Bush's next war? Syria implicated in death of Hariri

Harriri has been dead for a while now and President Bush has not made any forward moves into this. I seriously and sincerely doubt that he would start towards a war there now.

Sturgis


When an animal is wounded, it is more unpredictable and dangerous. Bush's brain, Karl Rove, has a pattern of attacking when in trouble. Bush is in trouble and a new war would divert attention away from his administration's corruption and incompentence. Bush won a second term based on being a war president. The war in Iraq is not going well.

I hope you are right, but Bush is a borderline wacco, a very dangerous condition for our country. The only ones who can stop him will be the Congress. Do they have what it takes to take back their right to declare war instead of giving the President unlimited power to do so? I hope so.

BBB

Bush Pushes U.N. to Move Swiftly on Syria Report
October 22, 2005
Bush Pushes U.N. to Move Swiftly on Syria Report
By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 21

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Friday for urgent Security Council action in response to a United Nations report implicating high ranking members of the Syrian government in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

Noting that "the report strongly suggests that the politically motivated assassination could not have taken place without Syrian involvement," Mr. Bush, in Simi Valley, Calif., said the world must "respond accordingly."

He said he had spoken to Ms. Rice about the need for prompt United Nations action on the report, which he described as "deeply disturbing."

The report, made public Thursday, called the Feb. 14 killing of Mr. Hariri a "terrorist act" and said it was carefully planned over many months by Syrian leaders with the complicity of Lebanese security forces. The main suspect has been identified by a diplomat with intimate knowledge of the inquiry as the powerful chief of Syria's military intelligence, the brother-in-law of Syria's president.

Mr. Hariri and 20 others died when a bomb blew up his convoy on a downtown Beirut street.

Ms. Rice, en route to Alabama on Friday, said that "accountability is going to be very important for the international community." The Security Council, she said, "is going to have to be the focal point."

The comments indicated that the United States was determined to rely on the report's damning of Damascus to further its campaign to isolate Syria, which it holds responsible for financing anti-Israel guerrilla groups and encouraging insurgents crossing its border into Iraq.

John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said the report required a "strong follow-up" from the Council's members.

The Security Council is scheduled to take up the report, written by a German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, on Tuesday. In his report, Mr. Mehlis said the killing was carried out by "a group with an extensive organization and considerable resources and capabilities."

The report said that "there is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act."

Syria's ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, dismissed the report on Friday as politically motivated and not credible. He said that Damascus had offered full cooperation.

Mr. Bolton, who termed Mr. Mekdad's denials "ridiculous," accused Syria of failing to cooperate with the investigators, which, he said, was "diplospeak for obstruction of justice."

"The report concludes there is probable cause to believe that high-level Syrian officials were involved in the Hariri assassination, that there's clear evidence of obstruction of justice on the part of the Syrians, failure to cooperate," Mr. Bolton said. "That is what the Security Council needs to take up in a serious way."

Asked if sanctions against Damascus were under consideration, he said only, "We're considering still a range of options."

Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, after arriving in Birmingham, Ala., with Ms. Rice, said of the findings, "you cannot leave a report like this on the table."

"We have to consider it and consider it actively," he said.

He and Ms. Rice were careful not to recommend any specific possible actions against Syria.

Though the report transmitted to Security Council members on Thursday evening did not name the key conspirators, an electronic version of it that included five names was distributed to some media outlets. The names included those of Maher Assad, brother of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and their brother-in-law Asef Shawkat, the chief of military intelligence, who is considered the most powerful man in the country after the president.

They and three others met periodically to plot the killing, with their last gathering in the home of Mr. Shawkat 7 to 10 days before the assassination, the report said. The report cited as its source for the officials' names an unnamed Syrian who lives in Lebanon and has had contact with high-level Syrian officers posted there.

Syria dominated Lebanese politics for nearly three decades until earlier this year, when, in response to a Security Council resolution proposed by the United States and France, it withdrew some 20,000 troops and intelligence officers. Mr. Hariri was opposed to continued Syrian influence in Lebanon, and many Lebanese believed that position led to his death and suspect Syria of ordering it.

The last-minute adjustments to the report, made Thursday morning when Mr. Mehlis was meeting with Secretary General Kofi Annan, raised questions among reporters of whether the United Nations chief had asked that the report be toned down and made less accusatory of individuals.

Mr. Mehlis held a news conference and Mr. Annan released a statement on Friday, both vigorously denying there had been any interference.

Stepháne Dujarric, Mr. Annan's spokesman, said that the secretary general had insisted from the start on the independence of Mr. Mehlis's report. "The secretary general has at no time made any attempt to influence the content of the report," he said.

Mr. Mehlis said, "No one outside of the report team influenced these changes and no changes whatsoever were suggested by the secretary general or anyone at the U.N."

He said he himself had taken the step once he realized the report was to be made public Thursday night. He explained that he thought it was important to maintain their "presumption of innocence" since they had only been accused by an anonymous source.

Otherwise, he said, "It could give the wrong impression that this was an established fact."

