THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. In interviews over the past month, American officials and former officials said that the main target was a hard-core group of Baathists who are believed to be behind much of the underground insurgency against the soldiers of the United States and its allies. A new Special Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel ordered to report by January. Its highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.

The revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls "Manhunts"?-a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications. Rumsfeld has had to change much of the Pentagon's leadership to get his way. "Knocking off two regimes allows us to do extraordinary things," a Pentagon adviser told me, referring to Afghanistan and Iraq...

This is a real war. We did not start it, and it started long before 9/11. It will go on for years to come... This is a war we cannot contemplate losing. Regardless how or when it started, regardless how we got here, we're here, and we're in it to the finish, one way or the other. The object is to render the opportunity cost of terrorism as a political tool untenable.

And we live up to those standards that we set for ourselves. It is others high standards that are impossible to meet.

Torture? What torture? You have evidence of this toture?

I have a best reader award from 5th grade, does that count?

Blame Arafat

I have a best reader award from 5th grade, does that count?

Is that some sort of school achievement? You have schools? Ok well done.

McG

Your discourse style hasn't improved. Your posts lack reflection, education, and sophistication. You sport a self-certainty, and a bitterness, which is without humor or much humanity. We shan't be talking again.

BUSH'S SINKING SHIP
- The US president's future is endangered by a conservative retreat
Diplomacy K.P. Nayar


Coming back to Washington after a month abroad is like returning to a land which has changed beyond comprehension in so short a time. It is okay once again to poke fun at POTUS, the president of the United States. Talk show hosts like Bill Maher are no longer in danger of their contracts being annulled for openly expressing their thoughts, and veterans of the small screen like Phil Donahue need no longer worry too much about what they say about the war in Iraq lest they are pulled off the air as in February this year. Driving home to the capital from New York's JFK airport, there was the news on the car radio that the department of homeland security was scrapping a discredited system of registering, fingerprinting, photographing and investigating Muslim men and boys in the United States of America, known by its pompous-sounding official name: the national security entry exit registration system, or NEERS.

Then there were reports that as many as 140 of the 660 detainees who have been held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be released, perhaps as early as Christmas. These reports followed an equally unexpected decision by the US Sup- reme Court to hear cases on whether the Guantanamo detainees, who have been in legal limbo since January 2002, are eligible to challenge their incarceration through the American legal system.

Last weekend, George W. Bush withdrew tariffs on steel imported into America in the face of threats by the European Union of imposing retaliatory duties of up to $ 2.2 billion on US products, including oranges from Florida. Florida's votes in the electoral college may once again decide whether Bush will stay in the White House when his first presidential term expires in a year. Japan had added muscle to the EU threat by announcing its own plans for sanctions of $ 458 million for the first time in the history of US-Japan trade.

But more striking than any of these administrative climbdowns, which have either been formalized or are in the pipeline, has been the state of political discourse in America's television studios. In a month, conservative panelists and experts on talk-shows have become like balloons which have been pricked. Gone is their arrogance, their righteousness and their impatience, which often translated on TV screens into efforts to silence everyone else with a differing point of view. This unexpected, but welcome, sense of humility is not confined to those who routinely go on TV. When officials of the Bush administration appear in public, it is not difficult to see that for the first time since January 2001, many of them are on the defensive.

The change is not because of Iraq alone. Nor is it a consequence of the pitfalls that lie ahead in the area of the economy. It has come about from a realization that after nearly three years of untiring efforts to wreck international institutions, impose Washington's ways and will on the rest of the world and replace ideals and principles with a one-point agenda of expediency, the Bush administration finds itself in a cul-de-sac. This has been brought about by a combination of policies pursued by the White House, ranging from the environment and protectionism to defence and ill-conceived efforts to export democracy. Larry Summers, the president of Harvard University, who was Bill Clinton's treasury secretary, put it succinctly the other day when he spoke at the London School of Economics. The US, Summers said, is "at the zenith of its power but at the nadir of its influence".

However brave a front they may put up, many members of the Bush administration are reading the writing on the wall. Look at the resignations that are plaguing the administration, notwithstanding the promise of another four-year term in an election, which is yet to throw up a credible rival to the president from the ranks of the Democratic party. In the crucial area of public relations, there have been three high-profile departures from the administration: Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman; Charlotte Beers, the former advertising executive, who was in charge of improving America's image among Muslims worldwide; and Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, whose boss, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was last week "honoured" with a much-publicized "foot in mouth" award.

