elections to select the drafters of a new constitution. He dismissed U.S. plans to appoint the authors as "fundamentally unacceptable."

His pronouncement, underestimated at first by the Bush administration, doomed an elaborate transition plan crafted by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer that would have kept Iraq under occupation until a constitution was written, according to American and Iraqi officials involved in the process. While Bremer feared that electing a constitutional assembly would take too long and be too disruptive, there was a strong desire on his own handpicked Governing Council to obey Sistani's order.

With no way to get around the fatwa, and with escalating American casualties creating pressure on President Bush for an earlier end to the occupation, Bremer recently dumped his original plan in favor of an arrangement that would bestow sovereignty on a provisional government before a constitution is drafted.

Bremer's unwillingness to heed the fatwa until just a few weeks ago may have delayed the country's political transition and exacerbated popular anger at the occupation, Iraqi political leaders said.

"We waited four months, thanks to Bremer," said one council member, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We could have organized this [transition] by now had we started when Sistani issued his fatwa. But the Americans were in denial."

People familiar with the discussions among U.S. officials about the fatwa said American political officers were too isolated to grasp the power of the edict right away, assuming that secular former exiles backed by the U.S. government would push Bremer's plan. Even when Sistani's clout became clear, they said Bremer remained reluctant to rework his transition plan right away. "He didn't want a Shiite cleric dictating the terms of Iraq's political future," one U.S. official with knowledge of the process said.

U.S. officials said it took months even for Iraqis to grasp the influence of Sistani's fatwa. Bremer's deputies also hoped the edict could be countered by statements from other Shiite clerics supporting approaches other than general elections, but few of those materialized.

"What we thought was necessary was for there to be a broad consultation to find out what the Iraqi public wanted," said one official involved in the political transition. "In hindsight," another official added, "we should have done it differently."

Who Would Draft Constitution?

Sistani is a frail man with a black turban, a snowy beard and unquestioned clout among Iraq's Shiite majority. Born in Iran but schooled in Iraq, he lives in the holy city of Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad. Although he works out of a modest office on a decrepit alley, he has enormous authority to interpret Islamic law in everyday life.

During the years former president Saddam Hussein was in power -- when the government deemed activist Shiite clerics subversive and ordered many of them killed -- Sistani remained largely secluded from politics. Even after Hussein's government was toppled in April, Sistani shied away from political pronouncements and public appearances.

At the end of June, when Arab satellite television networks erroneously reported that Iraq's constitution would be written by American and British experts, Sistani broke his silence. In a two-page fatwa issued on June 28, he declared that he would only support a constitution written by Iraqis chosen through a general election, not by a council selected by the Americans.

The fatwa declared: "There is no guarantee that the council would create a constitution conforming with the greater interests of the Iraqi people and expressing the national identity, whose basis is Islam, and its noble social values."

In Baghdad, Sistani's pronouncement did not raise immediate alarm among U.S. officials. Bremer's aides assumed the fatwa would be revised or rescinded once they told Sistani how difficult it would be to hold elections right away. There were no voter rolls, constituent boundaries or electoral laws. "There is simply no way to conduct national elections today," Bremer said at the time.