IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for War!
« on: 2007-11-17 10:21:44 »
IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Source: Antiwar Authors: Gordon Prather Dated: 2007-11-17
Hallelujah! The International Atomic Energy Agency has, once again, verified "the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran." It seems the Iranians continue to provide the IAEA access to all "special nuclear materials" – as proscribed [Hermit: prescribed may have been meant here, although proscribed materials may fit too] by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – and all relevant nuclear material accountancy reports, as well as access to all activities involving said materials.
So, let the dancing in the streets commence!
But wait a minute.
Even though compliance by Iran is the principal and only conclusion of the current IAEA report [.pdf] – entitled Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747 in the Islamic Republic of Iran – the neo-crazy media sycophants at the New York Times don't even mention it in their "report" on the IAEA report!
Well, if they don't even mention the IAEA report's principal conclusion – that Iran is compliant with its NPT Safeguards Agreement – what do Elaine Sciolino and William Broad report?
That Iran has not suspended its uranium-enrichment activies, "contrary to the decisions of the Security Council"?
No, no.
Quoth Sciolino-Broad:
"VIENNA, Nov. 15 — A new report says Iran has made new but incomplete disclosures about its past nuclear activities, missing a key deadline under an agreement with the IAEA."
Incomplete "disclosures"?
Missed a "key deadline"?
Wrong, wrong.
Nowhere in the IAEA report does Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei even suggest that Iran has missed a "key deadline" previously agreed to by Iran and the IAEA. Furthermore, far from complaining about "incomplete disclosures," ElBaradei reported that Iran has provided "sufficient access" to individuals, and has "responded in a timely manner" to questions, and provided "clarifications and amplifications" on issues raised in the context of the "work plan."
ElBaradei even reports – not unfavorably – the Iranian-supplied justification for the secretive manner in which they have pursued the civilian nuclear power fuel-cycle which both the IAEA Statute and the NPT assure them is their inalienable right.
"According to Iran, in its early years, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) concluded a number of contracts with entities from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America to enable it to acquire nuclear power and a wide range of related nuclear fuel cycle services, but after the 1979 revolution, these contracts with a total value of around $10 billion were not fulfilled.
"Iran noted that one of the contracts, signed in 1976, was for the development of a pilot plant for laser enrichment.
"Senior Iranian officials said that, in the mid-1980s, Iran started working with many countries to revitalize its nuclear programme to meet the State's growing energy needs. Taking advantage of investments already made, Iran said it focused its efforts initially on the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, working with entities from, inter alia, Argentina, France, Germany and Spain, but without success.
"At that time, Iran also initiated efforts to acquire research reactors from Argentina, China, India and the former Soviet Union, but also without success.
"Parallel to the activities related to nuclear power plants, Iran started to build supporting infrastructure by establishing nuclear technology centres in Esfahan and Karaj.
"However, apart from uranium conversion technology acquired from an entity in China, Iran was not able to acquire other nuclear fuel cycle facilities or technology from abroad.
"As a result, according to Iran, a decision was made in the mid-1980s to acquire uranium enrichment technology on the black market."
Now, bear in mind that the IAEA's primary mission is to facilitate the fullest possible transfer – for peaceful purposes – of nuclear materials and technology from the "have" states to the "have-not" states. True, the IAEA is required to ensure – "insofar as it is able" – that the technology and materials so transferred are not diverted to a military purpose. But, Bonkers Bolton to the contrary, that's not IAEA's primary mission.
Furthermore, the "have" states are obligated under the IAEA Statute and under the NPT to facilitate that transfer – for peaceful purposes.
Hence, that history of Iran's attempts to obtain their "inalienable" rights under the IAEA Statute and NPT – if verified by the IAEA – constitutes an indictment of the IAEA's long-term abdication of its primary mission. To say nothing of an indictment of the perverse stewardship of "have" states, such as the United States.
So, how's ElBaradei's verification of Iran's story going?
"To assess the detailed information provided by Iran, the Agency held discussions with senior current and former Iranian officials.
"The Agency also examined supporting documentation, including Iranian legislation, contracts with foreign companies, agreements with other States and nuclear site surveys.
"Bearing in mind the long history and complexity of the program and the dual nature of enrichment technology, the Agency is not in a position, based on the information currently available to it, to draw conclusions about the original underlying nature of parts of the program.
"Further light may be shed on this question when other aspects of the work plan have been addressed and when the Agency has been able to verify the completeness of Iran's declarations."
Okay, Sciolino-Broad didn't even mention the principal conclusion of ElBaradei's report, nor did they appear to understand the potential dynamite of ElBaradei's ongoing assessment of the truth of Iran's allegations. So, what did Sciolino-Broad focus on.
"The agency's report also confirmed for the first time that Iran has now crossed the major milestone of putting 3,000 centrifuges into operation, a tenfold increase from just a year ago. In theory, that means that Iran could produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon within a year to 18 months."
In whose theory?
What neo-crazy crackpot told gullible [or complicit?] New York Times' reporters that gas centrifuges could produce uranium at all, much less produce weapons-grade almost pure Uranium-235?
Uranium-enrichment plants don't "produce" uranium, they "cast out" the Uranium-238 istopes from the uranium-hexafluoride fed them.
What ElBaradei "verified" was that Iran had finished installing eighteen 164-machine cascades and that uranium-hexafluoride had been fed into all 18 cascades. ElBaradei also reported that the "feed rate" as well as the enrichment level – both of which the IAEA "audits" – have remained low.
But Sciolino-Broad did get one thing right. ElBaradei did complain that Iran's "cooperation has been reactive, rather than proactive."
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
The UN's nuclear watchdog has been told Iran may have continued secret work on nuclear weapons after 2003, the date US intelligence suggested the work ceased.
A US National Intelligence Estimate released last December said Tehran had frozen its atomic programme in 2003.
But documents presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggest the work continued.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, angrily dismissed the documents as "forgeries".
Simon Smith, Britain's ambassador to the IAEA, said material presented to the IAEA in Vienna came from multiple sources and included designs for a nuclear warhead, plus information on how it would perform and how it would fit onto a missile.
"Certainly some of the dates that we were talking about... went beyond 2003," he said.
No Credible Assurances
The material was presented to the agency's 35-nation board by the IAEA's head of safeguards, Olli Heinonen, in a closed-door meeting on Monday.
The permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, UK, China, France and Russia - are meeting in Washington to discuss the possibility of imposing further sanctions on Iran over its disputed atomic programme.
The IAEA released a report on Friday which said Iran was being more transparent, but had not given "credible assurances" that it was not building a bomb.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that report bolstered a "very strong case" for a third round of sanctions over the disputed nuclear programme.
But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad retorted that no amount of UN sanctions would deter Tehran from its nuclear path.
"If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years," he said in a televised interview on Saturday.
Tehran insists its programme is aimed purely at generating electricity.
VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency presented documents Monday that diplomats said indicate Iran may have focused on a nuclear weapons program after 2003 — the year that a U.S. intelligence report says such work stopped.
Iran again denied ever trying to make such arms. Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, dismissed the information showcased by the body as "forgeries."
He and other diplomats, all linked to the IAEA, commented after a closed-door presentation to the agency's 35-nation board of intelligence findings from the U.S. and its allies and other information purporting to show Iranian attempts to make nuclear arms.
A summarized U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, made public late last year, also came to the conclusion that Tehran was conducting atomic weapons work. But it said the Iranians froze such work in 2003.
Asked whether board members were shown information indicating Tehran continued weapons-related activities after that time, Simon Smith, the chief British delegate to the IAEA, said: "Certainly some of the dates ... went beyond 2003."
He did not elaborate. But another diplomat at the presentation, who agreed to discuss the meeting only if not quoted by name, said some of the documentation focused on an Iranian report on nuclear activities that some experts have said could be related to weapons.
She said it was unclear whether the project was being actively worked on in 2004 or the report was a review of past activities. Still, any Iranian focus on nuclear weapons work in 2004 would at least indicate continued interest past the timeframe outlined in the U.S. intelligence estimate.
A senior diplomat who attended the IAEA meeting said that among the material shown was an Iranian video depicting mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle. He said IAEA Director General Oli Heinonen suggested the component — which brings missiles back from the stratosphere — was configured in a way that strongly suggests it was meant to carry a nuclear warhead.
Other documentation showed the Iranians experimenting with warheads and missile trajectories where "the height of the burst ... didn't make sense for conventional warheads," he said.
Smith and the senior diplomat both said the material shown to the board came from a variety of sources, including information gathered by the agency and intelligence provided by member nations.
"The assumption is this was not something that was being thought about or talked about, but the assumption is it was being practically worked on," Smith told reporters.
He said the IAEA presented a "fairly detailed set of illustrations and descriptions of how you would build a nuclear warhead, how you would fit it into a delivery vehicle, how you would expect it to perform."
The U.N. agency released a report last week saying that suspicions about most past Iranian nuclear activities had eased or been laid to rest. But the report also noted Iran had rejected documents linking it to missile and explosives experiments and other work connected to a possible nuclear weapons program, calling the information false and irrelevant.
The report called weaponization "the one major ... unsolved issue relevant to the nature of Iran's nuclear program."
Most of the material shown to Iran by the IAEA on alleged attempts to make nuclear arms came from Washington, though some was provided by U.S. allies, diplomats told the AP. The agency shared it with Tehran only after the nations gave their permission.
The IAEA report also confirmed that Iran continued to enrich uranium despite demands by the U.N. Security Council to suspend the work. The council has sanctions on Iran for continuing enrichment, which can produce the material needed to make atomic bombs.
Iran says its enrichment program is intended solely to produce lower-grade material for fueling nuclear reactors that would generate electricity.
Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazee, said the intelligence information turned over to the IAEA was "baseless" and alleged it was fabricated by an Iranian opposition group.
"I'm afraid to say that, according to my information, some of these allegations were produced or fabricated by a terrorist group, which are listed as a terrorist group in the United States and somewhere else in Europe," Khazee said told the AP in New York.
He appeared to be referring to the Mujahedeen Khalq, also known as the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which was listed as a foreign terrorist group by the U.S. government in 1997 and the European Union last year.
Britain's envoy to the United Nations nuclear watchdog contradicted the findings of US intelligence officials who said Iran stopped developing a nuclear weapon in 2003.
Simon Smith, the chief British delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, was speaking after diplomats were shown documents which, if accurate, would back claims by hawks in the Bush administration that Iran has continued to pursue its nuclear weapons programme.
Asked whether the information indicated Teheran continued such activities beyond 2003, Mr Smith said: "Certainly some of the dates... went beyond 2003."
The material suggested there was "detailed work put into the designing of the warhead, studying how that warhead would perform, how it would be detonated and how it would be fitted to a Shahab-3 missile".
Another diplomat said an Iranian video depicted mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle. An IAEA director suggested the component - which brings missiles back from the stratosphere - was configured in a way that strongly suggests it was meant to carry a nuclear warhead.
Teheran has refused to address the weaponisation studies issue, dismissing such allegations as "baseless" and saying the intelligence used to back them up was "fabricated".
In the IAEA report released on Friday, the watchdog described the issue as "a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear programme".
Diplomats attending the briefing said the material presented to the board of governors had "infuriated" Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian ambassador.
On Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei submitted a report on Iran's nuclear program to the IAEA's Board of Governors. It concluded that, barring "one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran's nuclear programme" -- including a mysterious "green salt project" -- Iran's explanations of its suspicious nuclear activities "are consistent with [the IAEA's] findings [or at least] not inconsistent."
The report represents Mr. ElBaradei's best effort to whitewash Tehran's record. Earlier this month, on Iranian television, he made clear his purpose, announcing that he expected "the issue would be solved this year." And if doing so required that he do battle against the IAEA's technical experts, reverse previous conclusions about suspect programs, and allow designees of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an unprecedented role in crafting a "work plan" that would allow the regime to receive a cleaner bill of health from the IAEA -- so be it.
Mr. ElBaradei's report culminates a career of freelancing and fecklessness which has crippled the reputation of the organization he directs. He has used his Nobel Prize to cultivate an image of a technocratic lawyer interested in peace and justice and above politics. In reality, he is a deeply political figure, animated by antipathy for the West and for Israel on what has increasingly become a single-minded crusade to rescue favored regimes from charges of proliferation.
Mr. ElBaradei assumed the directorship on Dec. 1, 1997. On his watch, but undetected by his agency, Iran constructed its covert enrichment facilities and, according to the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, engaged in covert nuclear-weapons design. India and Pakistan detonated nuclear devices. A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear godfather, exported nuclear technology around the world.
In 2003, Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi confessed to an undetected weapons effort. Mr. ElBaradei's response? He rebuked the U.S. and U.K. for bypassing him. When Israel recently destroyed what many believe was a secret (also undetected) nuclear facility in Syria, Mr. ElBaradei told the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh that it is "unlikely that this building was a nuclear facility," although his agency has not physically investigated the site.
The IAEA's mission is to verify that "States comply with their commitments, under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and other non-proliferation agreements, to use nuclear material and facilities only for peaceful purposes." Yet in 2004 Mr. ElBaradei wrote in the New York Times that, "We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security."
IAEA technical experts have complained anonymously to the press that the latest report on Iran was revamped to suit the director's political goals. In 2004, Mr. ElBaradei sought to purge mention of Iranian attempts to purchase beryllium metal, an important component in a nuclear charge, from IAEA documents. He also left unmentioned Tehran's refusal to grant IAEA inspectors access to the Parchin military complex, where satellite imagery showed a facility seemingly designed to test and produce nuclear weapons.
The IAEA's latest report leaves unmentioned allegations by an Iranian opposition group of North Korean work on nuclear warheads at Khojir, a military research site near Tehran. It also amends previous conclusions and closes the book on questions about Iran's work on polonium 210 -- which nuclear experts suspect Iran experimented with for use as an initiator for nuclear weapons, but which the regime claims was research on radioisotope batteries. In 2004, the IAEA declared itself "somewhat uncertain regarding the plausibility of the stated purpose of the [polonium] experiments." Today it finds these explanations "consistent with the Agency's findings and with other information available."
The IAEA director seems intent on undercutting Security Council diplomacy. Just weeks after President George Bush toured the Middle East to build Arab support for pressure on Tehran, Mr. ElBaradei appeared on Egyptian television on Feb. 5 to urge Arabs in the opposite direction, insisting Iran was cooperating and should not be pressured. And as he grows more and more isolated from Western powers intent on disarming Iran, Mr. ElBaradei has found champions in the developing and Arab world. They cheer his self-imposed mission -- to hamstring U.S. efforts to constrain Iran's program, whether or not the regime is violating its non-proliferation obligations or pursuing nuclear weapons.
In working to undermine sanctions, however, Mr. ElBaradei demeans the purpose of his agency and undercuts its non-proliferation mission. He also makes military action all the more likely.
