May 19, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 34
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Given the president's remarks, here is an interesting note on the NSA/FISA controversy sent in by a Worldwide Standard reader:
President Bush's wiretaps were absolutely -- without any doubt -- NOT in violation of FISA, but you have to read between the lines of [Attorney General] Gonzales' 42-page legal report.
The key:
1. Footnote #5, p.17
[To avoid revealing details about the operation of the program, it is assumed for purposes of this paper that the activities described by the President constitute “electronic surveillance,” as defined by FISA, 50 U.S.C. § 1801(f).]
2. 50 USC Sec. 1801(f)(2), particularly the clause "…if such acquisition occurs in the United States…."
3. Footnote #6, p. 19
FISA’s legislative history reveals that these provisions were intended to exclude certain intelligence activities conducted by the National Security Agency from the coverage of FISA. According to the report of the Senate Judiciary Committee on FISA, “this provision [referencing what became the first part of section 2511(2)(f)] is designed to make clear that the legislation does not deal with international signals intelligence activities as currently engaged in by the National Security Agency and electronic surveillance conducted outside the United States.” S. Rep. No. 95-604, at 64 (1978), reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3904, 3965. The legislative history also makes clear that the definition of “electronic surveillance” was crafted for the same reason. See id. at 33-34, 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3934-36. FISA thereby “adopts the view expressed by the Attorney General during the hearings that enacting statutory controls to regulate the National Security Agency and the surveillance of Americans abroad raises problems best left to separate legislation.” Id. at 64, 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3965. Such legislation placing limitations on traditional NSA activities was drafted, but never passed. See National Intelligence Reorganization and Reform Act of 1978: Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 999- 1007 (1978) (text of unenacted legislation). And Congress understood that the NSA surveillance that it intended categorically to exclude from FISA could include the monitoring of international communications into or out of the United States of U.S. citizens. The report specifically referred to the Church Committee report for its description of the NSA’s activities, S. Rep. No. 95-604, at 64 n.63, 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3965-66 n.63, which stated that “the NSA intercepts messages passing over international lines of communication, some of which have one terminal within the United States. Traveling over these lines of communication, especially those with one terminal in the United States, are messages of Americans . . . .” S. Rep. 94-755, at Book II, 308 (1976). Congress’s understanding in the legislative history of FISA that such communications could be intercepted outside FISA procedures is notable.
It appears the careful definition of "electronic surveillance" as used in FISA exempts the program from FISA. This is evident when you re-read the original New York Times article and realize that the government officials were not concerned about FISA but rather 4th Amendment violations. It's interesting that talking head law professors are not concerned about the Fourth Amendment, but rather about FISA. This strongly suggests that Bush is on firm legal footing.
It may be dawning on some Democrats that letting the tail wag the dog has consequences. The left-wing blogosphere demanded that Democrats mount a filibuster against Judge Alito's confirmation, and naturally (see here), Sen. John Kerry led the charge. The result was a front-page headline, "Failed Filibuster Bid Worries Democrats," in today's Roll Call newspaper. Now, the Democratic leadership, cheered on by the same group that championed the filibuster, is ready to pounce on the president's NSA surveillance program in the weeks ahead. But, unlike Sen. Kerry, it appears that Gov. Vilsack, a prospective Democratic presidential candidate, is not about to be led around by the nose by the far left.
From today's Des Moines Register:
Vilsack: Opposing wiretapping dangerous for Democrats
Gov. Tom Vilsack said Monday that Democrats risk political backlash if they object to the Bush administration's wiretapping but cannot show that Americans' civil liberties are at risk.
The Democratic governor, who is weighing a 2008 presidential bid, said the party will suffer if it continues to be perceived as weaker than Republicans on national security....
"If the president broke the law, that's unacceptable. But I think it's debatable whether he did," Vilsack told Des Moines Register editors and reporters.
"And I think Democrats are falling into a very, very large political trap," he said. "Democrats are not going to win elections until they can reassure people they are going to keep them safe."
Bush has said the practice is limited to people suspected of terrorist ties and is necessary to conduct the war on terrorism.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has compared the practice to President Nixon's practice of monitoring his political adversaries' communications.
Investor flight is a big worry for Hamas, who now must grapple with the economic consequences of their policies. Before the recent election, the Palestinian Stock Exchange was very bullish. In 2005, the Al-Quds index of the exchange produced gains of nearly 310 percent in 2005, putting its capitalization at about $5 billion -- a figure, Barron's claims, is "as big or bigger than stock markets in seven of the 10 new European Union members....." A fund manager attributed the run-up to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the "hope that billions of dollars in promised investments will flow from the G-8 countries." But since Hamas' election, Beirut's Daily Star reports that the index is off five percent with "many share offers failing to find buyers." And Hamas is clearly worried about more investor flight.
Today's Daily Star further reports:
Hamas seeks to reassure stock market investors
Palestinian Financial Markets Plummet in Wake of threats to cut aid
Hamas on Monday sought to reassure investors in the Palestinian economy that their stocks would be safe under the Muslim fundamentalist group after it shot to power in last week's general election....
"After noting the sharp drop in Palestinian financial markets since Thursday, we want to reassure investors that Hamas considers the [stock exchange] an essential pillar of our national economy," said a statement.
"Hamas realizes that tens of thousands of Palestinian families have invested in this market and we assure them that the movement's economic policy will stimulate and develop this market."
...Assurances came on the heels of threats from the international community to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) should Hamas take power.
Elections have consequences. If Hamas won't reject terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist and the legitimacy of the peace process based on the concept of peaceful coexistence, the U.S. should use its leverage to nose drive the Al-Quds -- which, according to David Grayson of Auerbach Grayson & Company in New York, has also benefited from "institutional clients in the U.S. execut[ing] orders" on the exchange.
The ball is in Hamas' court.
From Stephen Hayes:
A follow-up on Dan McKivergan’s post on Russia and Iran. Dan wrote of the worrisome prospect of the U.S. putting its trust in Putin on Iran: “We better have a Plan B if Moscow's recent past is prologue. “ The examples he and Mort Zuckerman provide are deeply disturbing. There are more. Russian intelligence services, for instance, trained Iraqi intelligence operatives as late as September 2002, even as Putin and his cronies spoke publicly of a “common goal” on Iraq between the U.S. and Russia.