Did General Tommy Franks, who led the US assault on Iraq as commander of the American army's central command, know what would be in store for his forces after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Franks decided to go at a time when everyone was praising him for the brilliance with which he conducted the successful military assault, which cast aside the Baathist regime in Baghdad and made it history. Indeed, Franks continues to be praised: the latest instalment of praise came last weekend from the former House-of-Representatives speaker and arch-conservative, Newt Gingrich, much to the annoyance of the White House.

A month after Franks announced his plans to quit, General Eric Shinseki, the chief of army staff said he would call it a day. Around the same time, Rumsfeld had forced Thomas White, the army secretary, to quit. The first cabinet-level official to leave the administration was Paul O'Neill, the treasury secretary. Along with him went Larry Lindsey, Bush's economic adviser. But the haemorrhaging of the Bush economic team did not stop there. Rosario Marin, US treasurer and the highest-ranking Latin American woman in the Bush administration, followed suit. And then Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the White House council of economic advisers, followed by Peter Fisher, the treasury department's under-secretary for domestic finance, and Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director. It is, of course, well known that Harvey Pitt, chairman of the securities and exchange commission, did not want to go, but was forced out by scandal.

Indeed, there is practically no agency of the US government, which not been racked by resignations. The environment protection agency has been shaken up by departures, starting with its boss, Christine Todd Whitman, a member of the cabinet. The department of justice, the state department, the health and human services department ?- all have suffered demoralizing personnel loss.

Is it that rats are deserting a sinking ship? In the case of some of those leaving the government, it is a legitimate conclusion to make. But some others have left the administration simply because they feel that the Bush White House has trashed America's cherished ideals and find it impossible to function in such a set-up.

Unlike the post-war scenario in Iraq, when the White House was caught off-guard, Bush clearly sees the dangers to his future stemming from a conservative retreat and a loss of morale within his administration. So, in a typically political reaction, Bush let it be known last week that in the final year of his first term, he would make an effort to send Americans back to the moon. Obviously, Bush reckons that, like John F. Kennedy's call in 1962 for launching a sustained lunar initiative, he could now rouse nationalistic and patriotic fervour with a fresh effort to conquer the moon and thus pull up his presidential campaign for a second term by its boot straps.

The irony is that America is approaching record budget deficits and any effort to land man on the moon all over again will cost billions of dollars. And there is no guarantee that such a strategy will yield political results. After all, Indians remember that in May 1998, the government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, tested nuclear weapons, but lost miserably to the Congress in state assembly elections a few months later.

We shan't be talking again.

quote from article above,

"...including oranges from Florida. Florida's votes in the electoral college may once again decide whether Bush will stay in the White House..."

as for some reason the American authorities have not invited me to participate in the jamboree next year, can someone tell me how many Florida oranges I don't have to eat to get rid of Bush?

Reshaping Iraq

Iraq Close to Civil War, Warn Iraqis

By Firas Al-Atraqchi
Freelance Columnist


10/12/2003

Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani has called for direct elections.

Iraqi intellectuals living both inside Iraq and as members of the expatriate community in Europe and North America are warning that Iraq is perilously close to a civil war in light of recent events and decrees issued by both the US Civilian Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).

In chronological order,

1.

Leading members of the Shiite majority in Iraq believe that they are about to be shortchanged once again in July2004 , when the CPA hands over control to a provisional Iraqi government which it claims will be more representative of the Iraqi people. Shiite clerics led by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani have called for direct elections starting from a grassroots level to ensure that the provisional government avoid suspicion of acting as a US proxy and franchise the support and active participation of the Iraqi people. Al-Sistani has charged the CPA with failing to enjoin the democratic needs of the Iraqi people. Other Shiite clerics have also charged that they fear that a new Iraqi constitution will be far more secular than the Baathist legal framework and not cater to the Islamic flavor of the country. Al-Sistani's position received strong endorsement from the current rotating IGC president Shiite cleric Abdel Aziz Hakim who used his inaugural speech to state that "A provisional national assembly should be elected by the Iraqi people, and this assembly should choose the government."

Several IGC members have defended the CPA plan citing the lack of a census upon which all elections must be based. A census determines the demographics of the population, does a count of eligible voters, carries out voter registration, and enhances the democratic process which the country requires. With no census, says the IGC, there can be no elections. However, in early November, the Iraqi Census Bureau submitted a plan to conduct a full national census in Iraq by Fall2004 . According to a recent Al Jazeera article, quoting Agence-France Press and the New York Times, Iraqi officials submitted their plan on November 1 and were asking for a decision by November15 . IGC officials admitted never seeing the plan which eventually fell to the wayside. Iraqis are beginning to suspect that there are elements both within the IGC and the CPA that are working to undermine Iraqi democracy.
2.