Ms. Pletka and Mr. Rubin are, respectively, vice president for and resident scholar in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Iran could welcome a nuclear war with Israel or the United States. A leading U.S. scholar on the Middle East has asserted that Iran's leadership does not resemble the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Bernard Lewis, a professor at Princeton University, said the mullah regime in Teheran believes that the Shi'ite messiah would be ushered by a nuclear war, Middle East Newsline reported.
"It's not an Arab country, but rather a Muslim country, ruled now by a Muslim theocracy, which calculates its policies not by Iranian national interests, but by what is good for Islam," Lewis said.
"Iran's leadership comprises a group of extreme fanatical Muslims who believe that their messianic times have arrived," Lewis said. "This is quite dangerous. Though Russia and the U.S. both had nuclear weapons, it was clear that they would never use them because of MAD — mutual assured destruction. Each side knew it would be destroyed if it would attack the other."
"But with these people in Iran, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent factor, but rather an inducement," Lewis said. "They feel that they can hasten the final messianic process. This is an extremely dangerous situation of which it is important to be aware."
In an address to the Jerusalem Conference on Feb. 20, Lewis, a longtime consultant to the U.S. and other Western governments, said Iran was working to assemble a nuclear weapon. He said Teheran regards a nuclear weapon as in the interest of Islam.
"It is actively pursuing nuclear power. Even a non-nuclear Iran is dangerous for Israel, and it must be carefully watched."
Lewis also warned of an erosion of Israeli democracy even while it continues to serve as a model for Arab states. He said Israeli parliamentarians are not held accountable for their policies.
"There is no direct election here, and therefore the representatives are not held accountable to anyone other than their party leaders and directorates," Lewis said. "In addition, minor splinter groups are granted more importance than they deserve proportionally, and the entire system encourages corruption."
This week's Annual Threat Assessment appearance on Capitol Hill by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, seemed to stand in contrast to two months ago, when the public version of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran blew up a policy storm with its conclusion—in spite of heated rhetoric to the contrary—that Iran had halted its work on how to design and build a nuclear warhead way back in 2003.
It was as though the lyrics were much the same as in the recent past, but the tone of the music had darkened noticeably.
The initial release of the NIE created a huge political and diplomatic problem for the Bush administration just as it was attempting to galvanize international support for an additional round of U.N. economic sanctions against Iran. In Washington, it was pilloried by hard-liners—some in and some outside the administration—and slammed by a variety of former nonproliferation and intelligence officials as misleading and badly constructed.
So last week, when McConnell got to the Iran file, the NIE's findings seemed to be repackaged in a way that emphasized a sense of undiminished threat and suspicion of Iran's long-term nuclear ambitions. McConnell stressed what many critics said the December NIE should have—that Iran, albeit under international monitoring, continues to move forward on the single most important part of attaining a nuclear-weapons capability: learning how to enrich uranium. The intel chief also focused on Tehran's efforts to perfect and deploy ballistic missiles that would be able to reach North Africa and Europe.
McConnell suggested that Iran "is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." And for those who—to the administration's dismay—found solace in the NIE's conclusion on Iran's halt to weaponization efforts, he offered this warning: "In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible."
Whoever thought the NIE was the final word on the subject appears to have been wrong.
Re: IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for W
« Reply #3 on: 2008-03-01 17:08:57 »
Iran’s Sisyphean Task
Source: Antiwar Authors: Gordon Prather Dated: 2008-03-01
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology, condemned to roll a huge rock to the top of a steep hill, with said accursed rock rolling back down again the moment Sisyphus thought he had accomplished his task.
In the modern version of this Greek tragedy, G. Aghazadeh, Vice-President of Iran and President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has been cast as Sisyphus. The tragedy has its origin in the 1974 agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the application of "safeguards" – in accordance with the IAEA Statute – on certain materials and activities proscribed by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The Safeguards Agreement was agreed to by Iran "for the exclusive purpose of verification" by the IAEA "with a view of preventing diversion" of any "source or special fissionable material" to a military purpose.
IAEA Safeguards were to be applied to all Iranian source or special fissionable materials, whether being stored or chemically/physically produced, processed, transformed, utilized or disposed of as waste.
Last week Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA Director-General, made his most recent report to the IAEA Board of Governors, entitled "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747 in the Islamic Republic of Iran."
So, what does ElBaradei have to say about the Iranian NPT Safeguards Agreement?
"The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.
"Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities."
Okay, that’s that. The huge rock has been pushed to the top. Iran continues to be in full compliance with all its obligations assumed as a NPT signatory.
But ElBaradei goes on.
"Iran has also responded to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on the issues raised in the context of the work plan, with the exception of the alleged studies."
Work plan? Alleged studies?
What is ElBaradei talking about?
Well, on August 21, 2007, ElBaradei came to an "understanding" with Iran on a "work plan" for resolving outstanding "issues" – many of them originally raised in the summer of 2005, by the Cheney Cabal, based upon studies allegedly contained on an stolen laptop computer, said to belong to an Iranian engineer (by then supposedly deceased) tangentially related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement.
But, according to ElBaradei:
"The Agency has been able to conclude that answers provided by Iran, in accordance with the work plan, are consistent with its findings — in the case of the polonium-210 experiments and the Gchine mine — or are not inconsistent with its findings — in the case of the contamination at the technical university and the procurement activities of the former Head of PHRC."
Okay, not only is Iran in full compliance with its NPT Safeguards Agreement, but has provided accurate or not-inaccurate explanations for a dozen or so "issues" – some of them related to activities in the 1980s and 1990s, many unrelated or that are only tangentially related to its compliance with its Safeguards Agreement.
"The one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran’s nuclear program is the alleged studies on the "green salt" project, high explosives testing and the missile re-entry vehicle."
Then ElBaradei reminds the Board:
"However, it should be noted that the Agency has not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have credible information in this regard."
So, no need to push the rock to the top again; the alleged studies are evidently none of the IAEA Board’s business.
The principal mission of the IAEA is to "enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world." In accomplishing its principal mission, the IAEA "shall ensure, so far as it is able" that any such contribution under its control "is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose."
But, you see, back in November, 2003, Iran signed an Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, and immediately began cooperating with ElBaradei in advance of its entering into force, legally.
Under the Additional Protocol, ElBaradei would be justified in making the following statements about the "alleged studies":
"This is a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program.
"The Agency was able to show some relevant documentation to Iran on 3–5 February 2008 and is still examining the allegations made and the statements provided by Iran in response.
"Iran has maintained that these allegations are baseless and that the data have been fabricated.
"The Agency’s overall assessment requires, inter alia, an understanding of the role of the uranium metal document, and clarifications concerning the procurement activities of some military related institutions still not provided by Iran."
But, ElBaradei’s report makes clear that "an understanding" of the "uranium metal document" requires a response to his questions by Pakistan, not Iran.
ElBaradei’s report also makes it clear that Iran has provided explanations of virtually all "procurement activities" involving "military-related institutions" that can only be described as "dual-use" equipment, such as vacuum pumps.
Finally, ElBaradei notes that;
"The Agency only received authorization to show some further material to Iran on 15 February 2008. Iran has not yet responded to the Agency’s request of that same date for Iran to view this additional documentation on the alleged studies."
Incredible. On the eve of what was expected to be ElBaradei’s standard report on the total compliance of Iran with its Safeguards Agreement, also containing his final report on resolution of the issues addressed in the "work plan," the National Council of Resistance on Iran – the "political arm" of a U.S. State Department designated "terrorist organization" – went public with highly inflammatory and basically irrelevant charges to the IAEA that Iran (a) had recently established a "new command and control center" at a military site at Mojdeh, a suburb of Tehran, for a program code-named Lavizan-2, and (b) was actively pursuing "production of nuclear warheads" at a military site at Khojir, code-named B1-Nori-8500.
So, according to ElBaradei, he didn’t even get permission from the Cheney Cabal to reveal to the Iranians the latest "terrorist organization" charges until a week before he finished his final report on the "work plan," and, as of the date of his report to the IAEA Board, Iran had not yet even had a chance to learn what allegations had been made.
"In an interview concerning his latest report, ElBaradei attempted to explain why his verification of the non-diversion of Iranian NPT proscribed materials – thereby concluding his NPT-enabled mission – was not the end of it. In light of the above, the Agency is not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
"In addition to our work, to clarify Iran´s past nuclear activities, we have to make sure, naturally, that Iran´s current activities are also exclusively for peace purposes and for that we have been asking Iran to conclude the so called Additional Protocol, which gives us the additional authority to visit places, additional authority to have additional documents, to be able to provide assurance, not only that Iran´s declared activities are for peaceful purposes but that there are no undeclared nuclear activities."
What ElBaradei should have said was, if and only if the Iranian Parliament had ratified the Additional Protocol, then he would have been authorized to "clarify Iran’s past nuclear activities" and to attempt to provide assurance that there are no "undeclared nuclear activities."
But, thanks to the Cheney Cabal’s "smoking laptop" accusations, beginning in the summer of 2005, the Iranian Parliament declined to ratify the Additional Protocol and two years ago and directed their Atomic Energy Organization to stop complying with any of its provisions.
So, ElBaradei isn’t so authorized. And, as far as the Iranians are concerned, Sisyphus can cease perputally rolling the Cheney Cabal’s giant rock to the top of the hill.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
President Bush contended that Iran has "declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people" and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program.
Iran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it's operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads.
Bush made his assertion Wednesday in an interview marking the Iranian New Year with Radio Farda, a U.S. government-run radio service that broadcasts into Iran in the Farsi language. The White House released the transcript on Thursday.
The president reiterated his view that Iran has a right to civilian nuclear power. But, he said, the low-enriched uranium fuel for its reactors should be supplied by Russia, a proposal that Tehran has repeatedly rejected. [ Hermit : By treaty, ratified by the US, Iran has the right to produce fuel for its own reactors. The same treaty says that the US should not be supplying Israel or India with dual use technologies (which we do), may not supply India with nuclear technology (which Bush wants to do) and should be actively reducing our nuclear stockpiles (which Bush wishes to expand). This repeated assertion by Cheney, Bush and now McCain is not just a lie, but a mass of lies. ]
"The problem is the (Iranian) government cannot be trusted to enrich uranium because one, they've hidden programs in the past and they may be hiding one now. Who knows?" said Bush. [ Hermit : Iran has not hidden any programs which they are required, by treaty, to disclose. Iran did not publicize research that they were performing or clandestine preparations they were making for enrichment due to the threat of the USA acting to block these programs. However there was no treaty obligation to do so prior to the introduction of nuclear material to those programs, and they did disclose them when required by treaty. It is important to note that these are the programs which are being portrayed by the US as the "weapons programs" which Iran ceased in 2003. However, contra USA assertions, Iran has consistently voiced its opposition to all and any nuclear weapons. Indeed, before American intervention Iran voluntarily signed additional protocols permitting intrusive inspections. Unfortunately, as Iran stated it would have to do to preserve its ability to continue to exercise its rights to operate perfectly legal programs (by reintroducing confidentiality to prevent interference with its supplies) before illegal sanctions were foisted upon it, the voluntary protocols were not renewed in response to the introduction of "targeted" sanctions. Similar intrusive inspection protocols almost certainly could be restored as part of a comprehensive non-aggression treaty made in good faith by the USA with Iran.]
"Secondly, they've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people, some in the Middle East. And that is unacceptable to the United States and it's unacceptable to the world."
Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear warheads, and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious edict in 2005 forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.
Asked about the president's comment, Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Bush had "shorthanded" Iran's desire "to wipe Israel off the map," its refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands to suspend its enrichment work and Iran's continued development of ballistic missiles.
Asked if Iran could exploit Bush's inaccurate comment for political purposes, Johndroe replied: "I'm not concerned about that. If they want to spin it a certain way, they can do it any way they want. They have still called for Israel to be wiped off the map and are in violation of three U.N. Security Council resolutions." [ Hermit : As weakly noted below, and repeatedly proved on the CoV BBS, Iran has never stated a desire to see Israel wiped off the map, rather Ahmadinejad (mis)quoted Khomeni ('Sahneh roozgar' (the pages of time) instead of 'Safheh roozgar' (the scenes of time)) expressing his belief that the regime occupying Jerusalem (which, to make even more clear is not the same as the State of Israel ,he compared it with the "illegitimate regime of the Shah which has already vanished") would not survive the passage of time (literally, "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" Prof Juan Cole) and this was mistranslated (by the BBC), pounced on by Zionist sources and has been used ever since as a very successful propaganda tool. Note that if you were to ask Bush or Cheney, or indeed even Hillary Clinton whether they thought that the Book of Revelations said that Israel would not be destroyed in the battle of Armageddon, they would in fact (if honest) say that they believe that the state of Israel must exist in order for it to be destroyed to fulfill the eschatology in which they vest their faith. In other words, the beliefs of the fundamentalists running the theocracy of the USA anticipate a far more dire end to the entire area encompassing territories of Israel, Jordan, the Palestine and Lebanon than the vague wishes of Ahmadinejad. Only the mealy-mouthed hypocrites running the USA are careful to avoid addressing the implications of their beliefs - when it suits them. It should be noted that Iran has adopted the perfectly reasonable position that the demands of the UN Security council for them to cease actions protected by treaty while ignoring the far greater infractions and threats to peace by those behind the demands, are illegal, inequitable and just plain wrong and that they have apparently decided that the nominal costs of rejecting these demands are far smaller than the costs of acceding to them (in which they are likely correct). Finally, given the USA's ongoing resistance to treaties banning the weaponization of space, the positioning by Israel and the USA of satellites over Iran, together with the fact that both of these declared enemies who have, in contravention of the UN grand charter to which both are signatories, announced the possibility or even probability of attacking Iran, possess vast numbers of missiles, ballistic and otherwise, targeting Iran, Iran's efforts to address the imbalance are not only completely legal, but also perfectly comprehensible. ]
Speaking in October 2005 at a "World Without Zionism" conference, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by state-run Iranian media as saying that "Israel must be wiped off the map." [ Hermit : The publication of the transcript was in Farsi. The faulty translation was made by the BBC ]
Some experts, however, disputed the translation, saying that Ahmadinejad's comment couldn't be interpreted as a threat to use force against Israel. [ Hermit : Actually nobody who knows Farsi and has a reputation to protect has agreed that Ahmadinejad has threatened Israel - for the simple reason that it simply is not possible to infer a threat from his words.]
Meanwhile, the State Department announced targeted new restrictions on a bank in Bahrain, which is controlled by the Iran-based Bank Melli, and additional scrutiny of any vessel calling at a U.S. port that has recently visited Iran. It said Iran hadn't maintained "effective anti-terrorism measures" at its ports.