It’s September 2002. President Bush gives a speech to the UN making clear that his administration would hold Iraq to account for its defiance of UN resolutions. The Russian government, which for years had carried Iraq’s water on the UN Security Council, announced that it would not send troops in the event of war in Iraq and fought hard against U.S. and British efforts to confront Saddam Hussein.
Nonetheless, Russia eventually endorsed UN Resolution 1441, which threatened “serious consequences” that would result from Iraq’s continued flouting of previous UN resolutions. Putin’s government spoke of its partnership with the U.S. on the war on terror. Putin spokesman Sergei Prikhodko declared: "Russia and the United States have a common goal regarding the Iraqi issue" – disarmament. And Russian Foreign Minister Boris Malakhov proclaimed that the U.S. and Russia “are partners in the anti-terror coalition.”
Not quite.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Robert Collier wrote a series of articles in April 2003 on Russian double-dealing on Iraq. The articles provide a stark reminder of the perils in working with Putin’s Russia and of the need to expedite the exploitation of 2 million documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan:
A Moscow-based organization was training Iraqi intelligence agents as recently as last September -- at the same time Russia was resisting the Bush administration's push for a tough stand against Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqi documents discovered by The Chronicle show.
The documents found Thursday and Friday in a Baghdad office of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, indicate that at least five agents graduated Sept. 15 from a two-week course in surveillance and eavesdropping techniques, according to certificates issued to the Iraqi agents by the "Special Training Center" in Moscow.
The Russian government, which has expressed intense disagreement with the U.S.-led war on Iraq, has repeatedly denied giving any military or security assistance to the Hussein regime. Any such aid would violate U.N. sanctions that have severely limited trade, military and other relations with Iraq since 1991.
U.S.-Russian relations have been strained by the split over Iraq. It is unclear whether these revelations, coming on top of U.S. charges that Moscow has been supplying other forms of forbidden assistance to Baghdad, may damage them further.
The “Moscow-based organization,” it turns out, was the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
Russian intelligence officials have confirmed that Iraqi spies received training in specialized counterintelligence techniques in Moscow last fall -- training that appears to violate the United Nations resolution barring military and security assistance to Iraq.
A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Boris Labusov, acknowledged that Iraqi secret police agents had been trained by his agency but said the training was for nonmilitary purposes, such as fighting crime and terrorism.
Said Labrusov: "The SVR does not refuse cooperation with secret services of different countries in the areas of counter-terrorism and war, fighting drug traffic and investigating the illegal trade of weapons.”
The Chronicle article continues:
However, it seems likely that the Iraqi agents who were trained at the Moscow center were using their skills for other purposes. Found in the same Mukhabarat office with their personnel files and graduation certificates were a host of other documents, including orders for wiretaps and for break-ins at such sites as the Iranian Embassy, the five-star al-Mansour Hotel and private doctors' offices.
Ronald Reagan’s famous aphorism about dealing with the Soviets was “Trust but Verify.” Perhaps it needs updating.
“Don’t Trust.”
With Hamas' election success, I dusted off the following piece I wrote for Philanthropy magazine in December 1998 on terrorist fundraising inside the United States:
Bankrolling Terror
Inside the world of terrorist fundraising
On December 12, 1992, Israeli Army Sergeant Yuval Tutanji and two other soldiers were ambushed by Hamas terrorists while riding in a jeep near Hebron. Tutanji was killed, the others were wounded. Six years later, U.S. officials believe the Kalashnikov rifle that shot Tutanji to death—as well as other automatic weapons, pistols, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition used in Hamas attacks in the months before the killing—were purchased with money laundered through a 501(c)(3) public charity inside the United States, the Chicago-area Quranic Literacy Institute.
Worse yet, the so-called "Quranic case" does not appear to have been an isolated incident. An FBI special agent recently told the Chicago Tribune that the case is only "a chunk of the puzzle" in the Bureau's larger probe into the extent of U.S. nonprofits operating illegally as money laundering fronts for terrorists—even as the U.S. government pours billions of dollars into fighting terrorism. Stefan Leader, author of a recent article on the subject for Jane's Intelligence Review, estimates the amount raised for terrorists by nonprofits could be "in the millions of dollars, possibly more." An exact amount, says Leader, is impossible to pin down because of the clandestine nature of the fundraising, and the Quranic case is probably just the "tip of the iceberg of other activities we don't know about."
Guns and Butter
The FBI's section chief on International Terrorism Operations, special agent Dale L. Watson, confirms the prevalence of U.S.-based fundraising by terrorist groups. In recent congressional testimony, Watson spoke of a "significant and growing organizational presence" by "Palestinian Hamas, Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and Egyptian-based Al- Gama at Al Islamiyya" centering around "fundraising and low-level intelligence gathering." Oliver "Buck" Revell, former FBI deputy director for investigations and intelligence from 1979 to 1991, calls this fundraising a "very major undertaking" patterned on "what the IRA was able to do through NORAID [an IRA-aligned fundraising group] back in the 1970s and 1980s in the U.S." One advantage for a terrorist group using a 501(c)(3) front, adds Revell, is that "it gives an air of legitimacy to their fundraising" because "it's essentially [U.S.] government sanctioned as a legitimate charity."
Steven Emerson, an investigative journalist and producer of the PBS documentary "Jihad in America" goes farther, describing "nonprofit charitable, religious, academic, and educational institutions" as the "primary vehicle through which radical groups have established a ‘legitimate' presence in the United States." At a February, 1998 Senate hearing, Emerson testified that "During the past seven years, there has been a proliferation of radical Islamic groups hiding under false cover using 501(c)(3) and other nonprofit status…. Sometimes the monies raised go directly to purchase weapons and military supplies, although most of the time the tax-free money raised in the United States goes to underwrite the social welfare budgets of groups like Hamas, freeing up local funds for terrorist operations."
For instance, Hamas actually spends the vast majority of its funds for schools, mosques, medical clinics, orphanages, and other charitable activities on the West Bank and Gaza (estimates of its annual budget range up to $70 million with up to a third coming from Europe and the United States). Yet, in its quest to derail the peace process, the group also commits gruesome acts of violence, like blowing apart civilian buses. Hamas-sponsored charities also pay stipends to the families of suicide bombers and others "killed in action."
