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;
* The 9 March 2002 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem cafe, in which 11 people were murdered and 54 were wounded;
* The 27 March 2002 suicide bombing of a Netanya hotel on the first night of Passover, in which 30 people were murdered and 140 were wounded;
* The 18 June 2002 suicide bombing of a #32A bus in Jerusalem, in which 19 people were murdered and 74 were wounded;
* The 4 August 2002 suicide bombing of #361 bus at Meron junction, in which nine people were murdered and 50 were wounded;
* The 21 November 2002 suicide bombing of a #20 bus in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and 50 were wounded;
* The 5 March 2003 suicide bombing of a #37 bus in Haifa, in which 17 people were murdered and 53 were wounded;
* The 17 May 2003 suicide bombing in Hebron, in which two people were murdered;
* The 18 May 2003 suicide bombing of a #6 bus in Jerusalem, in which seven people were murdered and 20 wounded;
* The 11 June 2003 suicide bombing of #14A bus in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and over 100 were wounded;
* The 19 August 2003 suicide bombing of a #2 bus in Jerusalem, in which 23 people were murdered and over 130 were wounded;
* The 9 September 2003 suicide bombing of a hitchhiking post near the IDF base at Tzrifin, in which nine soldiers were murdered and 10 were wounded;
* The 9 September 2003 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem cafe, in which seven people were murdered and 70 were wounded;
* The 29 January 2004 suicide bombing of a #19 bus in Jerusalem, in which 11 people were murdered and 44 were wounded;
* The 14 March 2004 double suicide bombing at Ashdod port, in which 10 people were murdered and 16 were wounded.

The Washington Post's David Ignatius is always a must read if you want to know some of the foreign policy thinking percolating inside an administration. Today, he writes:

They want to avoid, if possible, a situation that appears to be a Bush vs. Iran confrontation. The administration decided last year to work the nuclear problem through the European Union countries negotiating with Iran -- Britain, France and Germany -- in part to avoid making America the issue. Although the E.U. negotiations have failed to stop the Iranian nuclear program, administration officials hope to maintain a united front as the issue moves toward the United Nations.

A key question for U.S. officials is how to assess Ahmadinejad's radicalism. Many were surprised by the belligerent tone of his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last September, and worries deepened after his reckless statements denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel's destruction. The toxic spirit of the 1979 revolution seemed to have returned.

An intellectual benchmark in the Iran debate was a briefing given to officials last fall by Jack A. Goldstone, a professor at George Mason University who is an expert on revolutions. He argued that Iran wasn't conforming to the standard model laid out in Crane Brinton's famous study, "The Anatomy of Revolution," which argued that initial upheaval is followed by a period of consolidation and eventual stability. Instead, Ahmadinejad illustrated what Goldstone called "the return of the radicals." Something similar happened 15 to 20 years after the Russian and Chinese revolutions -- with Stalin's purges in the late 1930s and Mao's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, Goldstone explained. He argued that Iran was undergoing a similar recrudescence of radicalism that, as in China and Russia, would inevitably trigger internal conflict.

The gist of Goldstone's analysis gradually percolated up to Rice, Hadley and others. What has intrigued policymakers is the argument that Ahmadinejad's extremism will eventually trigger a counterreaction -- much as the Cultural Revolution in China led to the pragmatism of Deng Xiaoping. Officials see signs that some Iranian officials -- certainly former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and perhaps also the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- are worried by Ahmadinejad's fulminations. Unless the Iranian president moderates his line, wider splits in the regime are almost inevitable, officials believe. They also predict that his extremism will be increasingly unpopular with the Iranian people, who want to be more connected with the rest of the world rather than more isolated.