"The international community will not allow the Iranian government to misuse the international financial system or global transportation network to further its aspirations to obtain nuclear weapons capability, improve its missile systems or support international terrorism," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. [ Hermit : I wonder who conflated "the international community" and the State Department? Meanwhile our threatening to attack Iran, sponsorship of Iranian terrorist groups and sponsoring groups to suborn the democratic process in Iran are completely ignored. ]
The Treasury Department also warned U.S. banks that Iran is using "an array of deceptive practices" to circumvent international financial sanctions. [ Hermit : Ha ha. ]
The department said that it is "particularly concerned that the central bank of Iran may be facilitating transactions for sanctioned Iranian banks."
In the Radio Farda interview, Bush said, "There's a chance that the U.S. and Iran could reconcile their differences," but only if Iran verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment program. [ Please note that Iran previously did suspend their program and only resumed Uranium enrichment in response to totally illegal American threats and very public pressure by the US on Russia not to supply Iran with required materials. ]
"The Iranian people have got to understand that the United States is going to be firm in our desire to prevent the nation from developing a nuclear weapon, but reasonable in our desire to see to it that you have a civilian nuclear program . . . without enabling the government to enrich." [ Hermit : But it is Iran's right to enrich material, guaranteed as part of the non-proliferation treaty to which the US is a signatory and is thus bound to assist Iran so long as Iran's program is for peaceful uses - which Iran avers it is and nobody has proved is not. Leaving the US in breach of the treaty, not Iran. ]
Enrichment produces both low-enriched uranium, which is used to fuel nuclear power plants, and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, depending on the duration of the process. [ Hermit : Only a journalist could make a sweeping simplification like this while missing the main point. Which is that were any inspected centrifuge used to produce highly enriched material, it would be detected at the very next inspection as the isotope signature cannot be disguised. End of story. Meanwhile, with the centrifuges currently in use by Iran, the assertion about duration being the only criteria is only true if you have effectively unlimited energy resources and unlimited time in which to do this. ]
Iran kept its program hidden for 18 years until its disclosure by an Iranian opposition group in 2002.
A December 2007 U.S. intelligence report said Iran halted work on nuclear weapons four years earlier, but could restart it. [ Hermit : The reason "its program" is so vague is because, as explained above, the supposed "nuclear weapons work" was in fact the development of a nuclear enrichment process. In my opinion and that of numerous physicists (including the vast majority of the FAS, this conflation is deliberate).]
Tehran has refused to comply with three U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that it suspend the program while the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency completes an investigation and institutes strict safeguards to ensure the project isn't being used for weapons. [ Of course, Iran says, arguably correctly, that it is ignoring the sanctions because the sanctions are manifestly illegal. But where have we heard an outpouring of lies like this litany before? Ah yes. Iraq proved that requiring somebody to prove a negative can, if combined with sufficient propaganda and outright lies, serve as a pretext to war. ]
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re: IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for W
« Reply #5 on: 2008-03-21 20:10:30 »
The persistence of this dangerous bullshitty incompetance . . . after seven plus years there is no evidence of a learning curve in this administration. Indeed I don't think they want to learn, because this stupid-lying trick seems to "work" in that it gets their agenda done however at the danger, expense, and potential death of every other citizen who don't happen to be a member of their crime syndicate, and even more non-citizens. The only perverse satisfaction one could get in engineering a disasterous civilization collapse like this, would have to be the satisfaction that we are going to take down the rest of the world with us. I know that the rest of the world will get on with their lives and rebuild soon enough, but I'd reckon that for a while there will be no place in the world to hide from the consequences of our collapse. Well, possibly Iceland, since they are energy independent on geothermal energy, but I still doubt it. The displaced and marauding masses of humanity will get there soon enough. I think the only thing that can put a stop to Bush's determination to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran, before he leaves office would be a pending impeachment (my apologies to Barbara Ann).
Re: IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for W
« Reply #6 on: 2008-04-12 15:24:08 »
King George and Iran's Inalienable Rights
[ Hermit : Yet another insight filled article by Gordon Prather. Well worth reading and thinking about, as he dissects the propaganda against Iran's nuclear efforts - which are now being woven into a new rabble rousing narrative including Iran's "covert missile development program". This is an area where the US is especially sensitive, as was shown by its insistence, backed by massive threats, that South Africa absolutely demolish their highly successful rocket program and suppress all results achieved by it, prior to the handover to the ANC. It is further shown by their seriously threatening response to the far less successful North Korean program and the highly deceptive and hysterical US reaction (the US pretended to be taken by surprise despite the Chinese having notified them that the test would be performed) to the development by the Chinese of a satellite shoot down capability - which was of course more challenging than the more recent US demonstration, as the Chinese satellite was still in high-orbit where the satellite the US shot down had already decelerated. The concern is undoubtedly grounded as major component of current US tactics are dependent on the availability of satellite observation, communication and navigation capability, nonetheless, the US having actively blocked treaties preventing the militarization of space for over 3 decades, there is no legal impediment to nations proceeding with this. Not even when the nation is Iran. Particularly when Israel continues to place satellites in orbits over Iran. Even if it were illegal for a nation to experiment with rocketry, it would not affect their rights under the NPT unless the programs were invalidly commingled. Which of course, US propaganda aside, Iran has not done. ]
Source: Antiwar Authors: Gordon Prather Dated: 2008-04-12
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Great Zot! After first "Reaffirming its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the need for all States Party to that Treaty to comply fully with all their obligations, and recalling the right of States Party, in conformity with Articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination", on March 3, 2008, the UN Security Council – allegedly "Acting under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations" – perversely proceeded to "reaffirm" its "decision" of 23 December 2006 that Iran "shall, without further delay, suspend"
"(a) all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA; and "(b) work on all heavy water-related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water, also to be verified by the IAEA"
The blatant irrationality boggles the mind. And it's barely conceivable that the reason the mainstream media didn't report on the irrationality of that resolution to you was that their minds got boggled, long ago, early in the reign of King George.
UNSC Resolution 1803 also imposed on Iran new sanctions and the MSM did manage to report that.
However, most of the sanctions were unrelated to Iran's nuclear programs – all of which have long been "verifiably" subject to a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, as required by the NPT. The MSM didn't report that to you, either.
Which brings us to the official reaction – a Note Verbale, dated March 26, 2008 – sent by the Iranians to the IAEA Secretariat, to be forwarded to the Secretary General of the United Nations and all Member States.
It is an absolutely brilliant expose of King George's efforts to not only corrupt the IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council, but to undermine the IAEA Statute, the NPT and UN Charter, itself.
In particular, Iran correctly notes that
"Involvement of the Security Council in the Iranian peaceful nuclear program is in full contravention with the organizational, Statutory and safeguards requirements governing the IAEA practices and procedures. Furthermore, the substantive and procedural legal requirements, that are necessary for engaging the Security Council in the issues raised by the Agency, have been totally ignored in this regard."
In particular –
"The Security Council has never determined Iran's Nuclear Program as a threat to international peace and security under Article 39 of the UN Charter and, thus, it could not adopt any measures against the Islamic Republic of Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter."
Furthermore –
"The Security Council, as a UN organ created by Member States, is subject to legal requirements, and is obliged to comply with the same international normative rules that the Member States are bound to. The Council shall observe all international norms, in particular the UN Charter and the peremptory norms of international law, in the process of its decision making and in its taking actions. Needless to say that any measure adopted in contradiction to such rules and principles will be void of any legally binding effects."
IAEA Director-General el Baradei declared in his oral report to the IAEA Board of Governors on March 3, 2008 that the "reason" the Iranian IAEA dossier had originally been forwarded to the Security Council "was ambiguities related to its enrichment program in the past" and that "this issue is no longer considered outstanding." Therefore, the Iranians argue, "no pretext or justification remains either for the engagement of the Security Council in this regard or any request for suspension."
Prior to their dossier being forwarded to the Security Council, Iran had voluntarily implemented for more than two and a half years an Additional Protocol to their Safeguards Agreement. el Baradei has just reported that the additional information continues to voluntarily provide is "similar" to that which would be required by a ratified Additional Protocol.
However, Iran is only legally bound to accept and implement the basic Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. Requiring Iran to implement an Additional Protocol – which recent Security Council Resolutions have done – to which Iran has not formally expressed its consent "contradicts the established principles of international law of treaties."
Now, according to the IAEA Statute, the Director-General and his designated inspectors "shall have access at all times to all places" in an IAEA member state as necessary "to account for [Safeguarded] source and special fissionable materials" and "to determine whether there is compliance with the undertaking against use in furtherance of any military purpose."
When IAEA inspectors do determine that safeguarded materials have been used "in furtherance of any military purpose," they "shall" report such "non-compliance" to the Director-General who "shall" thereupon transmit the report to the Board of Governors.
As the Iranian Note Verbale argues, IAEA inspectors have never made such report to ElBaradei about Iran.
In fact, el Baradei has repeatedly reported to the Board that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."
Furthermore, on August 21, 2007, el Baradei had come to an "understanding" with Iran on a "Work Plan" for resolving outstanding "issues" – some of them actually none of IAEA's beeswax, and many of them originally raised in the summer of 2005, by King George's munchkins, based upon "studies" allegedly contained on an stolen laptop computer, said to belong to an Iranian engineer (by then supposedly deceased) tangentially related to the implementation of Iran's Safeguards Agreement.
According to the Iranians, el Baradei has just reported to the IAEA Board that the Work Plan has been "fully implemented and nothing more remains to be done in this regard."
Moreover, Iran has charged that, "by providing false and erroneous information to the IAEA," the United States and three European countries [E3] "have prevented the Agency from fulfilling its real tasks on important issues such as the prevention of actual proliferation, disarmament, and contemplating a mechanism to effectively verify the nuclear activities of the non-parties to the NPT, particularly the Zionist regime that is continuing to develop nuclear weapons in the region." [ Hermit : This claim is of course correct as Israel has recently converted extremely quiet German supplied submarines into ballistic and terrain tracking missile platforms carrying multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads - which almost certainly are immune to current anti-missile technology - which the US has kindly provided to Israel - and so, most likely to China and Russia. ]
Iran claims to have initiated in 1974 – the year Iran concluded its IAEA Safeguards Agreement as required by the NPT – the idea of establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and the UN General Assembly has adopted a supporting resolution every year since then. [ Hermit : This claim is accurate. At the time South Africa was cooperating on nuclear related programs with Israel as well as Iran under the Shah when this call was made, and it lead to serious discussions with South Africa playing the role of an intermediary between the Israelis, the Iranians and the French; with the Israelis seriously concerned that the call, if implemented, could impact their nascent weaponization programs (The US at the time being perceived (accurately) by Israel as being neutral to negative towards Israeli domination of the Middle East given her demonstrable expansionist tendencies.) This strongly motivated Israel to expand its lobbying and clandestine programs to change American perceptions - leading ultimately to the fall of the Shah; the switch of American sympathies and the subordination of American interests to those of Israel otherwise known as the status quo. ]
Why hasn't one been established? Well, it seems King George and his predecessors – for some unfathomable reason – keeps vetoing it.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
On Sunday, CIA director Michael Hayden warned on "Meet the Press" that a reconstituting al Qaeda was preparing operatives in Afghanistan who would draw no attention while passing through U.S. airport checkpoints.
Exactly how vulnerable are we right now to a significant terrorist attack? No one can answer that question with any certainty. What we can say with assurance is that even as George W. Bush has overseen the single most far-reaching reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) since the CIA was created in 1947, his single greatest failure as a president might well be that American intelligence remains mired in bureaucratic mediocrity.
That bureaucratic mediocrity has already exacted a high price. A major installment came due when the CIA and FBI missed the Sept. 11 plot. A second came a year later with the CIA's "slam-dunk" assessment that Saddam Hussein was acquiring weapons of mass destruction. In 2004, Congress radically reshuffled U.S. intelligence, creating a new intelligence "czar" -- the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) -- whose office, the ODNI, would assume many of the coordinating functions that had formerly been in the hands of the CIA.
This shift was intensely controversial. One of the most frequent criticisms was that grafting a new bureaucracy on top of an already dysfunctional system would only compound existing problems. Four years later, how is the ODNI faring?
As with any secret agency, we do not know what we do not know about the achievements of the ODNI. Its greatest successes may be hidden from view, and the fact that the United States has not been hit by a second Sept. 11 might well be credited to its efforts. By the same token, we do not know all of its failures, although some dramatic ones have already come into sight.
The most significant of these is the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of last November, which stated flatly in the first sentence of its declassified summary that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program. This was deeply misleading. As the NIE summary acknowledged only in a footnote, the most important element of that program -- uranium enrichment -- was proceeding at full tilt. In February, Mike McConnell, the current DNI, disavowed the document, acknowledging that it should have been handled differently. But by that time the damage to America's Iran policy -- and to the ODNI's own credibility -- had already been done.
How exactly did the misleading NIE come to be drafted? The answer is not fully known. But a fascinating glimpse of troubles in the ODNI and the broader intelligence community comes from Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, until last summer an ODNI assistant deputy director. Ms. Tucker used her position, as she writes in the latest Washington Quarterly, to "galvanize change" among intelligence analysts. Under her tutelage, they would henceforth be required to "properly source evidence, avoid politicization, acknowledge uncertainty and assumptions, use alternative analysis, explain consistency or deviation, and strive for accuracy."
It speaks volumes that Ms. Tucker hails the imposition of such basic requirements as if it were a revolution. But even putting elementary standards in place has not prevented other forms of trouble from multiplying all around. A striking 55% of all intelligence community analysts were hired after Sept. 11, 2001. Whatever the cost in lack of experience, the creation of a youthful and highly responsive workforce, motivated by a desire to get into the fight against America's enemies, has to be counted as all for the good. But what has happened to these young men and women once inside?
According to Ms. Tucker, "they have been quickly indoctrinated into the conservative mind-sets that exist across the intelligence community." In other words, don't stick your head out, don't take risks.
The organizational incentives that encourage such a posture are deeply entrenched. But ultimately, the problem is one of leadership. In the analytic side of the house that leadership continues to be woefully deficient, seemingly more interested in waging internecine political warfare than in genuinely improving tradecraft.
The ranking official in charge of analysis at the ODNI is Thomas Fingar, a principal drafter of the misleading Iran NIE and a former State Department official with a long record of undercutting the policies of the Bush White House. It is not an accident that back in September, shortly before the NIE was issued, Mr. Fingar selected as his deputy for "analytic integrity" Richard Immerman, a professor from Temple University who had taken part in "teach-ins" against the war in Iraq, and who had accused the Bush administration of gross malfeasance in the run-up to the invasion. The "Bushites," Mr. Immerman wrote of the White House in an essay published in January, made "every effort to 'cook the books,' they 'hyped' the need to go to war, and they lied too often to count."
In addition to being in charge of maintaining analytic standards, Mr. Immerman also occupies the position of "ombudsman" within the ODNI. In other words, the very official responsible for investigating allegations of partisanship in the production of intelligence is himself a declared partisan in the intelligence wars. No wonder analysts are keeping their heads close to their desks.