Oliver Revell knows firsthand how hard it is for law enforcement to track money once it leaves the country, and if you ask him, there's no real way to make sure that a dollar given for charity ends up supporting charity: According to Revell, once the money "goes into [charitable] front organizations in Israel then it's diverted. It's difficult for even the Israelis to trace it."
Leaders of the organizations in question, including Mohammed Mousa Abu Marzook, the current political leader of Hamas, take the time-honored approach—deny that charitable contributions fund military operations. But Marzook's credibility is somewhat in question. His name has surfaced in connection with the Tutanji killing.
Target: Fundraising
To attempt to put some pressure on domestic fundraising for terror groups, in 1996, President Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which outlawed support of any type (including charitable giving) of recognized terrorist groups. Section 302 of that Act ("Prohibition on Terrorist Fundraising") aims to "cut off the dollars and, thus, the lifeblood of foreign terrorist organizations that are wreaking havoc and destroying lives all over the world," as Senator Orrin Hatch put it during floor debate on the measure.
As amazing as this sounds, prior to 1996 a person under U.S. jurisdiction could legally raise money for a terrorist group as long as the funds went solely to that group's lawful charitable program. To prevent such organizations from raising funds in the United States, the Antiterrorism Act requires the Secretary of State to publish an annual list of groups the U.S. government classifies as "foreign terrorist organizations" (FTOs). Listed FTOs are then banned from receiving financial or material support from any entity under U.S. jurisdiction. Hamas is among the 30 organizations targeted by the latest Clinton Administration FTO list, as are the Abu Nidal Organization, Hezbollah, the Palestine Islamic Jihad, Gama'a al- Islamiyya, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Kach, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and the Japanese Red Army.
The FTO list is probably no more than a good start at cracking down on terrorist fundraising, however. "You do your best to disrupt these networks and shut off some of the channels," says Leader, "but it's unlikely you can shut them all down." According to Revell, a terrorist-created 501(c)(3) "does not identify their parent or their principal connection so if it's connected to Hamas, or Hezbollah, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad it's not going to so state in any of its literature." Revell also believes "much tighter scrutiny by the IRS over the granting of the 501(c)(3) status" would help law enforcement curb illicit fundraising.
Fundraising as Free Speech?
As the FBI attempts to cut off the foreign terrorist fundraising tentacles in the United States, a serious threat to law enforcement anti-terrorism efforts is coming from an unexpected source—the courts.
Justices of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will soon decide whether a person on American soil can give material or financial support to groups classified by the president of the United States as "foreign terrorist organizations." In Humanitarian Law Project (and other U.S. nonprofits) v. Reno, American supporters of two of these FTOs—the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan (Sri Lanka) and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Turkey)—are challenging the constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 on First Amendment grounds. The plaintiffs want the freedom for anyone to raise funds for, and donate to, the terrorist charity of their choice. They will, however, have to overcome a significant precedent.
In 1987, Minister Louis Farrakhan and Muhammad Mosque, Inc. made the same First Amendment argument to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in response to President Reagan's sanctions against Libya following terrorist bombings at the Rome and Vienna airports. Muhammad Mosque, Inc. wanted to repay a $5 million loan from the Libyan government but had been barred from doing so under the sanctions regime. The Court ruled that because Libya was considered a "state sponsor" of terrorism, any money sent to Tripoli could, in the end, aid terrorist activity: "We cannot ascertain what will happen to the money [supposed debt repayment] once it reaches Libya. Conceivably, the money could be used for purely innocuous purposes, or it could be used directly or indirectly, to subsidize the types of anti-United States activity that the sanction regulations aim to prevent."
Not that anybody bothered to ask them, but the family of Sergeant Tutanji probably hopes the precedent holds.
Frequent Weekly Standard contributor Dan Twining emails his thoughts on one of the most underreported economic stories out there. While China gets most of the attention on the business pages, India has quietly positioned itself to be a dominant player in the 21st century world economy. If fact, MIT's Yasheng Huang argues that India "might be more competitive than China" in the years ahead.
Twining observes:
China's rise is changing the economic and strategic landscapes in Asia and beyond. But the rise of India is an equally compelling story, and one that promises to have similarly tectonic effects on the world economy and the global security order. In this piece, MIT professor Yasheng Huang picks apart some of the "China myths" prevalent among Western and Asian analysts -- myths that have obscured India's emerging dynamism and potential to outperform China in the long run. He even twists on its head the conventional wisdom that India should model its economic reforms on China's. Instead, he urges the Chinese government to take a close look on India's emphasis on education, transparency, and governance. "Unless China embarks on bold institutional reforms," he writes, "India may very well outperform it in the next 20 years."
"We saw Howard Dean earlier in your interview say that the eavesdropping program conducted under the supervision of Lieutenant General Hayden by the National Security Agency, entirely staffed by career employees -- that that somehow is pernicious, intolerably is kind of domestic spying on political enemies," Kristol said on Fox News Sunday. "The Democratic Party is at risk if the Republicans exploit this now. They either focus and make the case that the Democratic Party is the party that stands against men like Alito being judges and the leadership of people like General Hayden in terms of national security, and I think that's very dangerous for the Democratic Party if Republicans highlight this to the voters."
If so, we better have a Plan B if Moscow's recent past is prologue. A little over a year ago, the European Union slapped an arms embargo on the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan for its refusal to allow a legitimate investigation into the shooting of hundreds of protestors there last May. But Moscow said it wouldn't honor it. The Kremlin has also been practicing so-called "pipeline politics" to put the screws on Kiev and other governments in the Caucuses. But Moscow's dealings with Iran are the most alarming. They have helped Tehran build better missiles and, as Mort Zuckerman explains in US News, have been critical in building Iran's nuclear capacity.
Through its 900-mile border with Iraq, Iran is flooding its neighbor with money and fighters. It is infiltrating troublemakers into Afghanistan, supporting terrorism against Turkey, sustaining Syria, and had a hand in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
Iran today is in the grip of yet a new wave of extremists. Its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a revolutionary firebrand who has directly threatened the West. In his own words, "We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [i.e., the West] and the Islamic world." His foreign policy ambition is an Islamic government for the whole world, under the leadership of the Mahdi, the absent imam of the Shiites--code language for the export of radical Islam. And he casts himself as Hitler reincarnated, calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Who can think that Iran poses no threat to world peace? History tells us that when madmen call for genocide, they usually mean it.