The New York Times reported on November25 th that the IGC is trying to wedge its way out of its commitment to relinquishing control to an elected body: "But Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader who is serving as president of the council this month, said in an interview Monday that a majority of the council members ?'want to keep the Governing Council as it is now.' Some council members who oppose this idea say they believe that the proposal is being promoted by members who are afraid that they may not fare well in the coming elections. Opponents of the idea also say they fear that staying on will be a public relations disaster for the nascent rebuilt Iraqi state." Iraqis are astounded that the CPA may indeed give in to urges from certain IGC members and keep them on in some kind of future arrangement. The fact that unelected elements may remain in power is incensing Iraqis who claim there is no difference between Saddam's former henchmen and the IGC members who are considered self-serving and out for a power grab. The news that IGC members are bargaining to stay in power has, ironically, become an effective recruiting tool for the Iraqi resistance. Many Iraqis privately say they are waiting till July 2004 before deciding whether to work with the CPA or support an increasing Iraqi rebellion in key parts of the country. However, there may be ominous signs that members of the IGC may turn to violent means to enforce their political aspirations. Certain members of the IGC are protected by their local security guards and a heavy US security detail. Some of the council members have their own private little armies. Galal Talabani and Masoud Barazani, both rival Kurdish leaders, maintain highly-equipped armies of peshmerga who at one point fought Saddam's armies, and at several junctions, one another. Ahmad Chalabi, who is wanted on charges of fraud and embezzlement in neighboring Jordan (he was sentenced to 20 years in absentia), has his own army of Iraqi opposition who were trained by the CIA and wear American-made uniforms and wield American-made weaponry.
3.

In efforts to minimize the toll on US forces in Iraq (448 fatalities,11 , 000wounded or incapacitated) there has been a maddening rush to create an Iraqi militia force that would overtake many of the duties performed by Coalition forces - patrol, searching for insurgents, protecting key installations, etc. However, while the average rotation time for training new Iraqi police and/or militia is six months, many of the Iraqi forces on active duty have only seen three weeks of training, a discrepancy that is worrying some Iraq experts. Ali Jawad, a former Iraqi police recruit who left for Amman, Jordan when his comrades were killed in recent Baghdad attacks, claims that Iraqi police are poorly equipped, poorly trained, have communication barriers with coalition forces, and are constantly looking over their shoulders not only from Iraqi insurgents, but US forces which may be trigger-happy or uninformed of Iraqi patrol presence. He says that Iraqi police are stressed and many have domestic problems because of their torn loyalties. Jawad believes it wouldn't take much for the Iraqi police to join the insurgency if conditions in Iraq further deteriorated.

US forces are aware that they are in a dilemma and have consequently drawn a plan they hope will alleviate the problem of putting Iraqi forces in charge of security. According to Bahrain's Gulf Daily News, the CPA is using its influence with Kurdish factions to start using well-armed Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who formerly fought against the Iraqi Army, to patrol hotspots like the Sunni Triangle and Arab-dominated Mosul. Sunni religious leaders have expressed outrage over the proposed deal and have warned, in no ambiguous terms, that the Sunni areas will not tolerate being patrolled or policed by Kurdish (or Shiite) militia. They warn that a civil war would be inevitable.
4.

Oil. Reports have emerged from Iraq indicating that Israeli technocrats and oil industry personnel have been seen mulling about in the Kurdish-held areas of Iraq. Independent Iraqi observers point to discussions between Israeli businessmen and government officials with the CPA and certain members of the Iraqi opposition that would later form the IGC. An article in The Guardian (April20 ) said "Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad. The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in1948 , when the flow from Iraq's northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria." In late August, Israel's daily Haaretz reported that "The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948 ." Iraqis are now concerned that a likely Iraqi civil war would be a shadow war to cover up the fact that Iraqi oil is being siphoned to Israel. "Now we see that it wasn't about oil, this war, but about oil for Israel," said Shahim Al-Obeidi, an Iraqi chemist in Quebec City, Canada. "The Kurds might sell their pride to Israel, but the Arabs will not tolerate this. And they ask why people are joining the resistance," he said defiantly.

Almost all Iraqis interviewed for this article expressed a mixture of dismay, disgust and anger at the US mishandling of Iraqi affairs. They claim that they are glad that the Baathist regime has been dislodged but wonder why Iraqi civil society is marginalized in the reconstruction and re-politicization of Iraq. Talk of civil war is now common among Iraqis sipping tea in Baghdad teahouses or those who are professors in Europe and North America.