What is Mr. McConnell doing about this mess? His attention appears to be focused elsewhere. Late last year, under his guidance the ODNI unfolded a 500-day master plan to set things right. Along with a good number of unexceptionable steps, its number one "core initiative" is to "treat diversity as a strategic mission imperative" -- in other words, as the document explains, "We need to have an IC workforce that looks like America." Toward that end, the plan calls for the design of "mechanisms to hold IC leaders accountable for excellence in EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] and diversity management."
Should U.S. intelligence have a workforce that "looks like America," or would we be better off with one that looked like those of our adversaries whom we have been unable to understand, let alone to penetrate? That question is one of many that go unanswered in the 500-day plan, which focuses almost entirely on tertiary internal matters rather than on accomplishing the two most critical missions facing U.S. intelligence -- stopping terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
The Bush administration, evidently cowed by the repeated and demonstrably false accusation that it is politicizing intelligence, is unlikely to address any of these problems in its waning days. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have not even indicated that they see a problem. Nonetheless, a great deal is riding on what one of them will do.
The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs.
The imagery has pinpointed the facility from where the Iranians launched their Kavoshgar 1 “research rocket” on February 4, claiming that it was in connection with their space programme.
Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).
A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran's long-range programme, was revealed by Jane's Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.
Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea.
Avital Johanan, the editor of Jane's Proliferation, said that the analysis of the Iranian site indicated that Tehran may be about five years away from developing a 6,000km ballistic missile. This would tie in with American intelligence estimates and underlines why President Bush wants the Polish and Czech components of the US missile defence system to be up and running by 2013.
The Czech Republic has now agreed to have a special radar system on its soil and the Polish Government is still negotiating with Washington over the American request to site ten interceptor missiles in Poland.
The Kavoshgar 1 rocket that was launched in the presence of President Ahmadinejad of Iran was based on the Shahab 3B missile, a version of the North Korean Nodong liquid-propellant missile.
Dr Forden said that the Kavoshgar launch did not demonstrate any significant advances in ballistic missile technology. “But it does reveal the likely future development of Iran's missile programme,” he said.
At a meeting on February 25 between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Iranians, UN inspectors confronted them with evidence of design studies for mounting nuclear warheads on long-range missiles. The Iranians denied any such aspirations.
However, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, the satellite photographs prove that the Kavoshgar 1 rocket was not part of a civilian space centre project but was consistent with Iran's clandestine programme to develop longer-range missiles.
The examination of the launch site revealed that it was part of a large and growing complex “with very high levels of security and recent construction activity”. It was clearly “an important strategic facility”, Dr Forden said.
The former Iraq weapons inspector said that Iran was benefiting from the North Korean missile programme and following its designs. The Taepodong 1 consisted of a liquid-propellant Nodong (like the Shahab 3) first stage, a liquid-propellant Scud second stage and a solid-propellant third stage.
“The production and testing facility next to the Kavoshgar 1 launch site would seem well positioned to contribute to this third stage,” Dr Forden said.
Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.
Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.
The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.
In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.
During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.
With "al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."
Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week's fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.
President Bush reiterated yesterday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, "then we'll deal with them," saying in an interview with ABC News that "we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes" for infiltrating or sending equipment.
But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to "solve these issues diplomatically," Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. "You can't solve these problems unilaterally. You're going to need a multilateral forum."
Iran has long been seen as a spoiler in Iraq, with such strong ties to all of the major Shiite political and militia groups, including that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that other Arab countries have begun to regard Iraq as almost a client state of Iran.
The recent fighting in Basra, which began when Maliki launched a military offensive against the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, revealed a threat and an opportunity, officials said.
U.S. military officials said that much of the plentiful, high quality weaponry the militia used in Basra and in rocket attacks against the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located, was recently manufactured in Iran. At the same time, the militia's improved targeting and tactics indicated stepped-up Iranian training.
Interrogations of four leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force captured in Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007 have also bolstered U.S. conclusions that portions of Sadr's militia are directed from Tehran.
Despite earlier indications that Iranian backing for Iraqi armed groups and the flow of Iranian arms have waned, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that "this action in Basra was very convincing that indeed they haven't." Basra "gave us much more insight into their involvement in many activities."
Gates, who appeared with Mullen at a Pentagon news conference, said of Iran: "We are going to be as aggressive as we possibly can be inside Iraq in trying to counter their efforts." Iraqi security operations in Basra, he said, have been "a real eye-opener" for Maliki's government.
Petraeus told Congress that Maliki had launched the offensive hastily and with inadequate preparation, leading to a standoff and the need to call in U.S. air support. During the first days of the Basra operation, U.S. officials were sharply critical of Maliki's timing and performance; some worried that the attack against Sadr forces was less an offensive against what he called "criminals" in Basra than it was an attempt to win political advantage over a rival Shiite group before upcoming elections.
Iran's brokering of a tentative cease-fire among Shiite political groups and the militia in Tehran added to U.S. consternation.
"The importance of Iranian influence in facilitating the discussion between different political factions was of significant importance," Petraeus told Pentagon reporters yesterday. Administration officials worried that Iran appeared in control of events in Iraq, while the United States seemed weak and uninformed.
But more recently, U.S. officials have seen a possible advantage in the situation. Maliki's willingness to go after fellow Shiites attracted support from other political groups in Iraq, including Sunnis and Kurds, that have long been suspicious of his sectarian leanings. It also gave Washington a talking point to use with Sunni Arab governments in the region that have shunned him. "It's an opportunity to make him look better inside Iraq and to make a better argument to the Arabs," an official said.
The administration has long tried in vain to build Arab diplomatic and economic support for the Iraqi government. But the Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia, consider Shiite Iran a competitor for regional dominance and have rejected Maliki as "a stooge for Tehran," as one U.S. official called him.
"The Saudis appear to feel that the current Iraqi government is pretty much in thrall to Iran," said a State Department official involved in Middle East policy. The administration's hope, "in the wake of Maliki's decisions on Basra," the official said, "is that the Saudis will take a step back and take another look."
In a news conference Thursday, Crocker dismissed Arab concerns about a recent visit to Baghdad by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's not the fact of the Ahmadinejad visit, but the absence of visits by other neighbors that it's important to focus on. There hasn't been a single visit, even by an Arab cabinet minister, to Baghdad. As Iraq grapples with the challenges Iran is posing, it could certainly do with some Arab support."
After consultations with Crocker and Petraeus this week, Bush cut short their Washington visit and dispatched them to Riyadh. During a luncheon at The Washington Post, Crocker said that at a White House meeting Thursday morning, they "reviewed where we are in Iraq."
The message to the Saudis, he said, "is going to be . . . it is time, more than time, for the Arab states to step forward and engage constructively with Iraq. Get their embassies open, get ambassadors on the ground, consider visits, implement debt relief, treat Iraq like the country it is, which is a central part of the Arab world."
On Tuesday Iran announced it was installing 6,000 more centrifuges -- they produce enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon -- in addition to the 3,000 already operating. The world yawned.
It is time to admit the truth: The Bush administration's attempt to halt Iran's nuclear program has failed. Utterly. The latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, which took a year to achieve, is comically weak. It represents the end of the sanctions road.
At home, the president's efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program were irreparably undermined by November's National Intelligence Estimate, whose "moderate confidence" that Iran has not restarted nuclear weaponization -- the least important of three elements of any nuclear program -- has promoted the illusion that Iran has given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet uranium enrichment, the most difficult step, proceeds apace, as does the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
The president is out of options. He is going to hand over to his successor an Iran on the verge of going nuclear. This will deeply destabilize the Middle East, threaten the moderate Arabs with Iranian hegemony and leave Israel on hair-trigger alert.
This failure can, however, be mitigated. As there will apparently be no disarming of Iran by preemption or by sanctions, we shall have to rely on deterrence to prevent the mullahs, some of whom are apocalyptic and messianic, from using nuclear weapons.
This will be even more difficult than during the Cold War, when we were dealing with rational actors. We will, nonetheless, have to use the Cold War model in which deterrence prevented the Soviets from engaging in nuclear aggression for half a century -- long enough for regime change to make deterrence superfluous. (No one lies awake today worrying about post-Soviet Russia launching a nuclear attack on the United States.) We don't know how long the mullahs will be in power, but until they are replaced, deterrence will be an absolute necessity.
During the Cold War, we were successful in preventing an attack not only on the United States but also on America's allies. We did it by extending the American nuclear umbrella -- i.e., declaring that any attack on our allies would be considered an attack on the United States.
Such a threat is never 100 percent credible. But it was credible enough. It made the Soviets think twice about attacking our European allies. It kept the peace.
We should do the same to keep nuclear peace in the Middle East. It would be infinitely less dangerous (and therefore more credible) than the Cold War deterrence because there will be no threat from Iran of the annihilation of the United States. Iran, unlike the Soviet Union, would have a relatively tiny arsenal incapable of reaching the United States.
How to create deterrence? The way John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis. President Bush's greatest contribution to nuclear peace would be to issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy's language while changing the names of the miscreants:
"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran."
This should be followed with a simple explanation: "As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people."
This policy -- the Holocaust Declaration -- would not be tested during the current administration, because Iran is not going to go nuclear before January 2009. But it would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president -- and every serious presidential candidate -- would have to publicly state whether or not the Holocaust Declaration remains the policy of the United States.
It would be an important question to ask because it would not be uncontroversial. It would be argued that the Holocaust Declaration is either redundant or, at the other extreme, provocative.
Redundant, it would be said, because Israel could retaliate on its own. The problem is that Israel is a very small country with a small nuclear arsenal that is largely land-based. Land-based retaliatory forces can be destroyed in a first strike, which is precisely why, during the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union created vast submarine fleets -- undetectable and thus invulnerable to first strikes -- that ensured a retaliatory strike and, thus, deterrence. The invulnerability and unimaginably massive size of this American nuclear arsenal would make an American deterrent far more potent and reliable than any Israeli facsimile -- and thus far more likely to keep the peace.
Would such a declaration be provocative? On the contrary. Deterrence is the least provocative of all policies. That is why it is the favored alternative of those who oppose a preemptive attack on Iran to disarm it before it can acquire nuclear weapons. What the Holocaust declaration would do is turn deterrence from a slogan into a policy.
It is, of course, hardly certain that deterrence would work on the likes of Ahmadinejad and other jihadists. But deterrence would concentrate the minds of rational Iranian actors, of whom there are many, to restrain or even depose leaders such as Ahmadinejad who might sacrifice Iran's existence as a nation to vindicate their divine obligation to exterminate the "filthy bacteria" of the Jewish state, a "disgraceful stain [on] the Islamic world."
For the first time since the time of Jesus, Israel (known as Judea at the time) is the home of the world's largest Jewish community. An implacable neighboring power has openly declared genocidal intentions against it -- in clear violation of the U.N. Charter -- and is defying the international community by pursuing the means to carry out that intent. The world does nothing. Some, such as the Russians, are literally providing fuel for the fire.
For those who see no moral principle underlying American foreign policy, the Holocaust Declaration is no business of ours. But for those who believe that America stands for something in the world -- that the nation that has liberated more peoples than any other has even the most minimal moral vocation -- there can be no more pressing cause than preventing the nuclear annihilation of an allied democracy, the last refuge and hope of an ancient people openly threatened with the final Final Solution.
Re: IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for W
« Reply #8 on: 2008-04-13 18:02:21 »
As the neocons and their stooges did before the US pressed an unnecessary war of aggression on Afghanistan, and again before the US pressed an unnecessary and illegal war on Iraq, in both cases ignoring the evidence plain to anyone looking at the situation objectively, and getting everything that they possibly could wrong, our very own neoconned neotroll continues to vomit forth irrelevancies, vicious parodies of reality and parrots the propaganda of the global village idiot and company, proving once again that there are people who are even less intellectually endowed than Bush.
It is perhaps worth once again correcting, for the benefit of others, the unstated misassumptions that seem to underly much of the propagana Joe Dees/Salamantis has spewed here at this, the conclusion of his descent down the slippery slopes to inanity.
The first of the "big lies" consists of the indisputable fact that legally and actually we are no longer fighting an illegal war in Iraq. instead we are suffering the consequences of of our brutally aggressive and highly illegal war. The ongoing losses are being caused by our ongoing occupation of Iraq in support of the pro-Iranian puppet government we have installed there, the unpopularity and utter incompetence of which exceeds even the Cheney-Bush maladministration. It would be a truism to state that an occupation cannot be won. As the Nazis discovered before us, and the US is rediscovering now, even when you are a looter on a grand scale, occupations only have costs no matter how many people you kill in the process. The same factors, by and large, are writ large in Afghanistan; only the US has managed to involve most of of NATO in the ongoing imbroglio and consequent attrition in support of our communist puppet government and "the President of Kabul."
Now let us consider a second of the "big lies" cluttering our neotwit's perspective. If a "successful" 100 day war could produce the efficiently murderous Christian extremists (why are they not called Christianofascists?), Timothy McVeigh and his friends (a number of whom were arguably not identified), how many McVeighs can an unsuccessful 5 year - or hundred year - occupation produce?
it is true that the number of non-Americans deciding they hate the policies and the impact of the policies of the USA sufficiently to risk, or indeed, to simply sacrifice, their lives, to persuading the US to change them, is soaring; shown by the fact that the last number I recall seeing from the NSA stated that terrorism had increased over 26 times since the unwinable Bush "war on terrorism" debacle began, even as the value of the dollar decreased by two thirds. It is also true that our ongoing occupations and associated brutalities are not making us any friends, but are instead earning us enemies who unfortunately can't tell the difference between terrified wannabee warrior fuckwits like Dees/Salamantis and ordinary, decent people (who largely object to the Bush idiocies and attrocities). Still, I think that the damage done by poor Muslims whose future the US has made meaningless is likely to be far less than the damage which can and probably will be caused by the gang members and criminals currently doing most of the fighting for the US, and who are going to discover that their misguided efforts are going to be rewarded with poverty and homelessness (or possibly by what is worse, positions in the police forces of the USA where it seems as if no officer is worth promoting if he doesn't already suffer from PTSD). And what a dangerous turn for society that will be. When our traumatized, brutalized thugs come home to bash American= instead of "rag"-heads. This makes it faily obvious that the poor terrified creatures so well represented by Dees/Salamantis are worrying about the wrong things entirely. This certainly appears a much more cogent and imminent concern than the vague, nonexistent "Islamofascist" threats which have been used to attempt to justify the denigration and sacrifice of the constitution and traditional freedoms Americans once thought they enjoyed.