And Russia has made the threat more real. It sold the nuclear power plant at Bushehr to Iran and contracted to sell even more to bring cash into its nuclear industry. As one American diplomat put it, this business is a "giant hook in Russia's jaw." Russia provided critical assistance in the development of Iran's Shihab missile, which has an ever expanding delivery range and can carry a warhead designed for a nuclear charge.
"No return." Everyone knows that the Bushehr "energy" plant is essentially a cover for Iran to have a nuclear infrastructure with a community of physicists, technicians, chemists, scientists, and engineers who can create a military capability. This became clear when Iran was found to be secretly building a facility at Natanz, involving centrifuges that could bring about nuclear enrichment to produce weapons-grade material. The work was suspended for a period of time, but Iran has now removed the United Nations seals, and its nuclear team is once again hard at work. Within a very few years, in all likelihood, Iran will be able to launch nuclear missiles.
The Russians had to know that the work at Bushehr was not for peaceful purposes, as the Iranians claimed, yet it has gone on assisting Iran in its grotesque deceptions and patently false protestations....
Equally revealing--and deeply disturbing--is the fact that Russia, under Putin, has encouraged Iran to tough it out with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency has only persuasive power, but Russia has refused to condemn Iran's nuclear work and resists American and European efforts to force the issue at the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions.
Russia has even bolstered Iran's ability to resist military intervention by confirming a deal to sell TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles, the most advanced system available, which uses launchers to shoot down multiple targets like missiles and planes.
David Brooks, in today's New York Times (sub. req'd), writes:
If the Europeans refuse to isolate Hamas, if they forgive radicalism, they will destroy this budding cycle of accountability. They will reward the old revolutionary mentality. They will stop the momentum that makes this the most promising moment as well as the most dangerous. For this is the moment when a truly democratic movement might emerge, opposing both Hamas and the old Fatah.
That didn't take long. From Sunday's Scotsman:
EU nations urged to accept Hamas
European governments have been urged to take the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas off an international blacklist as a sign of faith in the new democratically-elected political force in the Middle East.
The leader of the European Union's election-monitoring team which oversaw the vote last Wednesday, Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, said the gesture should come at talks between EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
The meeting is the first opportunity for Europe to express a collective, considered response to an unexpected outcome which has left the EU and America struggling for an appropriate reaction.
"The European Union is right to demand the renunciation by Hamas of violence, and to demand that Hamas recognise Israel" said Mr McMillan-Scott.
"But Europe also has to note that Hamas has stuck to a ceasefire since February 2005, and that it is now an elected political, Islamist force in the Middle-East, even if it is one which comes from a terrorist background."
He went on: "Hamas is a terrorist organisation, but now it should come off the blacklist - especially considering that it is on the list and Hezbollah is not."
EU foreign ministers are facing the tricky job of finding a formal response to the Palestinian election which acknowledges the democratic will of the people to back the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organisation - one with a deadly record of murder and suicide bombings.
The decision to stand in the Palestinian elections reflected a dramatic new approach - and the scale of the resulting victory poses a diplomatic dilemma in national European capitals and in Brussels.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has already warned of "an entirely new situation" requiring close EU analysis.
And Prime Minister Tony Blair has challenged Hamas to choose "a path of democracy or a path of violence."
The Pentagon will soon release its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that will include details on the Army's force restructuring plan. Senior defense officials have resisted calls to permanently increase overall Army troop strength. They have argued that changes in the so-called "tooth-to-tail ratio" will add more combat capability without the need for more troops. But one study prepared for the Defense Department reportedly concludes that the Army's reorganization plan will decrease overall combat capability.
According to InsideDefense.com,
A study prepared for the Defense Department has found an Army plan to reorganize its forces into “brigade combat teams” will reduce net fighting capability rather than strengthen it, contrary to the service's vision.
But the Army is hotly contesting the study's findings and recommendations. The service was successful in keeping the critique out of the Pentagon's wide-ranging Quadrennial Defense Review, to be released early next month, according to officials.
Under the service's plan, brigade combat teams -- dubbed “BCTs” -- are becoming the central Army fighting unit to be deployed globally, drawing minimal support from higher headquarters....
But to increase brigades without boosting overall manpower of the service, officials say they must strip each brigade of one “maneuver” battalion composed of infantry troops or heavy arms. Army leaders say they can field just two such battalions per brigade, rather than the traditional three, in part because each brigade will also have a reconnaissance battalion for support. The move results in a net loss of 40 maneuver battalions, according to analysts.
To serve as the essential link between joint commanders and troops on the ground, each brigade headquarters will grow from less than 100 personnel to about 250, Army officials say.
Both the newly expanded BCT headquarters and its reconnaissance battalion will employ new information technologies to develop better intelligence about enemy forces, according to service officials. They can act as “force multipliers” to strengthen or “enable” the more sparsely populated combat troops in each brigade, the thinking goes.
Yet a series of new reports, written last year by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) for the Pentagon's program analysis and evaluation directorate, concludes the Army could provide more valuable combat power to top commanders in Iraq and elsewhere if it beefs up the BCTs with three or even four maneuver battalions apiece.
Neither the Defense Department nor IDA has released publicly any of the eight or more reports the organization provided to the Pentagon.
“The current Army plan for fielding 43 [active duty] two-battalion [brigade combat teams] does not provide the optimum allocation of scarce Army manpower resources,” according to one of the IDA papers, obtained by ITP . “The essence of land power is resident in the maneuver battalions that occupy terrain, control populations and fight battles, not in headquarters and enablers. Yet the Army plan reduces the number of maneuver battalions by 20 percent below the number available in 2003, while increasing BCT headquarters by 11.5 percent.”
...Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's program analysis and evaluation directorate commissioned the analysis as part of its quadrennial review, an end-to-end study of Pentagon programs and policies. But when it became clear the Army would adamantly reject IDA's findings and recommendations, Rumsfeld's team declined to stand behind the new analysis, according to officials....