"I have Very bad vibes indeed. Things look ominous, as if a civil war is imminent," said Fadi Wazan, an Iraqi businessman in Boston, Massachusetts.

Firas Al-Atraqchi is a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage. Holding an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication, he has eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry. You can reach him at [email protected].

KAra, to start with your last question, the nature of the threat presented by organized but stateless terrorism calls for a pardigm shift in the way of thinking about the justification for war. In 1938, FDR said, reference Germany, "You don't wait for a rattlesnake to strike" ... and I find that perfectly valid 65 years later.

Patronizing, huh? Yeah, I s'pose I do come off that way sometimes ... prolly more than I realize. Still, I do have, and frequently mention, objections to many of the policies and actions, or inactions, of The Current Administration. I take issue, however, with criticisms I cannot consider intellectually valid. I was niot at all happy with the way the attack on Saddam's regime was marketed. I'm not at all happy with the current situation either in Iraq or in Afghanistan, but I do see progress being made, even if I wish it were at once more substantial and more timely, and that it received more ballanced, less emotional, sensationalist, "The Sky Is Falling" media coverage. This is a real war. We did not start it, and it started long before 9/11. It will go on for years to come, and nobody in authority has said or promised anything other than a long, dangerous, arduous task lies ahead. This is a war we cannot contemplate losing. Regardless how or when it started, regardless how we got here, we're here, and we're in it to the finish, one way or the other. The object is to render the opportunity cost of terrorism as a political tool untenable.

The attacks on the buildings in Virginia and New York were abominable and unprovoked, inflicting an as yet unspecified sum of damage and an as yet incalculable measure of grief, but, as Michael Howard observes elsewhere in this issue ("Stumbling into Battle," page 13), they didn't constitute an act of war. By choosing to define them as such, we invested a gang of murderous criminals with the sovereignty of a nation-state (or, better yet, with the authority of a world-encircling religion) and declared war on both an unknown enemy and an abstract noun.

Like an Arab jihad against capitalism, the American jihad against terrorism cannot be won or lost; nor does it ever end. We might as well be sending the 101st Airborne Division to conquer lust, annihilate greed, capture the sin of pride. Howard regards the careless use of language as "a very natural but terrible and irrevocable error." If so, it is an error that works to the advantage of the American political, military, and industrial interests that prefer the oligarchic and corporatist forms of government to those of a democracy.

President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects.

White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq.

ILZ, I just wonder how many more boogy-men this administration is going to create and make a preemptive strike before they strike us? It seems many Americans are supporting what this administration has done and is doing. Blind faith is scary - isn't it?

Hekmatyar calls for jihad

Thursday 11 December 2003, 12:54 Makka Time, 9:54 GMT


Afghan leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has called on his countrymen to launch jihad against US-led forces, saying they were occupation troops.

Hekmatyar made the statements in a video recording released on Wednesday. It appeared to be recently made as it mentioned current events such as US President George Bush's visit to Iraq last month and the political unrest in Georgia, also last month.

Hekmatyar, wearing a simple wool hat and black jacket, said that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan had failed to return peace and security to Kabul or the rest of the country.

"The resistance has reached a stage where it is not possible to be crushed," he said, speaking in Afghanistan's Pashtu language. It was his first known public statement since the one he made by fax last month and his first by video recording since July.

A copy of the latest video, on a compact disc, was handed by a member of Hizb-e-Islami, the group which Hekmatyar leads, to journalists at the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister, has repeatedly issued calls for a war against foreign troops in Kabul and eluded US efforts to arrest or kill him.

Disarming militias

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday that he could not confirm a news report that American representatives had met with four commanders under Hekmatyar to persuade them to disarm and form political parties.

Rumsfeld voiced support for
expansion of peacekeepers

Rumsfeld visited Afghanistan last week in an effort to convince regional leaders to disarm their militias.

The US Defence Secretary said Hekmatyar continues to cause "a whale of a lot of trouble" in Afghanistan.

US-led forces ousted the ruling Taliban in 2001. Since then 11,700 soldiers, mainly American, remain in Afghanistan on combat missions against those loyal to the Taliban, al-Qaida and Hekmatyar.

Attacks against foreign aid workers, US soldiers and Afghan government officials have undermined American claims that the coalition is winning the war to stabilise the country.

"We will agree to talks for solving the crisis if the American forces leave Afghanistan and Afghans are given the opportunity to decide their destiny," said Hekmatyar. He also condemned what he said was "the Americans' war against Islam and Muslims".