Another "big lie" underpinning and poisoning the Neocon weltanschuung is the fact that the articles Joe Dees/Salamantis pastes in torrid floods engage in both supressio verii (lies of omission) as well as suggestio falsii (lies of commission). Sometimes, as possibly here, the suppression of truths is more significant to the asserted lies as without the framework, it is difficult to address exactly how the distortions are established..Some examples then. The attempted suppression of the fact that Iran has a right to process Uranium, guaranteed to parties to the non-nuclear armed states in the non-proliferation treaty, to not only be allowed to use, but to also call upon the nuclear armed states for assistance in developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. A right which the US has repeatedly and assiduously attempted to deny Iran - which in turn completely explains why Iran has worked "clandestinely" on perfectly legal programs. Programs that Israel, and its enabler and co-conspirator the USA now assert are illegal; despite the fact that the body tasked with the implementation of the NPT, the IAEI has not said anything of the sort. Indeed they have repeatedly said that Iran is going beyond its treaty obligation to demonstrate that their nuclear programs are intended for non-military purposes. Difficult to bypass these facts so down the memory hole they go. Another topic which is not mentioned by these master propagandists is the obligation of nuclear armed states to reduce and ultimately eliminate their nuclear arsenals in exchange for the non-nuclear states acceding to the treaty. An obligation that does not apply to the non-treaty member Israel, but an obligation that the US has, particularly under the Cheney-Bush maladministration, exercised in the breach more than in the honoring. Then of course there is the fact that, contrary to its treaty obligations, the US was and is still the world's greatest proliferator. Whether through intent, ineptitude or plain stupidity is difficult to assess. The point is that according to competent articles by competent people, such as those above, or at the FAS - the kind of fact-based articles that Dees/Salamantis seems too stupid or stupefied to comprehend, qualitatively worlds apart from the oped screeds he uses to flood the BBS with, the US has been and is in breach of its obligations under the NPT - and Iran is not. Anybody wishing to validate this need only study the above thread for a few minutes.
Which proves once again that our neoconehead troll is only capable of acting as a memedroid, which is why writing rebuttals is a pointless waste of time. He doesn't wish to persuade and cannot support his drooling inanities. Which might account for a great deal of his abysmal reputation, but he seems to be too stupid and, or, too bigoted to comprehend that either.
A neocon memedroid Joe Dees, Once could reason with relative ease, But as senility drew near, He was overcome by fear And the knocking you hear is his knees.
There is something wrong with his head, He fears "terrorists" under his bed. Now his reputation, And the Earth's population, Would be better off were he dead.
At least that way he would not, Claim that it is cold when its hot, Or hot when its cold, For his lies are all old, As are his floods of neocon rot.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Hermit continues to maintain that the war on the Al Qaeda-shielding Taliban and their terror-training-camp-running guests following 9-11 was unnecessary, even though those hosts, following Sharia law, would never have surrendered their Muslim brother to infidels, especially after they assassinated the Taliban's chief military enemy, Massoud, the Lion of Kandahar, just days before the 9-11 terror flyer atrocity. He also at the time prophesied that US troops would be slaughtered by the tens and hundreds of thousands in Afghanistan, and suffer defeat there as the Brits and the Soviets had before them (even though the Soviets were defeated there with a lot of US help - see Charlie Wilson's war), going so far as to quote Rudyard Kipling:
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
When that prophecy failed to be bourne out, he came up with another one: that millions of Afghans would freeze and starve in the brutal Afghan winter. Once again, Hermit's fantasized disaster failed to materialize. People really should remember the history of this list and what people have said on it, and take further pronouncements by one whose past ones have been so utterly unfulfilled, with a cowlick block of salt.
And he also wants to call the Iraq War illegal, although a unanimous resolution passed the UN authorizing military action if numerous UN resolutions (17 of them) were not abided by (and they weren't). The final resolution the US sought there was superfluous and should never have been pursued, for Saddam had paid UN Security Council members Russia and France off, Russia with a 1/2 million kickback from the corruptly-by-the-UN-managed Oil-for-Food program, and France with the promise of drilling rights for French oil giant TotalElfFina in the Iraqi marshes, which he obligingly drained to make such drilling easier, committing ecocide on the area in the process, and decimating the millennia-old Marsh Arab culture. Other kickbacks from the Oil-for-food program went to high officials in the UN and their families, including then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son, Kojo.
Also, both houses of the US Congress, on a bipartisan vote, authorized the administration to proceed with regime change in Iraq, liberating those long-suffering people from the iron heel of a genocidal despot, and attempting to make up for our feckless abandonment and betrayal of them at the end of Gulf War I, when 14 of 18 Iraqi provinces heeded George Bush Sr.'s call to revolt against Saddam, and we repaid them by releasing the bottled up Republican Guard tank divisions to trundle back into Iraq and, aided by aircraft bombardment and helicopter gunships, massacre these freedom-seeking and US-trusting Iraqis by the hundreds of thousands. In fact, it was to stanch this massacre that the UN initially imposed the US and British enforced northern and southern Iraq no-fly zones.
The losses in Iraq are basically separable into four classes: the hostiles (foreign infiltrating Al Qaedan jihadis and the Saddam-released criminals they paid, murderous sectarian militias, and Baathist remnants), the members of the Iraqi police and military and the Sons of Iraq and the Anbar Awakening forces fighting alongside the coalition that liberated Iraq from Saddam, the civilians that Al Qaeda massacred in order to foment sectarian strife between the Sunni and the Shia so that the growth of democracy in Iraq would be stymied and US citizens would squeamishly turn away, and the civilians and militia members on both sides murdered by members of the other side of that sectarian strife.
The US has overwhelmingly confined itself to killing killers - Al Qaeda, Baathists, and militia death squads. We have also looted nothing. We're certainly not stealing their oil; it is sold, like other oil, on the open global spot market, for what that market will bear, and the funds received go to the Iraqi government. As far as occupations always failing, one only need point to Japan, Germany and South Korea to put the lie to that farcical pronouncement.
As far as the legitimacy of the governments in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, both of them were elected by popular vote, and votes are now regularly held under popularly approved constitutions. No one can credibly call a government illegitimate after seeing Iraqis and Afghans braving Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks and threats in order to vote their constitutions and governments into place, at a greater rate than eligible voters in the US go to the polls in the absence of such attacks and threats and joyously waving their ink-stained proof-of-voting fingers in the air. But Hermit would, travestously, have left the actual anti-democratic despots - the Taliban and Saddam - in power, and nodded, winked and smiled while they continued to oppress, torture, rape and slaughter their own people.
BTW: The Iraqi government is anything but an Iranian puppet; this point is being punctuated by its ongoing defanging of Muqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, which Iran has hoped would be their Iraqi version of Hezbollah. The Sunnis and the Kurds are united with Maliki's government in this necessary cleansing, and even Grand Ayatollah Sistani has stated that the Mahdi Militia must be disarmed. You can read all about this here:
Bill Roggio of Long War Journal, Michael Yon and Michael J. Totten have spent much time embedded in Iraq; in fact, Michael Yon has been embedded there more than any other correspondent. They are all independent journalists.
I also take this opportunity to recommend Michael Yon's book about Iraq: Moment of Truth in Iraq.
It is #60 on Amazon's bestseller list, and the #1 book on the conflict.
If we really wanted to cause Iraqis to become terrorist infiltrators here and attack us, 9-11 style, within our own borders, I can think of no better way to do it than to leave before the job is done and Iraq's fledgling democracy is strong enough to secure its own borders and the safety of its country's people in a rough neighborhood, and abandon them to the widespread bloodletting and chaos that would most probably ensue. Being betrayed and abandoned twice in two generations by the same country would be a bit much for them to stomach without seeking revenge. I rather suspect that this prospect is not entirely unappealing to Hermit.
As far as Iran seeking processing capacity for peaceful purposes, it would be much better off building more gasoline refineries (it has only one), since it sits on a sea of oil, and really doesn't need nuclear energy to service its needs - besides which the Soviets had offered not only to supply Iran with the fuel rods, but also to establish a global provider in Switzerland, outside Soviet (and Iranian) control. But Iran demands to process fuel itself - a process that can also be used to create fissionable material with which to construct nuclear weapons. Considering they have seemingly completed the bomb design portion of such a venture, and are proceeding apace with their development of ICBMs, that would complete the tripod they need.
Ahmedinejad was one of the extremist 'student leaders' who seized 52 US embassy hostages in Iran and held them for 444 days in order to strangle a budding US-Iran rapprochement in its cradle, only days after a picture of officials from Iran and the US meeting and shaking hands was published in Iranian newspapers. Carter has called Khomeini a 'righteous man', had cut off all aid to the Shah, had removed him into exile in the US, and greased the diplomatic wheels for Khomeini's return to Iran from his exile in France. Ahmedinejad belongs to the Hojetiyyah cult, a sect so extreme in its views that even Ayatollah Khomeini, who famously said that he would not care if Iran burned so long as it advanced the cause of Islam, outlawed them during his lifetime. Basically, they wish to hasten the Return of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Iman; this is a Shia version of the Second Coming. They believe that they can expedite His Return by provoking a global conflagration centered upon Israel (which also explains their founding of Hezbollah in Lebanon and their bankrolling of Hamas in Gaza). Members of Iran's government have gone so far as to state that a nuclear attack would destroy tiny Israel, while large Iran could survive a Samsonian counterstrike by a dying Israel. Ahmedinejad has expressed his desire to wipe Israel off the map. Apparently, the fact that such an action would also kill millions of Palestinians does not concern them, as they would be received into Paradise as martyrs.
Clearly this is not a regime, or a cult, that can be trusted with nuclear weapons. It is not clear how deterrence could function on a regime whose leaders desire Armageddon for religious reasons.
The articles I post are from credible outlets such as, among others, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The British TimesOnline, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, the Guardian, etc., as well as speeches given by the current world leaders of our time. Hermit can only vainly endeavor to counter these by resorting to overtly biased and fringe sources - restricted almost exclusively to the frankensteinian cabal combo of paleoconservative isolationists and totalitarian-loving, democracy hating leftists to be found in such defeatist propaganda dumps as antiwar.com and the George-Soros-invested McClatchy Newspapers. This being the sad case, he is reduced to bloviating execrable fulminations of a gratuitous ad hominem nature employing his typically Vogonic verse.
Enjoy this Iraqi child's drawing of American might slaying a monstrous insurgency.
18_2-mt.jpg « Last Edit: 2008-04-14 06:41:05 by Salamantis »
Re: IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for W
« Reply #10 on: 2008-04-14 05:50:48 »
American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed
[Hermit : Time for the Global Village Idiot to be forced to take his own advice ]
These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave... [ George W. Bush (on Iraqi Insurgency) President's Veteran's Day Speech (2005-11-11) ]
Source: Antiwar.com Authors: Paul Craig Roberts Dated: 2008-04-14
Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell.
Exactly as the British press predicted, last week's congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Green Zone administrator Ryan Crocker set the propaganda stage for a Bush regime attack on Iran. On April 10 Robert H. Reid of AP News reported: "The top U.S. commander has shifted the focus from al-Qaeda to Iranian-backed 'special groups' as the main threat. … The shift was articulated by Gen. Petraeus who told Congress that 'unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.'"
According to the neocon propaganda, the "special groups" (have you ever heard of them before?) are breakaway elements of Sadr's militia.
Nonsensical on its face, the Petraeus/Crocker testimony is just another mask in the macabre theater of lies that the Bush regime has told in order to justify its wars of naked aggression against Muslims.
Fact #1: Sadr is not allied with Iran. He speaks with an Iraqi voice and has his militia under orders to stand down from conflict. The Badr militia is the Shi'ite militia that is allied with Iran. Why did the U.S. and its Iraqi puppet Maliki attack Sadr's militia and not the Badr militia or the breakaway elements of Sadr's militia that allegedly now operate as gangs?
Fact #2: The Shi'ite militias and the Sunni insurgents are armed with weapons available from the unsecured weapon stockpiles of Saddam Hussein's army. If Iran were arming Iraqis, the Iraqi insurgents and militias would have armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles. These two weapons would neutralize the U.S. advantage by enabling Iraqis to destroy U.S. helicopter gunships, aircraft, and tanks. The Iraqis cannot mass their forces as they have no weapons against U.S. air power. To destroy U.S. tanks, Iraqis have to guess the roads U.S. vehicles will travel and bury bombs constructed from artillery shells. The inability to directly attack armor and to defend against air attack denies offensive capability to Iraqis.
If the Iranians desired to arm Iraqis, they obviously would provide these two weapons that would change the course of the war.
Just as the Bush regime lied to Americans and the UN about why Iraq was attacked, hiding the real agenda behind false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and connections to al-Qaeda, the Bush regime is now lying about why it needs to attack Iran. Could anyone possibly believe that Iran is so desirous of having its beautiful country bombed and its nuclear energy program destroyed that Iran would invite an attack by fighting a "proxy war" against the U.S. in Iraq?
That the Bush regime would tell such a blatant lie shows that the regime has no respect for the intelligence of the American public and no respect for the integrity of the U.S. media.
And why should it? The public and media have fallen for every lie the Bush regime has told.
The moral hypocrisy of U.S. politicians is unrivaled. McCain says that if he were president he would not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics because China has killed and injured 100 Tibetans who protested Tibet's occupation by China. Meanwhile the Iraqi toll of the American occupation is one million dead and four million displaced. That comes to 20 percent of the Iraqi population. At what point does the U.S. occupation of Iraq graduate from a war crime to genocide?
Not to be outdone by McCain's hypocrisy, Bush declared: "The message to the Iranians is: we will bring you to justice if you continue to try to infiltrate, send your agents or send surrogates to bring harm to our troops and/or the Iraqi citizens." [ Here, once again, there is an evidence bereft assertion that what Bush asserts, is in fact happening. whereas the reality appears to be that the US Government and its intellectually challenged and ethically bankrupt president is simply lying again. ]
Consider our "Christian" president's position: It is perfectly appropriate for the U.S. to bomb and to invade countries and to send its agents and surrogates to harm Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis, Serbians, and whomever, but resistance to American aggression is the mark of terrorism, and any country that aids America's victims is at war with America.
The three-week "cakewalk" war that would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues is now into its sixth year. According to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, the cost of the war to Americans is between three and five trillion dollars. Five trillion dollars equals the entire U.S. personal and corporate income tax revenues for two years.
Of what benefit is this enormous expenditure to America? The price of oil and gasoline in U.S. dollars has tripled, the price of gold has quadrupled, and the dollar has declined sharply against other currencies. The national debt has rapidly mounted. America's reputation is in tatters.
The Bush regime's coming attack on Iran will widen the war dramatically and escalate the costs.
Not content with war with Iran, Republican presidential candidate John McCain in a speech written for him by neocon warmonger Robert Kagan promises to confront both Russia and China.
Three questions present themselves:
(1) Will our foreign creditors – principally China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia – finance a third monstrous Bush regime war crime? (2) Will Iran sit on its hands and wait on the American bombs to fall? (3) Will Russia and China passively wait to be confronted by the warmonger McCain?