“IDA's position is that three maneuver battalions is more capable than two maneuver battalions. Guess what: We agree,” says the Army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. The disagreement comes in assessing the value of other elements of combat power -- information and leadership among them -- in compensating for the planned cuts in fires and maneuver capability....
The IDA study implies “that emerging technology is [still] emerging,” and thus it is too soon to count on its effects to compensate for a full battalion per brigade, says one official who asked to remain unnamed in this article.
Even looking into the future, technology may not prove to be a full substitute for combat “boots on the ground,” according to supporters of the IDA view....
Instead the Quadrennial Defense Review will likely cut the number of active-duty BCTs to 42, according to a draft copy of the Pentagon report. Army officials say the new figure better facilitates rotation plans to deploy active-duty soldiers for one year every three years.
Creating 42 BCTs in the active component and 28 in the Army National Guard “equates to a 46 percent increase in readily available combat power and a better balance between combat and support forces,” according to a recent draft version of the quadrennial review report, obtained by InsideDefense.com.
That stands in sharp contrast to IDA's contention that the Army's BCT plan will “lead to a deployable force that will be 43 percent smaller in terms of total maneuver battalions and companies in 2011 than was deployed in early 2005,” according to one of the papers it provided to the Defense Department. “If the Army is strained today by the current operations in Iraq, would it not be logical to assume that in the future fewer maneuver battalions would exacerbate the strain even further?”
This Los Angeles Times piece, "Pentagon Planning Document Leaves Iraq Out of Equation," has more on the QDR.
[W]hile some new lessons will be incorporated into the Pentagon review, the spending blueprint for the next four years will largely stick to the script Pentagon officials wrote before the Iraq war, according to those familiar with the nearly final document that will be presented to Congress in early February....
For more than two years, Army officials have been fending off questions about whether they have enough troops to complete their mission in Iraq and racing to get armor plates bolted onto Humvees and supply trucks to defend against homemade bombs.
But in the Pentagon blueprint, officials are once again talking about a futuristic force of robots, networked computers and drone aircraft. And they are planning no significant shift in resources to bulk up ground forces strained by the lengthy occupation of Iraq....
The number of soldiers needed to fight ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, meet other foreign commitments and ensure that there is a large enough reserve force to respond to a future crisis has been the subject of intense debate inside the Pentagon.
Gerald Baker of The Times (London) thinks so.
If Iran goes nuclear, it will demonstrate conclusively that even the world’s greatest superpower, unrivalled militarily, under a leadership of proven willingness to take bold military steps, could not stop a country as destabilising as Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.
No country in a region that is so riven by religious and ethnic hatreds will feel safe from the new regional superpower. No country in the region will be confident that the US and its allies will be able or willing to protect them from a nuclear strike by Iran. Nor will any regional power fear that the US and its allies will act to prevent them from emulating Iran. Say hello to a nuclear Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia.
Iran, of course, secure now behind its nuclear wall, will surely step up its campaign of terror around the world. It will become even more of a magnet and haven for terrorists. The terror training grounds of Afghanistan were always vulnerable if the West had the resolve. Protected by a nuclear-missile-owning state, Iranian camps will become impregnable.
From today's New York Times:
President Bush and the Chinese government both declared their full support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to allow Iran to operate civilian nuclear facilities as long as Russia and international nuclear inspectors are in full control of the fuel.
Mr. Bush's explicit public endorsement puts all of the major powers on record supporting the proposal, even as most acknowledge that it is a significant concession to Iran and runs the risk that the country will drag out the negotiations while continuing to produce nuclear material. Yet officials say they believe it is the best face-saving strategy to pursue a negotiated settlement with Iran.
European and American officials familiar with the details of the offer that Russia made to Iran say that Iran would continue to be allowed to operate its nuclear plant at Isfahan, which converts raw uranium into a form that is ready to be enriched. That is a step that both Europe and the United States said last year that they could not allow — and that was explicitly barred under the agreement between Iran and Europe in late 2004, because Iran could divert the uranium to secret enrichment facilities. Iran began operating the Isfahan plant again in August....
Critics of that concession say that it could send a signal to Iran that it no longer has to comply with all provisions of its November 2004 agreement with Europe.
"A red line was crossed" when Iran began producing the uranium last fall, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan research group that follows developments in Iran. "The Iranians got away with reopening the conversion facility, and now people have accepted it's never going to be shut again and have taken it off the table."
...While China favored the Russian proposal, it also firmly opposed the use of sanctions. That comes as a disappointment to Washington, which this week sent a top official to persuade China's leaders that they should do far more....
The Bush administration has not allowed its stated opposition to Iran's uranium conversion at Isfahan to block the Russian offer. "This is dangerous, but it is minimally acceptable as long as they are not enriching," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "The Russian proposal is the last best chance of resolving this without an escalation."
The Swedish diplomat is back in the news lecturing everyone on Iran, North Korea and world disarmament. Naturally, he uses the Iraq War as an example of his disarmament efforts being short-circuited. In a speech hosted by the Arms Control Association, he bemoans the “hyping and spinning that takes place in international affairs” and then does a lot of "spinning" of his own by failing to mention other historical facts in the lead up to the Iraq War.
According to the Global Security Newswire,
[Blix] noted that there was little U.S. reporting on ElBaradei’s claims before the invasion of Iraq that a document alleging an Iraqi attempt to buy uranium was forged. The Bush administration used the document to make its case against Iraq, but after the war conceded that ElBaradei was correct.
Nice piece of revisionism. In fact, the British report that reviewed this issue stated categorically that the president's uranium reference in his 2003 State of the Union address was "well-founded" and based on intelligence having nothing to do with the forged documents and ElBaradei's claim. Here are the relevant bits, on pages 123 and 125:
We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:
'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa'
was well-founded.
And:
From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.
d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
Blix continued:
“We carried out 700 inspections at 500 different sites … and said to the Security Council, and said to the United States and the Brits that we find no weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “Out of these places that we visited, there were about three dozen places or sites that were given to us by intelligence agencies in different countries and in none of them could we find any weapons of mass destruction.”
“My belief is that if we had been allowed to continue to carry out inspections for a couple of months more, we would then have been able to go to all the sites which were given by intelligence, and since there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction we would have reported that there weren’t any,” he said.