The published report makes a single reference to Mr. Shawkat, saying he tried to force Ahmad Abu Adass, a member of a militant Islamic group, to make a false confession at gunpoint. The Mehlis report said that Mr. Adass had nothing to do with the crime.

The report said that the Syrian authorities, after initially resisting, had cooperated "to a limited degree." It specifically accused the country's foreign minister, Farouq al-Shara, of misleading the investigators.

Mr. Mehlis, a 25-year veteran of the Berlin prosecutor's office with a record of solving high-profile terror cases, has had his investigation extended until Dec. 15. It is currently four months old and involves 30 investigators and 70 staff.

In an interview this week with the German news magazine Stern, Mr. Mehlis acknowledged that he knew his report would fuel the American-led campaign against Syria. "I don't want to compare myself to Hans Blix, but I know now how he must have felt," he said. His reference was to the former United Nations arms inspector in Iraq whose findings that there were no unconventional weapons were contested by Washington.

Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting from Birmingham, Ala., for this article.

A wounded animal oftimes attacks. Bush certainly is badly wounded.

No he's not.

Sturgis
There is none so blind as he who will not see.

Attack Syria? Invade Iran? By What Constitution?
Attack Syria? Invade Iran? By What Constitution?
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 21 October 2005

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 19, Condoleezza Rice was asked whether the Bush administration was planning military action against Syria. She answered, "I don't think the President ever takes any of his options off the table concerning anything to do with military force."

Last time we read the US Constitution, the grave decision to use military force against another country was a matter for Congress to decide - not an "option" for a President.

And last time we read the UN Charter, it provided that "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

We've been here before. President Bush used trumped-up fears (like mushroom clouds over American cities) and frauds (like imaginary "yellowcake" uranium) to fool the American people into attacking Iraq. Now we and the Iraqi people are paying the price.

With the American military bogged down in what Lt. Gen. William Odom, director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, calls "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history," and with a majority of the American people saying the US made the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq, it may be hard to believe that the Bush administration is really contemplating further adventures.

But regimes facing military embarrassment are notorious for expanding the theater of war - witness Nixon's expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. And the same delusions that got us into Iraq - from imaginary threats of illicit weapons to dreams of welcome from cheering crowds - are being repeated about Iran and Syria.

War with Syria is already dangerously close. A series of clashes between US and Syrian troops have killed Syrians and, according to current and former US officials, raise the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war. According to press accounts, US forces have crossed the border into Syria, sometimes by accident, sometimes deliberately. An October 1 meeting of top Bush officials in the White House considered "options," including "special operations" against Syria. Bush administration officials are already laying the groundwork for attacks with the kinds of justifications they used to ensnare the US in Iraq.

The Bush administration seems to believe that the President has the power to make war on anybody it chooses without even having to consult with Congress. Senator Chafee observed to Secretary Rice, "Under the Iraq war resolution, we restricted any military action to Iraq." Then he asked, "So would you agree that if anything were to occur on Syrian or Iranian soil, you would have to return to Congress to get that authorization?" Rice's reply? "Senator, I don't want to try and circumscribe presidential war powers. And I think you'll understand fully that the President retains those powers in the war on terrorism and in the war on Iraq."

The provisions of the Constitution that limit the power of the President to make war are wisely designed to protect the people of our country from just the kind of dubious war that the Bush administration conducted against Iraq - and that the great majority of Americans now believe was a mistake. Similarly the restrictions on aggressive war in the UN Charter protect not only countries that might be attacked, but also the people of countries whose leaders may be tempted to conduct such attacks. Nothing could do more for American's national security today than a reinvigoration of these constraints on military adventurism.

While we are debating how to extricate ourselves from our quagmire in Iraq, the Congress and the American people need to make one thing perfectly clear: Attack on Iran, Syria, or any other country without the explicit endorsement of the US Congress and the UN is not an "option" for the President.

As the old saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!" Congress and the American people allowed President Bush to fool us into war with Iraq. Shame on us if we allow him to do it again in Syria, Iran, or anywhere else!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Legal scholar Brendan Smith and historian Jeremy Brecher are the editors, with Jill Cutler, of In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond.

[Sources: Anne Gearan, "Rice: US May Still Be in Iraq in 10 Years," Associated Press, October 19, 2005. / Evan Lehman, "Retired general: Iraq invasion was 'strategic disaster,'" Lowell Sun, September 30, 2005 / Princeton Survey Research Associates/Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, interviews conducted October 6-10, 2005. / James Risen and David E. Sanger, "GI's and Syrians in Tense Clashes on Iraqi Border," New York Times, October 15, 2005. / CQ Transcriptions, October 19, 2005.]

The wounded animal reacts


Bushies feeling
the boss' wrath

Prez's anger growing in hard times - pals


BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

W's legacy threatened

BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

BBB
Bush sure has his priorities straight, right?

Nearly 2,000 US troops have died and thousands more wounded. Bush worries about his legacy.

The American economy is headed for the tank. Bush worries about retaining Republican power in the Congress.

Yes, the really important thing is to assure that Bush can point with pride at his legacy for eight years in office as one of our great presidents.

BBB

Bush's legacy
Graves of those killed in Bush's war