Should a country that is overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan be preparing to attack yet a third country, while threatening to interfere in the affairs of two large nuclear powers? What sort of political leadership seeks to initiate conflict in so many unpromising directions?
With Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea threatened by American hegemonic belligerence, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario that would terminate all pretense of American power: For example, instead of waiting to be attacked, Iran uses its Chinese and Russian anti-ship missiles, against which the U.S. reportedly has poor means of defense, and sinks every ship in the American carrier strike forces that have been foolishly massed in the Persian Gulf, simultaneously taking out the Saudi oil fields and the Green Zone in Baghdad, the headquarters of the U.S. occupation. Shi'ite militias break the U.S. supply lines from Kuwait, and Iranian troops destroy the dispersed U.S. forces in Iraq before they can be concentrated to battle strength.
Simultaneously, North Korea crosses the demilitarized zone and takes South Korea, China seizes Taiwan and dumps a trillion dollars of U.S. Treasury bonds on the market. Russia goes on full nuclear alert and cuts off all natural gas to Europe.
What would the Bush regime do? Wet its pants? Push the button and end the world? [ The downside to this scenario is that I think that Bush would welcome that opportunity - and that the creatures around him would pray together with him before he does it. And some people worry about the altogether less threatening, much nicer and infinitely smarter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ]
If America really had dangerous enemies, surely the enemies would collude to take advantage of a dramatically overextended delusional regime that, blinded by its own arrogance and hubris, issues gratuitous threats and lives by Mao's doctrine that power comes out of the barrel of a gun.
There are other less dramatic scenarios. Why does the U.S. assume that only it can initiate aggression, boycotts, freezes on financial assets of other countries, and bans on foreign banks from participation in the international banking system? If the rest of the world were to tire of American aggression or to develop a moral conscience, it would be easy to organize a boycott of America and to ban U.S. banks from participating in the international banking system. Such a boycott would be especially effective at the present time with the balance sheets of U.S. banks impaired by subprime derivatives and the U.S. government dependent on foreign loans in order to finance its day-to-day activities.
Sooner or later it will occur to other countries that putting up with America is a habit that they don't need to continue.
Does America really need more political leadership that leads in such unpromising directions?
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re: IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance-Neo-crazy Media Sycophants Drum for W
« Reply #11 on: 2008-04-21 06:51:36 »
Iran should be "Set Up for an Attack"
[ Before you start, a little light perspective from Patrick Cockburn of CounterPunch: The old war was primarily between the Sunni community -- which contested the American occupation -- and an Iraqi government dominated by the Shia in alliance with the Kurds. That conflict has not ended. But the most important battles likely to be waged in Iraq this year will be within the Shia community. They pit the US-backed Iraqi government against the supporters of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who represents the impoverished Shia masses of Iraq. ‘The Shia are the majority in Iraq and the Sadrists are a majority of this majority,’ a former Shia minister told me. ‘They make up 30 to 40 per cent of the total Iraqi population.’ The population of Iraq is 27 million: on this ex-minister’s calculation, up to ten million of them support Muqtada....
Why did the Iraqi army fail? Training a new army has been at the centre of British and American policy for the last four years. ... Well-paid by Iraqi standards, and backed up by US air power, the army was expected to give a better account of itself. Yet, in gun battles in towns and cities across southern Iraq, the army either failed to fight or was driven back by the militiamen. Four days into Maliki’s offensive, the Mehdi Army controlled three-quarters of Basra and half of Baghdad. To prevent a complete rout, American helicopters and attack aircraft started to take an increasing part in the fighting. The isolated British soldiers at Basra airport -- 4,100 were stationed there -- fired their artillery in support of beleaguered Iraqi army units. A curfew in Baghdad caused resentment because people had been taken by surprise by the outbreak and had not, as they usually do when they see a crisis coming, stocked up on food and supplies.
As the Iraqi army began to fail the Americans moved quickly to prop it up. Air controllers to marshal air strikes were sent to Iraqi army units. A team of senior American advisers was sent to Basra. This may explain why Muqtada agreed to a ceasefire. The Mehdi Army had already shown it could fight off the Iraqi army and police... The Americans said nothing because the abortive attack on Basra was, for them, a nightmare. The claim that the surge was the first step in restoring peace to Iraq was exposed as a myth. American military casualties might be down -- but some two thousand Iraqis were killed in March.[/yellow] American politicians ran for cover. While I was in Baghdad in March, Senator John McCain visited, at the same time as Vice-President Dick Cheney. Both expressed confidence that security was improving. McCain happily told CNN that Muqtada’s ‘influence has been on the wane for a long time’. Three weeks later, McCain was denying he had ever said such a thing; what he had said, he insisted, was that ‘he was still a major player and his influence is going to have to be reduced and gradually eliminated.’ Given that Muqtada is the most powerful Shia leader, and that his militiamen had just shown they could defeat the Iraqi army, this would mean that McCain, if elected president, would fight a war with Iraq’s 17 million Shia.
[color=yellow]By this time, American generals and politicians were saying that they had known nothing about Maliki’s disastrous offensive until the last minute -- conveniently forgetting that the Americans had been urging Iraqi prime ministers to attack the Mehdi Army since 2004. It was the failure of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the previous Iraqi prime minister, to initiate such an attack that turned the Americans against him. Four years ago, Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq, was demanding that Iraqi ministers refer to the Mehdi Army as ‘Muqtada’s militia’. Bremer called him an Iraqi Hitler in the making and made a disastrous attempt to eliminate him in April 2004, an attempt that was similar in many ways to Maliki’s offensive on Basra last month. Bremer too grossly underestimated Muqtada: his supporters took over most of southern Iraq in a few days.... ]
The Agenda Behind The Anti-Sadr Agenda
Source: Global Research Authors: Muriel Mirak-Weissbach Dated: 2008-04-17 Copyright: GlobalResearch.ca (Refer below)
When Gen. David Petraeus along with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker gave their testimony to the Senate on April 9, they did nothing more than to confirm in spades what had been being mooted and duly leaked by the Washington-based press: that the Bush-Cheney Administration had officially endorsed the line that Iran should be set up for attack, on grounds that it--and not any indigenous resistance--were responsible for the mounting death toll among American troops in Iraq
While claiming security had improved, Petraeus said the violence involving the Mahdi Army of Moqtadar al Sadr "highlighted the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming and directing the so-called 'special groups'" which, he added, "pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq." (See Washington Post, April 9, 2008). Petraeus even granted that Syria had cut the alleged flow of fighters into Iraq, only to stress by contrast, that "Iran has fuelled the violence in a particularly damaging way, through its lethal support to the special groups." Finally, Petraeus specified that the "special groups" were run by Iran's Qods force, the Revolutionary Guards recently placed in the category of terrorists. [ Hermit : If you didn't read the perspective piece above, stop and read it now. This entire paragraph is nothing but the report of a deliberate inversion of reality - "the big lie" at work. ]
There was nothing new about the line: Dick Cheney had dispatched Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner last year to Iraq, with the task of finding a smoking gun, or, better, a couple of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) with "made in Iran" stamped on them. [color=yellow]What was new in the testimony of the top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in the war zone, were the categorical statements, uttered with an air of certainty usually backed up by courtroom evidence, that Iran was the culprit, and the implicit conclusion that Iran must be the target of U.S. aggression. In order to make sure that (as Nixon would have said), the point be perfectly clear, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was trotted out to tell an enthusiastic Fox News reporter on April 13, that indeed Iran was the casus belli; Iran is "training Iraqis in Iran who come into Iraq and attack our forces, Iraqi forces, Iraqi civilians." And, therefore, Hadley went on, "We will go after their surrogate operations in Iraq that are killing our forces, killing Iraqi forces." (www.foxnews.com). Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates was saying almost simultaneously that he thought "the chances of us stumbling into a confrontation with Iran are very low," he, too, repeated the mantra that the Iranians were sending weapons into the south of Iraq, etc. etc. President George W. Bush could not be left out of the dramatic build-up, and blessed Petraeus's testimony with an order for a halt in the troop reductions.
Pat Buchanon performed an important service in immediately blowing the whistle on this fraud, and his piece, "General Petraeus Points to War with Iran," has fortunately received wide coverage. (www.buchanonorg, 11.04.2008, globalresearch.ca, 12.04.2008) One would hope that Seymous Hersh would come forth with further ammunition in the fight to prevent an all-too-likely attack against Iran. They are at it again, they are serious, and must be stopped.
The Anti-Shi'ite Surge
But, if war is indeed on the agenda, as Global Research has documented over months, one question to be raised, is: how does the recent "surge" in military actions against the Moqtadar al-Sadr forces, in Basra, Baghdad and numerous other Iraqi cities, fold into the current military-political gameplan? The massive joint U.S.-Iraqi operations at the end of March, against the Mahdi Army, were, militarily speaking, a fiasco. The news reported by AFP on April 14 that the Iraqi government has sacked 1,300 Iraqi troops for not having performed as expected (i.e., for having deserted or joined the enemy) is a not-so-eloquent acknowledgement of this embarrassing fact. And, as has been generally acknowledged by now, it was only due to the diplomatic intervention of Iranian authorities, that the conflict was ended, leading to the decision of al-Sadr to cease hostilities.
Now, however, that ill-conceived offensive has been relaunched in the wake of the performances by the Petraeus-Crocker-Hadley trio, and with a vengeance. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told CNN on April 7, that the offensive against al-Mahdi would continue "until a decisive victory is achieved .. a victory that will not allow these people to attack the Green Zone or other areas." To signal the renewed thrust, Riyad al-Nuri, the director of al Sadr's Najaf office, and his brother-in-law, was brutally murdered in the holy city on April 11. Joint U.S.-Iraqi military incursions have continued in Sadr City. Where will this lead? To victory? If so, how does one define victory? If the joint U.S.-Iraqi military operations physically eliminate al-Sadr's forces, it will only be as a result of the deployment of massive brute force as has not yet been used. In this tragic case, the political effect would likely not be the decimation of that political force, but its enhancement. It should not be forgotten that Moqtadar al-Sadr himself comes from a family of martyrs.
One consideration in the minds of the U.S. strategists of the anti-Sadr war, is that they must wipe his organization off the Iraqi political map well before elections take place next October, elections in which his followers could make significant gains, expanding their current 30-seat presence in parliament to a considerable power. The Al-Sadr phenomenon in Iraq is, in this sense, not so different from the Hamas phenomenon in Palestine; both are militant (and military) formations fighting against foreign occupation, while also providing crucial social services to their people, be it schools, clinics, hospitals or the like. It is in this light that one must read the decision by the Iraqi cabinet on April 14 to exclude militias from that vote, i.e. to exclude any political parties that have armed militias. Clearly, this is aimed at al-Sadr. If one were to ask: What about the Badr Brigade, which is the militia of the Shi'ite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), le d by Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim? one might get the answer: that is no longer to be considered a separate militia, but works as part of the Iraqi military forces.
Intra-Shi'ite Conflict Targets Iran
But there is more to the story. The usual assumption made by U.S. military and political leaders, and shared by too many press outlets, is that the conflict inside Iraq should now be reduced to a fight among rival Shi'ite factions: that the ISCI and al-Sadr group are competing for control over Basra, an oil-rich and strategically situated province; that al-Maliki, whose own Shi'ite party Al Dawa, depends on the support of al-Hakim's faction to survive; that, in sum, the name of the game is intra-Shi'ite conflict.(1)
Yes, the political rivalries among the three main Shi'ite factions in Iraq do exist. To be sure, neither al-Maliki nor al-Hakim would welcome the emergence of a majority force in parliament led by the al-Sadr group. But this is not the salient feature of the situation. Rather, as was shown in the recent, short-lived halt to the operations against al-Sadr, it was Iran which was decisive. The most important factor to be considered, in understanding the current crisis, at least from the inside, is this: Iran has excellent relations with {all three} major Shi'ite factions in Iraq, despite their internal differences. The ISCI, it will be remembered, was given hospitality in Iran, during its years-long exile under the Saddam Hussein regime. Moqtadar al-Sadr enjoys support from Iran. And the greatest foreign support that the al-Maliki government has, is from Tehran.
So, who can be expected to gain from exacerbating the intra-Shi'ite conflict? Most obviously, the U.S. as the occupying power. As qualified Iranian sources have stressed to this author, Iran's power lies in its ability to promote and mediate cooperation among all these factions, as dramatically demonstrated in its mediating the end to the first anti-Sadr offensive at the end of March. The occupying power is seen as intent on utilizing intra-Shi'ite conflict to damage each of these factions, and to hurt Iran.
One generally ignored, but important factor noted by the same Iranian sources, is the factionalized situation {within} the al-Sadr movement. Moqtadar al-Sadr is seen by these sources as a fervently committed fighter, who, however, views the situation from a somewhat narrowly defined local standpoint: he wants to style himself as the leader of the Shia in Iraq, indeed as the national leader--even more national than al-Maliki. His ambitions, according to some, go beyond this; he sees himself as a future leader of the Muslims overall. At the same time, there is a faction within the al-Sadr movement, considered a "sub-group," which is controlled by outside forces, in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and also the U.S. This sub-group is seen as responsible for provocative actions designed to destabilize Iraq, and therefore welcoming any U.S.-Iraqi joint offensive against al-Sadr. The main reason for this, is that the foreign sponsors of this sub-group, whether Saudi or Emirate or America n, are intent on weakening, discrediting and ultimately replacing al-Maliki as Prime Minister of Iraq, while at the same time undermining the role of al-Hakim. A slaughter against al Sadr's forces could doom the al-Maliki government. To put it simply: these outside influences, who are thinking strategically, are hoping to pit al-Sadr against both al-Hakim and al-Maliki; the al-Sadr forces, who are thinking on a more limited, local level, see themselves as competitors to the other two groupings, for future political leadership in Iraq, and miss the point about the broader strategic picture.
In short, the U.S.'s enthusiastic order to al-Maliki to launch his anti-al-Sadr purge, is actually a ploy to discredit and destroy al-Maliki himself, and prepare for permanent occupation. Vice President Dick Cheney has made no secret of the fact that he would like to replace al-Maliki, whom he has always accused of being too close to the Iranians, with one of his own, like Iyad Allawi, and that might be what is in the offing. Another benefit to discrediting al-Maliki is that the Cheney-Bush crew can further argue that, since al-Maliki and. co. have proven unable to deal with the al-Sadr threat alone, U.S. occupying forces should remain for a longer period of time, if not for the one-hundred years that John McCain is fantasizing about.