The "any" Blix is referring to includes the unaccounted for weapons of mass destruction -- the anthrax, VX, chemical & biological precursors, chemical rockets & shells, etc. -- that UN inspectors knew Saddam had produced but could not verify had been destroyed. The inspection regime agreed to by the Security Council was never about the number of inspections completed. It was about Saddam's regime actively engaging in disarmament and providing "verifiable evidence" to the Security Council that it had. The UN insistence on this "verifiable evidence" standard began in 1995 when Iraq was caught in a massive deception campaign to hide the scope of its weapons programs from the inspectors. From then on, the UN inspection team's conclusions on the state of Iraq's disarmament were to be solely based on "obtaining verifiable evidence including physical materials or documents; investigation of the successful concealment activities by Iraq; and, the thorough verification of the unilateral destruction events." In other words, Saddam had to prove he got rid of the stuff to ensure that he did not just stash it away somewhere beyond the eyes of the UN. Clinton Defense Secretary Cohen explained it this way in 1998:
[Inspectors] have to find documents, computer disks, production points, ammunition areas in an area that size [California]. Hussein has said, 'we have no program now.' We're saying, 'prove it.' He says he has destroyed all his nerve agent. [W]e're asking 'where, when and how?'"
Here's what Hans Blix said on the verification standard in late January 2003 –– though somehow I doubt he mentioned it in his speech.
Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance—not even today—of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace. As we know, the twin operation “declare and verify,” which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of “hide and seek.” Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations.
Blix also gave some concrete examples of the difficulty in verifying Iraq's disarmament without the active help of Saddam's regime. For instance,
January 27, 2003
The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions…. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
March 6, 2003
The result, so far, is that no underground facility of special interest has been found. Although they may be easier to find than mobile facilities, they are still a difficult target and it is always possible that inspectors have missed a hidden entrance. Like mobile facilities, any dedicated underground CW or BW facility could also have been dismantled prior to inspection. UNMOVIC does not dismiss the possibility that such facilities exist and will continue to investigate reports as appropriate. Given the vast number of potential underground “sites” capable of hosting CW or BW production or storage facilities in Iraq, inspections in this area will have to be dynamic and rely on specific intelligence information….
The long list of proscribed items unaccounted for and as such resulting in unresolved disarmament issues was neither shortened by the inspections, nor by Iraqi declarations and documents.
The fact the Saddam Hussein never complied with UN disarmament resolutions led Defense Secretary William Cohen to state on CNN one month AFTER coalition forces entered Iraq:
I am convinced that he has them. I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out. I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. We will find them.
When it comes to "spinning" Hans Blix should gaze into a mirror.
The answer will determine if Hamas changes its terror-bombing stripes and engages in real peace efforts. But the fastest way that will happen, Middle East expert Dennis Ross says, is if the U.S. and Europe "stick together" in demanding that Hamas reject terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist and the legitimacy of the peace process based on the concept of peaceful coexistence. A united front, Ross argues, is the most effective way Hamas will get the message that if you don't change, you will be "cut-off from the outside world." He also made the point in a Fox News interview today that Hamas will try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe as a means to gain some international recognition without renouncing their charter. Europe aside, what's clear is that the U.S. government can't conduct a credible War on Terror while at the same time work with a Palestinian government that supports terrorist attacks.
The ball is in Hamas' court.
From USA Today:
The U.S. military cited incidents of insurgent infighting in a rare public description of a split:
• At least six ranking members of al-Qaeda in Iraq have been assassinated by Sunni insurgents or tribal gunmen in separate incidents since September, Zahner said. The killings are usually in retaliation for al-Qaeda's role in violence, such as the execution of local police officers, he said.
• In Ramadi, in western Iraq, he said, armed clashes have erupted between local Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda operatives in recent months. At least one high-ranking al-Qaeda member, Abu Khatab, was recently run out of Ramadi by insurgents loyal to the local tribe.
• Near the Syrian border, members of the Albu Mahal tribe, which attacked U.S. positions as recently as March, have lately been pointing U.S. troops to al-Qaeda hideouts, Zahner said.
Senator Clinton, who not long ago claimed she was duped into voting for the Iraq War resolution, is now opposed to the NSA operation. She says monitoring al Qaeda communications should be done in a "lawful way," but doesn't know if the current spy program broke any laws. I'm sure General Michael Hayden will be gratified with the New York senator's judiciousness. Sen. Clinton also believes the president's legal justification of the program -- that it's "rooted in the Constitution inherently" -- is "kind of strange because we have FISA and FISA operated very effectively and it wasn't that hard to get their permission." Fine (Though, the senator should review her own administration's position on "inherent" powers). If Sen. Clinton believes the NSA program as currently structured isn't necessary and others say it's unconstitutional, she and her House colleagues should seek to cut off congressional funding for it. Sen. Clinton won't want to do that, of course, which is why Republicans may want to force the issue.
As efforts continue to stop a nuclear-armed Iran and with a new Russian proposal out there, this recent Weekly Standard piece should be kept in mind by U.S. and EU-3 policymakers. Of course, this assumes that the collective goal is an Iran with no nuclear weapons.
If nothing else, Roberta Wohlstetter's writings on Pearl Harbor and "slow Pearl Harbors" should remind us that, in using negotiations as a means to the end of disarming nascent nuclear-armed nations, or preventing nations from building nuclear explosives, we should be careful not to give up our end in order to obtain our means. For disasters, both foreseeable and unforeseeable, may follow.
From USA Today:
[Retired Army officer Andrew] Krepinevich said in the interview that he understands why Pentagon officials do not state publicly that they are being forced to reduce troop levels in Iraq because of stress on the Army. "That gives too much encouragement to the enemy....
The Road to Euro Serfdom found this nugget from Britain's Sun:
HUNDREDS of EU politicians and welfare officials enjoyed an extravagant weekend junket — to discuss poverty.
Britain’s pensions minister James Plaskitt was among 250 delegates at Villach in Austria. They ate gourmet meals and many visited health spas.
Even the chairs for their meeting were flown 200 miles from Vienna — because the originals were judged to be too uncomfortable.
The conference was called to discuss the EU’s 32million jobless, and 70million living on the poverty line.
"This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West," reports Haaretz.