Of course, working the Iran problem through the E.U. for as long as we did before moving on to the Security Council has had a downside. It has given Iran more time to complete a workable nuclear weapon if that's Tehran's goal. But this gets to the second point that -- like Stalin and Mao -- "Ahmadinejad's extremism will eventually trigger a counterreaction." Are Bush administration officials suggesting that broad U.S. support for pro-democracy Iranian dissidents would be a mistake? That if we are patient more moderate elements like Rafsanjani and Khamenei will push the nutty former mayor of Tehran and his cronies aside? But even if that were to happen, can the U.S. tolerate such a regime armed with nuclear weapons as we did during and after the era of Stalin and Mao? Ignatius' piece, "Containing Tehran," appears to add to the confusion on what exactly is U.S. Iran policy.

The Act's (S. 333) purpose is "to hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." It would tighten sanctions on the current regime in Tehran and, among other things, support "efforts by the Iranian people to exercise self-determination over their form of government." Introduced last February by Senator Santorum [R-PA], the bill has 41 cosponsors, including 12 Democrats. Unfortunately, the Foreign Relations Committee hasn't had a single hearing on it. Why Chairman Lugar [R-IN] hasn't scheduled one is a good question. With the bill apparently stuck in committee, Senate supporters should seek to attach it to an appropriate piece of legislation that will be hitting the Senate floor in the coming weeks.

S. 333 Cosponsors

Allen [R-VA], Bayh [D-IN], Boxer [D-CA], Bunning [R-KY], Burns [R-MT], Burr [R-NC], Coburn [R-OK], Cochran [R-MS], Coleman [R-MN], Collins [R-ME], Conrad [D-ND], Cornyn [R-TX], Craig [R-ID], Crapo [R-ID], DeMint [R-SC], DeWine [R-OH], Dole [R-NC], Dorgan [D-ND], Durbin [D-IL], Ensign [R-NV], Feinstein [D-CA], Inhofe [R-OK], Isakson [R-GA], Johnson [D-SD], Kyl [R-AZ], Landrieu [D-LA], Levin [D-MI], Lott [R-MS], Martinez [R-FL], McCain [R-AZ], Mikulski [D-MD], Nelson [D-FL], Nelson [D-NE], Sessions [R-AL], Snowe [R-ME], Stabenow [D-MI], Sununu [R-NH], Talent [R-MO], Thomas [R-WY], Thune [R-SD], Vitter [R-LA]

From Reuters:

Putin and Blatter accuse EU of imperialism
Sun Jan 15, 2006 1:31 PM GMT

MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Sunday accused the European Union of "imperial" aggression in soccer.

"As a FIFA chief I have a big problem. The EU tries to have too much influence on how football is run in EU countries and they are trying to extend that influence to the rest of Europe," Russian news agency Itar-Tass quoted Blatter as saying during his visit to the Kremlin.

Last month, the European Commission, prompted by British sports minister Richard Caborn, launched an inquiry into European soccer, focussing on the regulation of agents, club financing, home-grown players and the continued investment into grass roots football and stadiums.

The sports ministers of major European football nations such as Spain, France, Germany and Italy, were also involved in discussion on how to reform the game.

Caborn said at the time that his initiative had the support of Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Lennart Johansson.

But on Sunday Blatter said: "We can't allow 25 EU countries to dictate their rules to 207 nations worldwide."

Presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton has some tough words on preventing Iran from getting nukes.

"We cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons," she said. "In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations."

The Russia the Senator refers to would be the same one Al Gore cut a deal with that emboldened "sales of missile and nuclear technology to Iran" and, if you believe Zbigniew Brzezinski and James Schlesinger, the sale "of highly threatening military equipment such as modern submarines, fighter planes, and wake-homing torpedoes." Both Carter administration officials signed this letter in October 2000:

Statement by Former Secretaries of State, Defense, Directors of Central Intelligence and National Security Advisors on the Sale of Russian Weapons to Iran, October 24, 2000

The following individuals, who include supporters of both Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Gore, believe strongly that:

``The President's most important job is safeguarding our nation's security and our ability to protect our interests, our citizens and our allies and friends. The military balance in regions of vital interest to America and her allies--including the Persian Gulf, which is a critical source of the world's energy supplies--is the essential underpinning for a strong foreign policy.