Enter Condi Rice
To complete the picture, a couple of other developments should be mentioned. First, Condi Rice's trip to the region. She follows in the footsteps of Cheney, who toured the region to whip up Arab support for, or at least acquiescence to, a military assault on Iran. This had been Cheney's aim during his late 2006 visit, and now he has returned with the same agenda. Rice, then as now, will be following the same script. She will be meeting with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Egypt and Jordan, the famous "GCC + 2" that she and Cheney have been forging as a Sunni bloc against Iran. Her message will be: prepare for the repercussions of a new assault on Iran. In parallel, the Israelis have been working overtime to heat up tensions in the region, not only against Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, but also Iran. While National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer threatened to "detsroy the Iranian nation," if it attacked Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Arab conference attendees in Qatar that their real enemy was not Israel, but Iran.
At the same time, an ominous event occurred on April 12 in Shiraz, when an explosion rocked a mosque during prayers, killing 12 and wounding more than 200. Although initial Iranian reports ruled out sabotage, the causes of the blast were not immediately identified, and, according to latest press reports, Iranian authorities are still "uncertain" about the affair. If, in the end, it turns out to have been a terror attack, the most likely suspects would be found among the Mujahedeen e Qalk (MKO/MEK) terrorist organization that still enjoys U.S. refuge in Iraq, and the Kurdish terrorists in the PKK-allied Pejak. The PKK also enjoys the protection of the U.S. occupying forces in northern Iraq. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Pejak (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan) warned on April 13, that it would "carry out bombings against Iranian forces" inside the country. Perhaps this is what President Bush has in mind, when he makes his periodic appeals to the "Iranian people" to rise up ag ainst their government. [ Hermit : Another instance of "They are not terrorists if they are our terrorists? ]
NOTE
1. See Robert Dreyfuss, in "The Lessons of Basra," aljazeera.com, April 3, and also Ramzy Baroud, in "Basra battles: Barely half the story," aljazeera.com, April 13.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters.
By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad.
Despite the apparent concession of Basra, Mr. Sadr issued defiant words on Saturday night. In a long statement read from the loudspeakers of his Sadr City Mosque, he threatened to declare “war until liberation” against the government if fighting against his militia forces continued.
But it was difficult to tell whether his words posed a real threat or were a desperate effort to prove that his group was still a feared force, especially given that his militia’s actions in Basra followed a pattern seen again and again: the Mahdi militia battles Iraqi government troops to a standstill and then retreats.
Why his fighters have clung to those fight-then-fade tactics is unknown. But American military and civilian officials have repeatedly claimed that Mahdi Army units trained and equipped by Iran had played a major role in the unexpectedly strong resistance that government troops met in Basra.
Whether to counter those allegations or simply because, as many Iraqis have recently speculated, Mr. Sadr’s stock has recently fallen in Iranian eyes, the Iranian ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, on Saturday expressed his government’s strong support for the Iraqi assault on Basra. He even called the militias in Basra “outlaws,” the same term that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has used to describe them.
“The idea of the government in Basra was to fight outlaws,” Mr. Qumi said. “This was the right of the government and the responsibility of the government. And in my opinion the government was able to achieve a positive result in Basra.”
Strikingly, however, Ambassador Qumi simultaneously condemned American-led operations against the Mahdi Army in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, where major new clashes broke out on Saturday. He said the American-backed fighting in that densely populated district was causing only civilian casualties rather than achieving any positive result.
“The American insistence on coming and having a siege on a couple of million people in one area and striking them with warplanes and shelling them randomly — many innocent people will be killed through this operation,” Mr. Qumi said. “The result of this operation will be the sabotage and destruction of buildings, and many people will leave their homes.”
The events in Basra, in contrast with the Mahdi Army’s continued fighting in Sadr City, renewed questions about where the Sadrist movement stands in Iraq’s unstable political landscape. While his faction has often played the spoiler in Baghdad’s Shiite political structure, his followers also represent the poor and disenfranchised, who were battered under Saddam Hussein, making it difficult for the government to write them off.
In his statement on Saturday, Mr. Sadr seemed to be claiming the moral high ground despite having to cede territory in Basra. He compared the Iraqi government to that of Saddam Hussein and said that the government had become the enemy along with Sunni extremists and the Americans.
“You are using the politics of Saddam and his followers when he banned the Friday Prayer and displaced women and children; when he created divisions among groups of Iraqis; and used the politics of assassination,” the statement said. “If you do not stop we will announce a war until liberation.”
Still, at one point he sounded an almost plaintive note, saying, “This government has forgotten that we are their brothers and were part of them.”
The combination of the Iranian ambassador’s stance and the retreat of militia fighters in Basra may give fuel to accusations by some American and Sunni Arab officials that Iran has taken a powerful and increasingly open role in Iraqi politics.
Mr. Maliki’s abrupt assault on Basra last month has been widely criticized as being poorly planned. But it is believed to have been encouraged by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a crucial element of his governing coalition. Many members of the armed wing of the council, called the Badr Organization, joined the government’s security forces early in the Iraq conflict, and have been battling the Sadr-led forces. Mr. Sadr’s political movement is also an important rival of the Supreme Council.
Because leaders of the council and its armed wing spent years and sometimes decades in exile in Iran during Saddam Hussein’s regime, it was assumed that the silence of the Badr Organization during the Basra offensive indicated that Iran had given at least tacit approval for the move.
Mr. Qumi’s statements now give strong support to that view. They also suggest that Iran, which has historically tried to play Shiite groups against one another in Iraq, has decided to pull back on its support for the group that American officials have continually pointed to as an Iranian-trained troublemaker: Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
Whether that means that the stock of Mr. Sadr himself has fallen is unknown, although Mr. Qumi seemed to avoid discussing the cleric and certainly refused to give him any credit for ending the fighting in Basra. At one point during the fighting, members of the Iraqi Parliament traveled to Iran, where Mr. Sadr is believed to be residing, and helped negotiate the terms of a truce.
The developments came as sporadic fighting continued to in some parts of Sadr City on Saturday night. Americans continued to strike Mahdi Army positions in the district’s southern sector, which Iraqi and American troops now largely control.
The fighting overnight Friday and into Saturday was worse than earlier in the week, and wounded at least 66 people, who were taken to the Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City.
Residents described mortar and rocket fire as well as gun battles, with the militias largely initiating the fighting in recent days. And an American reporter traveling with American and Iraqi troops saw that several additional companies had been sent into Sadr City on Saturday.
The Iraqi troops began clearing side streets and alleyways in the southern sector with the aim of gaining full control of the area. Meanwhile, the militias continued to try to dislodge them, infiltrating from the more northern part of Sadr City.
American forces are supporting the Iraqi Army with attack aircraft, medical care and some help with logistics. And while the Iraqi operation is principally focused on holding ground in southern Sadr City, the American focus in the area is mostly on stopping rocket and mortar attacks on the nearby Green Zone.
The latest offensive in Basra started at 6 a.m. Saturday when American and British warplanes and artillery pounded Hayaniya, in northern Basra. The neighborhood had remained a Mahdi Army stronghold after earlier operations had ousted them from the center of the city. “The assault was against known criminal rocket and mortar sites west of Hayaniya,” according to a statement issued in Baghdad by the American military.
The bombing campaign, which could be heard throughout the city, according to residents, prepared the ground for Iraqi troops, who by evening were moving through the district doing house-to-house searches for weapons caches and materials for roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s.
Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Freiji, who is one of the officers in charge of the Basra operation, told reporters that “a few days ago, we told the insurgents to give up their heavy weapons and the I.E.D.’s. But until yesterday night they shot mortar shells and planted improvised explosive devices in Hayaniya’s streets. They are gangsters who are fighting under the name of Mahdi Army.”
Both Mr. Sadr’s office in Basra and the Iraqi general in charge of the operation said there had been little resistance from gunmen there. Aides to Mr. Sadr said that that was because the cleric had ordered his fighters to withdraw. “The Iraqi Army entered Hayaniya and the Mahdi Army did not resist because they made a commitment to obey Moktada al-Sadr’s order,” said Harith al-Athari, the head of the Sadr office in Basra.
The American military said in a statement that British and American military training teams were working alongside Iraqi soldiers and that the Iraqi military consulted with senior British and American officers before undertaking this stage in the battle.
The consultation is a contrast to the early days of the Basra operation, personally led by Mr. Maliki, when Iraqi troops moved in on Basra, with little prior consultation with either the Americans the British, the coalition troops who have a base in the area. Later, members of Mr. Maliki’s inner circle conceded that they had a communications problem, especially with the British, that needed to be rectified.
Last week I joined more than 40 other Minnesota Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to attend the Vets For Freedom, Vets on the Hill event in Washington. There, we joined more than 400 other Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from around the country to tell our political leaders that not only is victory in Iraq possible, it is necessary. All we ask is that the our political leaders not pull the rug out from under us and, more importantly, out from under the Iraqi people now that real progress is finally being made.
We did not do this because we are Republicans or Democrats. We don't believe that wanting America to win in Iraq and defeat the forces of radicalism is a partisan goal. It is an American goal, and we support any politician, Republican Democrat or independent, who shares that one belief.
That's why Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Rep. Jim Marshall, a Democrat, were on the stage with Sen. John McCain, a Republican. Whatever the situation was in 2003. Whether or not going into Iraq was the right thing to do in the first place. It doesn't matter. That is a debate for history. It's 2008 now, and we have to make decisions based on the reality we have, not the reality we would prefer.
I was on the ground in Iraq for 16 months, and in that time I talked to hundreds of Iraqis. Some didn't like us; some wanted us to leave, but most did not. What they wanted was for America to live up to its word. They wanted us to rid the country of terrorists and militias so that they could live in peace.
They were willing to help us, but they are not a stupid people. They know that if they commit to the American side and the Americans abandon them as we did in 1991, it means death for them and their families. They know this, and it is real. It is not an abstract idea for them.
Most Iraqis don't support Al-Qaida and the militias, but when our commitment to stay in Iraq and finish the job is in doubt -- as it was when Sen. Harry Reid went on TV and said, "this war is lost" -- Iraqis are going to hedge their bets. They may not support the militias, but when they are betting their lives, most of them are not going to commit to America unless they are assured that America is committed to them.
That's why Vets For Freedom supports any politician who supports the mission in Iraq. We -- all Americans, not just Republicans, not just President Bush -- owe it to the Iraqi people to see this through.
This generation of American soldiers saw what happened in Southeast Asia, and we do not want a repeat of the Killing Fields, this time as Sunnis are massacred by Iranian-backed militias. We do not want an Iraqi version of the Vietnamese boat people. Never again do we want to see our allies forced from their homeland because America abandoned them. America has a choice. We do not have to let history repeat itself. This is why I went to Washington last week, and why I am a member of Vets For Freedom.
Our message to Capitol Hill was: "Let them win." My message to you is: "Never again."
ARAB JUBUR, Iraq — Three months after US forces dropped tonnes of bombs on Arab Jubur and put Al-Qaeda to flight, farmers are everywhere out in their fields tending their tomatoes.
Homes in the Sunni Arab rural patch about 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of Baghdad, meanwhile, are being rebuilt, schools reopened, roads repaired and irrigation pumps renewed, even as shopkeepers happily dust off their shelves.
"It's the first time in three years I am able to work in my lands," said Ammar Wadi, a 30-year-old vegetable farmer who also runs a small dairy herd.
His lands, on the banks of the Tigris, are thriving. Besides tomatoes, he also grows ochre and wheat, while some of his 30 acres is devoted to pastures.
"When Al-Qaeda was here it was impossible to farm," said the jolly-faced farmer from under an orange cap while taking time out from his labours to visit his cousin's newly-reopened grocery store on a dusty rural road.
"They cut the power so we couldn't pump water," said Wadi. "We couldn't buy fuel. They would shoot at anyone they saw in the fields. They kidnapped and murdered many people. They destroyed life here."
The last crops he planted -- in 2005 -- withered and died because he couldn't irrigate them after Al-Qaeda arrived in force.
In the next two years he and his family of seven managed to survive only thanks to their dairy herd and by stealthily smuggling milk off to markets in Baghdad under the noses of the jihadists.
"Unlike most of the other people in Arab Jubur, we were never attacked by Al-Qaeda. We kept a very low profile," said Wadi, a giant of a man whose profile is anything but low. "We all survived, God be praised."
Not as fortunate was Mohammed Ali Jassim al-Juburi, 54, a former sergeant in the army of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein who returned to his farmlands in Arab Jubur after losing his post in the aftermath of the US invasion in 2003.
Two of his brothers were killed by Al-Qaeda jihadists in a drive-by shooting while his son was among 12 youths killed in an ambush in December.
"After they killed them they dragged their bodies behind vehicles through the streets, proclaiming them to be spies," said Juburi. "My son's body was mutilated."
Terrified and grieving, he and his family took fright and fled in the dark that night by boat down the Tigris.
"We left with only the clothes we were wearing," said Juburi, a square-jawed man with high eyebrows and wells of deep sadness in his eyes.
"Al-Qaeda are the worst criminals on earth," he said standing before large posters of his slain relatives displayed among others killed by Al-Qaeda at a memorial set up at the local community centre.
"I hope they never come back. We now just want to farm in peace. I hope the Americans stay here for a long, long time," he said.
US forces, in the form of "surge" troops with the First Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, landed in Arab Jubur on January 10 and began pushing down the main road, which had been primed with hundreds of roadside bombs.
Progress was slow and casualty rates high -- about 15 soldiers killed and as many wounded.
Eventually, according to Captain Neil Hollenback, commander of Alpha Company which was leading the charge, they decided to call in air support.
"We brought in the JDAMs," he said referring to precision guided bombs packing 500 pounds of explosives.
US warplanes dropped 118,000 pounds (about 53,600 kilos) of bombs in two weeks of operations mostly aimed at roadside bombs and booby trapped buildings.
"Within days of our air assault Al-Qaeda had fled," said Hollenback.
By February 11, the main roads had been cleared, US forces had hired hundreds of locals as members of their Sons of Iraq anti-Qaeda fronts they are setting up across Iraq, and residents started returning in droves.
Among them was Juburi.
"We found that our house had been vandalised, all the furniture was gone, Our cattle had been stolen. We had to start from zero again," said the gap-toothed former soldier bitterly.
Schools too had to start from zero, but from a mere 20 to 25 children in mid-February, attendance at Arab Jubur's primary school has now shot up to 260, according to headmaster Hamudi Salman.
This is still down from 450 before Al-Qaeda moved in but far better than in December and January when the jihadists took over the building and used it as a headquarters, after months of harassing female teachers and forcing them to wear the veil, long skirts and gloves.
Ali Mohammed Khalaf, a slim, 28-year-old farmer with a squint, was among the thousands of residents who returned to find his house looted and vandalised.
To help rebuild his life, he joined the Sons of Iraq and is paid 300 dollars a month by the US military.
In between his shifts, Khalaf tends his tomato fields. But he does so very nervously. On the edge of one field is an old yellow bus the US military believes has been booby-trapped by Al-Qaeda.
At the other end of the field is the rubble of a building bombed by US warplanes during the January bombardment because it too had been booby-trapped.