[I]f Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz.
And today's Telegraph reports:
Iran is racing to dig a network of tunnels and upgrade its air defences to protect its nuclear facilities from possible attacks by America or Israel, it was reported yesterday....
Seeking to avoid a repeat of Israel's 1981 air raid on Osiraq, Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued orders for the underground complexes to be completed by the beginning of July, Jane's Defence Weekly reported.
William Kristol made the following remarks on Fox News' "The Big Story" yesterday:
"I think he's [President Bush} got the authority and I think he has an extremely strong legal case....
Al Qaeda released an audio of bin Laden Friday saying operations were being planned against us here in the United States. What the president is doing is authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on communications from al Qaeda terrorists abroad into the United States.
Do his critics believe he shouldn't do that? Is that really their position? Is that their serious position? He should challenge them on that. I think he has an extremely strong position and should be very aggressive in not only defending it but in challenging the critics. What is it that they would have him do? Ignore the communications into the United States?
...Is the critics' position that we should not be intercepting these calls and that judges should be second-guessing career officials at the National Security Agency as to which calls they should intercept? Is the critics' position that we should have public discussions in Congress about our sources and methods about the ways in which we know what calls to intercept?
What exactly do the critics want? I think the president needs to stick it to the critics a little bit and say what is it that you would have me do as president of the United States when we have been attacked in the United States and when al Qaeda is planning further attacks?
...I suppose you could right a law that says the president has a blank check, as he does overseas. No one doubts the president can intercept communications between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the question is what about communications from Afghanistan into the United States?
Incidentally, when there are communications within the United States the president does go to the courts. This administration has gone to the FISA court more than any previous administration, because when they find out the al Qaeda guys are calling a certain number in the U.S., then they go to the court and say we need to tap this phone here in the U.S.
I don't even know what kind of legislation you can write to authorize the variety of things the president has to do in terms of intercepting overseas calls coming into the United States. But I suppose maybe he should challenge Congress. Write legislation, give me this authority. I don't think I need it. But if it makes you feel better to give me the authority, give me the authority. What is most starting about this is here we have General Hayden, former head of the National Security Agency, appointed to that position by President Clinton, a career military man, career lawyers at the National Security Agency, no political appointees there, all of them testifying there have been no abuses.
This is being done carefully and legally and has saved lives and prevented terror plots here in the United States. Let the critics explain, do they disbelieve General Hayden. Do they think he's a Republican political hack?
The president really needs to call this criticism for what it is which is really cheap and irresponsible criticism of an important part of our national security."
He also called the program critical to the war on terror in a time when the tools of surveillance were changing rapidly. "It is my belief," he said, "that had this program been in place before 9/11, it is my judgment that it would identified some of the Al Qaeda operatives in the United States, and would have identified them as such."
"This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with Al Qaeda."
As a Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Kerry had his staff remove a blog from the Kerry for President web site blogroll because of these comments. But Sen. Kerry now blogs on the same site he once banished because in those days a connection to the site was a political liability for a candidate running away from the ghost of Michael Dukakis. But with Hillary Clinton on the 2008 horizon, John Kerry apparently needs all the help he can get. But desperate as he is, one wonders if the senator has read the latest comment from his new blog buddy.
The reason we hate Islamic fundamentalists is pretty much the same reason we're fighting to take back this country from the Republicans. They are two peas from the same pod, and diametrically opposed to everything we liberals stand for.
"Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party defeated the long entrenched Liberal Party in Canadian elections on Monday," the New York Times reports. "A Conservative victory is a striking turn in the country's politics and is likely to improve Canada's strained relations with the Bush administration."
But it wasn't supposed to be this way. Remember after the March 14, 2004 Spanish election when voters replaced Prime Minister José María Aznar with the Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero? Liberal editorialists and politicians claimed that other pro-Bush leaders were likely to follow Aznar's fate. The president's misadventure in Iraq had sparked a wave of anti-Americanism that would also topple other governments in Australia and Britain. But Australia's John Howard won a fourth term, while Tony Blair was elected to an unprecedented third. Subsequently, Germany's Gerhard Schröder ran on an anti-American platform, as did Canada's Paul Martin. And guess what? They lost.
No doubt President Bush will gladly welcome Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the White House, just as he did when Germany's Merkel paid a visit a short time ago.
Kin-ming Liu, former Washington-based columnist for Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, writes in to the Worldwide Standard with some suggestions. He states:
"The time is now to place Hong Kong on the front burner of President Bush's democracy enlargement agenda.
The administration of Chief Executive Donald Tsang, squeezed by the growing demand for democracy in Hong Kong and ongoing disdain for it in Beijing, proposed some Beijing-backed political 'reforms' that were defeated recently by pro-democracy members of the Legislature Council.
Beijing officials reacted to the defeat by accusing the U.S. of making 'rash comments on Hong Kong affairs for quite a period of time, violating the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs.' Referring to Hong Kong as 'China's Hong Kong' and 'China's internal affairs,' Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang asked the U.S. to refrain from any comments or acts that would interfere in China's internal affairs and place obstacles in the way the Hong Kong government operates. A Hong Kong government official also expressed 'disappointment' with the U.S.: 'We would not wish any foreign governments to give the impression that they were meddling in Hong Kong's affairs.'
Of course, the comments of U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack the day after the vote were, in truth, quite ordinary and tame: 'We believe the people and the Government of Hong Kong should determine the pace and scope of political reform in accordance with the Basic Law. The people of Hong Kong have repeatedly expressed their aspiration for progress towards democracy and their desire for a firm commitment to the implementation of universal suffrage. We support those goals and believe that the sooner a timetable for achieving universal suffrage is established, the better.'
One could dismiss the above exchanges as diplomatic routine. But I believe the fact that China would even choose to rebuke such a non-revolutionary statement is telling. What Washington thinks of Hong Kong must matter to Beijing. Otherwise, why bother? In fact, to Beijing, what Washington thinks of Hong Kong always matters more than what the people of Hong Kong think of their own home.
Chinese protests mean America is hitting where it hurts. Washington should increase and not decrease pressure at this point. It can’t be overemphasized that what the outside world is trying to do is simply to ask China to fulfill its own pledges on Hong Kong, not to make new demands or create new issues. Here are a few suggestions for consideration.