"I have to be careful. There may still be bombs under the rubble," he said.
US commanders say there are still countless roadside bombs and booby-traps in the area and it will take months to clear them all.
Al-Qaeda may have left Arab Jubur in haste, but they left behind many deep and dangerous footprints.
Iraqi neighbours rise up against al-Qa'eda "Awakening" movements across Iraq are helping to rid Sunni neighbourhoods of extremist influence By Colin Freeman http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/12/wiraq112.xml
Khalil Mohammed Abbas, a haggard, chainsmoking ex-Iraqi army officer, has good reason to puff on every cigarette as if it were his last.
After helping his neighbours in Baghdad rise up against the al-Qa'eda thugs who have terrorised them, he lives in constant expectation that the threats text-messaged to his mobile phone may one day come real.
"They are from al-Qa'eda, and they tell me I am a mercenary," he says, reading out the latest missive to bleep into his inbox.
"They ask how I would feel if they kidnapped my wife and children and kill and rape them. But I am not worried about those bastards. I know they could kill me at any moment, but if we do not fight them we will all die anyway."
The man al-Qa'eda describe as a mercenary is indeed a hired gun of sorts, however - as a leader of the so-called Sunni Muslim "Awakening", he is one of around 500 residents in his neighbourhood paid by US forces to help drive al-Qa'eda from their midst.
Many of his comrades previously saw the Americans as their enemies, but their decision to change sides is not just for the money: after two years of al-Qa'eda violence, their hatred of the terrorist group outweighs any lingering dislike of the US "occupiers".
Mr Abbas, 42, is typical. He was one of hundreds of thousands of men left jobless after the Americans disbanded Saddam's Sunni-dominated armies five years ago, a move that drove many Sunnis into the embrace of the anti-US insurgency and its allies of convenience in al-Qa'eda.
But as the group slowly took over Mr Abbas's home neighbourhood, what first appealed to many as a movement to defend Sunni Muslims soon revealed itself as a brutal, bigoted cause.
First, he says, they kidnapped and killed his brother for refusing to join their ranks and wage sectarian war against Iraq's Shia Muslims.
Then, a few days later, a roadside bomb planted by the group to kill Americans killed two of his brother's children.
"Al Qa'eda came here saying they would give freedom," said Mr Abbas. "But they killed the innocent people and made problems between the Sunni and Shia. They are liars and terrorists, not resistance fighters."
For all that they despised the group, for a long time Mr Abbas and his neighbours in Jamia, a once-prosperous middle-class neighbourhood of west Baghdad, were simply too scared to defy them openly.
That changed six months ago, though, when the presence of extra US soldiers in the district as part of the "troop surge" gave them the confidence to start their own rebellion.
Today, Mr Abbas's group is one of around 50 so-called "Awakening" movements across Iraq helping to rid Sunni neighbourhoods of extremist influence.
Effectively armed neighbourhood watch groups, they patrol their fiefdoms under a variety of colourful names: Mr Abbas's group style themselves the Sons of Iraq; others include the nearby Guardians of Ghazaliya, the Ameriya Freedom Fighters, and The Knights of the Two Rivers All are improvisations on the US military's own term of "concerned local citizens", which, in Arabic, translated into the rather uninspiring "worried citizens".
For all their macho names, though, they can often look at first glance more like a Dad's Army than a group of hardened ex-insurgents.
The turmoil of the last few years in Iraq has meant many of its military age men are either dead, in jail, in exile or already enlisted: many of the Sons of Iraq, for example, either old and greying or young with whispy adolescent moustaches.
But their local knowledge is credited with giving the US military a large proportion of the tip-offs that have put al-Qa'eda on the back foot in recent months.
"These guys want to do their job because they are defending their own territory," said Sgt Joshua Holland, 26, of 1/64 Armoured Regiment, which is now training Mr Abbas's men to become fully-fledged policemen. "It's not just about picking up a paycheck."
The Sunday Telegraph joined Mr Abbas on a joint patrol with the US military around Jamia, a neighbourhood this newspaper first visited at the start of the troop surge last year.
Then it was a virtual ghost town, the streets often littered with bodies. Today, by contrast, many shops have reopened and families are returning; locals have even set up a swing park for children to play in.
The Sons of Iraq are not without their critics, not least the Shia-dominated Iraqi government, which claims that many are simply insurgents who have swapped the al-Qa'eda coin for the American one.
Captain Mark Battjes, a senior officer within the 1/64 who helped get them onside, concedes that many are probably "not angels", but says claims that "hard-core" elements have been taken on are exaggerated.
"There might be a few guys among them who were shooting at us before, but I would say that for most, the worst thing they might have done is maybe made the odd phone call on behalf of the insurgents," he said.
"But compare it to Northern Ireland. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness were terrorists, but now they're part of the legitimate government."
Arguably the best indicator of their good intentions is the effort which al-Qa'eda has devoted to killing them.
Mr Abbas, who holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Sons of Iraq, stepped into his current role after his predecessor was shot dead outside a mosque in December.
His current deputy, Major Mohammed, survived an assassination attempt in January when two gunmen opened fire on him and a colleague in a restaurant. Despite wounded in the arm and face, he was back at work within weeks.
"The people who shot me are monsters in human bodies," he said. "They are not true Iraqis."
The patrol heads back to base, where, the night before, one of Mr Abbas's informants had rung the incident room with reports of two men robbing people at gunpoint.
It was the first recorded robbery Capt Battjes could recall since arriving here back in June, and the fact that the muggers now felt safe to come out brought a wry smile to his face.
"It sounds terrible, but maybe this is a sign that things are getting back to normal," he said. "That's not terrorism, that's just Detroit-style crime."
It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.
I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.
The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."
As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.
Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.
Some people charge that we have merely "rented" the Sunni tribesmen, the former insurgents who now fight by our side. This implies that because we pay these people, their loyalty must be for sale to the highest bidder. But as Gen. Petraeus demonstrated in Nineveh province in 2003 to 2004, many of the Iraqis who filled the ranks of the Sunni insurgency from 2003 into 2007 could have been working with us all along, had we treated them intelligently and respectfully. In Nineveh in 2003, under then Maj. Gen. Petraeus's leadership, these men – many of them veterans of the Iraqi army – played a crucial role in restoring civil order. Yet due to excessive de-Baathification and the administration's attempt to marginalize powerful tribal sheiks in Anbar and other provinces – including men even Saddam dared not ignore – we transformed potential partners into dreaded enemies in less than a year.
Then al Qaeda in Iraq, which helped fund and tried to control the Sunni insurgency for its own ends, raped too many women and boys, cut off too many heads, and brought drugs into too many neighborhoods. By outraging the tribes, it gave birth to the Sunni "awakening." We – and Iraq – got a second chance. Powerful tribes in Anbar province cooperate with us now because they came to see al Qaeda for what it is – and to see Americans for what we truly are.
Soldiers everywhere are paid, and good generals know it is dangerous to mess with a soldier's money. The shoeless heroes who froze at Valley Forge were paid, and when their pay did not come they threatened to leave – and some did. Soldiers have families and will not fight for a nation that allows their families to starve. But to say that the tribes who fight with us are "rented" is perhaps as vile a slander as to say that George Washington's men would have left him if the British offered a better deal.
Equally misguided were some senators' attempts to use Gen. Petraeus's statement, that there could be no purely military solution in Iraq, to dismiss our soldiers' achievements as "merely" military. In a successful counterinsurgency it is impossible to separate military and political success. The Sunni "awakening" was not primarily a military event any more than it was "bribery." It was a political event with enormous military benefits.
The huge drop in roadside bombings is also a political success – because the bombings were political events. It is not possible to bury a tank-busting 1,500-pound bomb in a neighborhood street without the neighbors noticing. Since the military cannot watch every road during every hour of the day (that would be a purely military solution), whether the bomb kills soldiers depends on whether the neighbors warn the soldiers or cover for the terrorists. Once they mostly stood silent; today they tend to pick up their cell phones and call the Americans. Even in big "kinetic" military operations like the taking of Baqubah in June 2007, politics was crucial. Casualties were a fraction of what we expected because, block-by-block, the citizens told our guys where to find the bad guys. I was there; I saw it.
The Iraqi central government is unsatisfactory at best. But the grass-roots political progress of the past year has been extraordinary – and is directly measurable in the drop in casualties.
This leads us to the most out-of-date aspect of the Senate debate: the argument about the pace of troop withdrawals. Precisely because we have made so much political progress in the past year, rather than talking about force reduction, Congress should be figuring ways and means to increase troop levels. For all our successes, we still do not have enough troops. This makes the fight longer and more lethal for the troops who are fighting. To give one example, I just returned this week from Nineveh province, where I have spent probably eight months between 2005 to 2008, and it is clear that we remain stretched very thin from the Syrian border and through Mosul. Vast swaths of Nineveh are patrolled mostly by occasional overflights.
We know now that we can pull off a successful counterinsurgency in Iraq. We know that we are working with an increasingly willing citizenry. But counterinsurgency, like community policing, requires lots of boots on the ground. You can't do it from inside a jet or a tank.
Over the past 15 months, we have proved that we can win this war. We stand now at the moment of truth. Victory – and a democracy in the Arab world – is within our grasp. But it could yet slip away if our leaders remain transfixed by the war we almost lost, rather than focusing on the war we are winning today.
Mr. Yon is author of the just-published "Moment of Truth in Iraq" (Richard Vigilante Books). He has been reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004.
There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation. The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the US ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles. It is to be presumed that the attack will be as “pinpoint” and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties. The decision to proceed with plans for an attack is not final. The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made. [ Hermit : Of course, relying on Our Dear Leader, who has not yet discovered a bad situation he could not make worse, to exercise restraint is almost certainly a good way to guarantee yet another war - and one which every defense analysis of which I am aware has shown cannot be contained. ]
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.
The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to endorse US charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to the Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms were of Iranian origin.
The news media's failure to report that the arms captured from Shiite militiamen in Karbala did not include a single Iranian weapon shielded the US military from a much bigger blow to its anti-Iran strategy.
The Bush administration and top Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus had plotted a sequence of events that would build domestic US political support for a possible strike against Iran over its "meddling" in Iraq and especially its alleged export of arms to Shiite militias.
The plan was keyed to a briefing document to be prepared by Petraeus on the alleged Iranian role in arming and training Shiite militias that would be surfaced publicly after the al-Maliki government had endorsed it and it used to accuse Iran publicly.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters on Apr. 25 that Petraeus was preparing a briefing to be given "in the next couple of weeks" that would provide detailed evidence of "just how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability." The centerpiece of the Petraeus document, completed in late April, was the claim that arms captured in Basra bore 2008 manufacture dates on them.
US officials also planned to display Iranian weapons captured in both Basra and Karbala to reporters. That sequence of media events would fill the airwaves with spectacular news framing Iran as the culprit in Iraq for several days, aimed at breaking down Congressional and public resistance to the idea that Iranian bases supporting the meddling would have to be attacked.
But events in Iraq diverged from the plan. On May 4, after an Iraqi delegation had returned from meetings in Iran, al-Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in a news conference that al-Maliki was forming his own Cabinet committee to investigate the US claims. "We want to find tangible information and not information based on speculation," he said.
Another adviser to al-Maliki, Haider Abadi, told the Los Angeles Times' Alexandra Zavis that Iranian officials had given the delegation evidence disproving the charges. "For us to be impartial, we have to investigate," Abadi said.
Al-Dabbagh made it clear that the government considered the US evidence of Iranian government arms smuggling insufficient. "The proof we have is weapons which are shown to have been made in Iran," al-Dabbagh said in a separate interview with Reuters. "We want to trace back how they reached [Iraq], who is using them, where are they getting it."
Senior US military officials were clearly furious with al-Maliki for backtracking on the issue. "We were blindsided by this," one of them told Zavis.
Then the Bush administration's campaign on Iranian arms encountered another serious problem. The Iraqi commander in Karbala had announced on May 3 that he had captured a large quantity of Iranian arms in and around that city.
Earlier the US military had said that it was up to the Iraqi government to display captured Iranian weapons, but now an Iraqi commander was eager to show off such weapons. Petraeus' staff alerted US media to a major news event in which the captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.
But when US munitions experts went to Karbala to see the alleged cache of Iranian weapons, they found nothing that they could credibly link to Iran.
The US command had to inform reporters that the event had been canceled, explaining that it had all been a "misunderstanding." In his press briefing May 7, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner gave some details of the captured weapons in Karbala but refrained from charging any Iranian role.
The cancellation of the planned display was a significant story, in light of the well-known intention of the US command to convict Iran on the arms smuggling charge. Nevertheless, it went completely unreported in the world's news media.
A report on the Los Angeles Times' Blog "Babylon & Beyond" by Baghdad correspondent Tina Susman was the only small crack in the media blackout. The story was not carried in the Times itself, however.
The real significance of the captured weapons collected in Karbala was not the obvious US political embarrassment over an Iraqi claim of captured Iranian arms that turned out to be false. It was the deeper implication of the arms that were captured.
Karbala is one of Iraq's eight largest cities, and it has long been the focus of major fighting between the Mahdi Army and its Shiite foes. Moqtada al-Sadr declared his ceasefire last August after a major battle there, and fighting had resumed there with the government operation in Basra in March. Thousands of Mahdi Army fighters have fought there over the past year.
The official list of weapons captured in Karbala includes nine mortars, four antiaircraft missiles, 45, RPGs and 800 RPG missiles and 570 roadside explosive devices. The failure to find a single item of Iranian origin among these heavier weapons, despite the deeply entrenched Mahdi Army presence over many months, suggests that the dependence of the Mahdi Army on arms manufactured in Iran is actually quite insignificant.
The Karbala weapons cache also raises new questions about the official US narrative about the Shiite militia's use of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) as an Iranian phenomenon. Among the captured weapons mentioned by Gen. Jawdat were what he called "150 antitank bombs," as distinguished from ordinary roadside explosive devices.
An "antitank bomb" is a device that is capable of penetrating armor, which has been introduced to the US public as the EFP. The US claim that Iran was behind their growing use in Iraq was the centerpiece of the Bush administration's case for an Iranian "proxy war" against the US in early 2007.
Soon after that, however, senior US military officials conceded that EFPs were in fact being manufactured in Iraq itself, although they insisted that EFPs alleged exported by Iran were superior to the homemade version.
The large cache of EFPs in Karbala which are admitted to be non-Iranian in origin underlines the reality that the Mahdi Army procures its EFPs from a variety of sources.
But for the media blackout of the story, the large EFP discovery in Karbala would have further undermined the credibility of the US military's line on Iran's export of the EFPs to Iraqi fighters.
Apparently understanding the potential political difficulties that the Karbala EFP find could present, Gen. Bergner omitted any reference to them in his otherwise accurate accounting of the Karbala weapons.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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