1. The issue of democracy in Hong Kong should be added to the sundry list of issues American officials raise with their Chinese counterparts every time they meet.
2. The U.S. Consulate-General in Hong Kong should raise its profile and be the first whistle blower of any further violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
3. Washington can always use the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 as the basis to stop treating Hong Kong as a separate entity from China should Hong Kong lose its autonomy. Afterall, why should Hong Kong receive special treatment from the U.S. if its political climate is indistinguishable from that of other Chinese cities?
4. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee should hold hearings on Hong Kong on a regular basis, particularly after the release of the annual U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act report and the State Department human rights report. Nothing beats congressional scrutiny on how China is treating Hong Kong and, more importantly, what the U.S. administration is doing about it.
China no doubt wants to keep Hong Kong as an internal matter. But the Joint Declaration, signed in 1984, was an international agreement registered at the United Nations. Support of the agreement from the international community, America’s included, was widely sought and obtained by China. When China promised Hong Kong 'one country, two systems,' Beijing wanted the whole world to applaud. But when China breaks the promise of letting 'Hong Kong people run Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy,' Beijing now expects everyone to turn a blind eye.
Will the world's governments blindly obey?"
Here are two pieces worth reading. Philip Sherwell reports in the Sunday Telegraph that,
Iran has secretly extended the uranium enrichment plant at the centre of the international controversy over its resumption of banned nuclear research earlier this month, satellite imagery has revealed....
The discovery has heightened fears that Iran is stepping up the pace of its suspected weapons programme, in breach of international agreements, since it removed International Atomic Energy Authority seals on nuclear equipment at the site 10 days ago.
The building work took place unannounced during a 16-month pause in research and development at the site, while Iran engaged the West in protracted talks over its professed desire to develop nuclear power....
John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent Washington defence research consultancy that specialises in analysing satellite images, told this newspaper: "These pictures indicate that Iran is replicating every major step that Pakistan took in its atomic bomb programme."
...Evidence of new building at Natanz has further fuelled concerns about Iran's intentions. "It is surprising to see how much construction work has taken place," said Mr Pike. "The Iranians have been very busy even while the seals were in place."
...The Iranians kept the existence of the Natanz and Araq sites secret until 2002 when IAEA inspectors confirmed opposition claims that Iran had been conducting a nuclear programme for 18 years.
And Agence France-Presse reports:
Iran may have received three shipments of sophisticated P-2 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, diplomats said, which could support Western claims that Tehran is hiding sensitive nuclear work.
Iran, which already has the less high-tech P-1 centrifuges, denies having received the more advanced machines, which make enriching uranium easier.
One diplomat said there were reportedly three shipments of one centrifuge each from the black-market network of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in 1997....
The [IAEA] said it had "emphasized to Iran the importance of providing the additional requested supporting documentation" on its work with both P-1's and P-2's.
Non-proliferation analyst David Albright told AFP from Washington that the Khan network "always sent sample machines with designs."
"It would make sense if Iran got this. This is how the Khan network worked. They had stockpiles of these things in Dubai," said Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector.
If Iran "imported whole P-2 machines, that's a significant difference from what they told the IAEA," he said.
He said that while "you can't argue they are somehow hiding enrichment but you can certainly argue they have been hiding a significant part of their P-2 program."
With Congressional hearings set and as today's front-page New York Times story indicates, the NSA spying controversy isn't going to fade away. Opponents of the program claim the president broke the law, while supporters say the president has the constitutional and statutory authority to conduct the surveillance. There are also some who believe it's a close call but also maintain that the president has the unique responsibility to defend the nation and acted accordingly.
But where does Mayor Giuliani stand? Will Sen. Arlen Specter invite the mayor to give his perspective on the program? My guess is that the mayor generally backs the president's decision to implement the surveillance and given his background is someone the American people should hear from.
The former secretary of state, in today's Sunday Times of London, ...
On troop strength in Iraq:
“There were enough troops to defeat the army. (But that) was only part of the battle. The difficult part was taking control of a very large country with 25m people and you have just taken out the whole government. And guess what: who then becomes the new government? You do, under the laws of land warfare. We were not able to take control, nor did we have the right political approach.
“We were characterizing the insurgents as a few dead-enders and saying, ‘This isn’t all that bad’. A larger troop presence would have been helpful. I raised the question. The Pentagon says that is not what the generals thought. But the generals were working under political direction that said ‘this is not going to be that bad’. But it did turn out that bad — we were unable to strangle the insurgency in its crib — and now it is raging.”
On his Iraq UN speech:
Wasn’t the inaccuracy of the intelligence the fault of politicos pressuring spooks to produce smoking guns? “I wanted to know what the truth was. When I prepared my UN speech I sat there for four days and nights: we went through everything, to make sure this huge presentation I was giving, watched by the whole world, was accurate. Every word was approved by the CIA with no political pressure. I tossed out things because they weren’t sufficiently sourced.”
From the Jerusalem Post (January 20, 2006):
Former US president Jimmy Carter expressed optimism Friday over Hamas's participation in next week's Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Carter told CNN in an interview that although Hamas were "so-called terrorists," so far "there have been no complaints of corruption against [their] elected officials."
He conceded that "there is an element within Hamas who deny Israel's right to exist," but compared the current situation to negotiations with the PLO, which was still outlawed as a terrorist organization during his presidency.
He drew an additional comparison with Menachem Begin's rise to Israel's premiership in the seventies. "The Irgun, to which Begin belonged, was also characterized as a terrorist organization," he noted.
From GlobalSecurity.org:
Since the beginning of the current wave of Palestinian violence, in September 2000, Hamas has perpetrated 52 suicide attacks, in which 288 Israelis were murdered and 1,646 were wounded. Among the more infamous Hamas suicide bombings and terrorist attacks were (the following is a representative, not exhaustive, list):
* The 1 June 2001 suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv discotheque, in which 21 people were murdered and 120 were wounded;
* The 9 August 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem restaurant, in which 15 people were murdered and 130 were wounded;
* The 1 December 2001 double suicide bombing on the Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and 188 were wounded;
* The 2 December 2001 suicide bombing of a #16 bus in Haifa, in which 15 people were murdered and 40 were wounded;< | | | |