``This is why we are deeply disturbed by the agreement made between Vice President Gore and then Russian Premier Chernomyrdin in which America acquiesced in the sale by Russia to Iran of highly threatening military equipment such as modern submarines, fighter planes, and wake-homing torpedoes.

``We also find incomprehensible that this agreement was not fully disclosed even to those committees of Congress charged with receiving highly classified briefings--apparently at the request of the Russian Premier. But agreement to this request is even more disturbing since the Russian sales could have brought about sanctions against Russia in accordance with a 1992 U.S. law sponsored by Senator John McCain and then Senator Al Gore.''

George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State.
James A. Baker, III, former Secretary of State.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Frank C. Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense and former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Lawrence S. Eagleburger, former Secretary of State.
Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State and former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense.
James R. Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense and former Director of Central Intelligence.
Brent Scowcroft, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Caspar W. Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense.
R. James Woolsey, Attorney and former Director of Central Intelligence.

UPDATE

CIA Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Related to Weapons of Mass Destruction, 1 January through 30 June 2000:

Russia also remained a key supplier for civilian nuclear programs in Iran, primarily focused on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant project. With respect to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, Russian assistance enhances Iran's ability to support a nuclear weapons development effort. By its very nature, even the transfer of civilian technology may be of use in Iran's nuclear weapons program. We remain concerned that Tehran is seeking more than a buildup of its civilian infrastructure, and the Intelligence Community will be closely monitoring the relationship with Moscow for any direct assistance in support of a military program.

Testimony of John A. Lauder, Director of the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 5, 2000:

Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin with a few comments on Russian aid to Iran's nuclear power and nuclear weapons program. The Intelligence Community judges that Iran is actively pursuing the acquisition of fissile material and the expertise and technology necessary to form the material into nuclear weapons. As part of this process, Iran is attempting to develop the capability to produce both plutonium and highly-enriched uranium.

As part of this effort, Iran is seeking nuclear-related equipment, material, and technical expertise from a variety of foreign sources, most notably in Russia. Tehran claims that it seeks foreign assistance to master nuclear technology for civilian research and nuclear energy programs. However, the expertise and technology gained-along with the contacts established-could be used to advance Iran's nuclear weapons effort.

See here for BBC translation of bin Laden's remarks.

Victoria Toensing in today's Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece (sub. req'd) that takes on critics of the Bush administration's NSA surveillance program. She points out, among other things, the folly of two of the most often heard arguments peddled by critics: 1) you can always go back and get a FISA warrant 72 hours after placing the tap; and 2) why did the president not ask Congress to change the FISA law.

Even if time were not an issue, any emergency FISA application must still establish the required probable cause within 72 hours of placing the tap. So al Qaeda agent A is captured in Afghanistan and has agent B's number in his cell phone, which is monitored by NSA overseas. Agent B makes two or three calls every day to agent C, who flies to New York. That chain of facts, without further evidence, does not establish probable cause for a court to believe that C is an agent of a foreign power with information about terrorism. Yet, post 9/11, do the critics want NSA to cease monitoring agent C just because he landed on U.S. soil?

Why did the president not ask Congress in 2001 to amend FISA to address these problems? My experience is instructive. After the TWA incident, I suggested asking the Hill to change the law. A career Justice Department official responded, "Congress will make it a political issue and we may come away with less ability to monitor." The political posturing by Democrats who suddenly found problems with the NSA program after four years of supporting it during classified briefings only confirms that concern.

It took 9/11 for Congress to pass the amendment breaking down the "wall," which had been on the Justice Department's wish list for 16 years. And that was just the simple tweak of changing two words. The issues are vastly more complicated now, requiring an entirely new technical paradigm, which could itself become obsolete with the next communications innovation.

There are other valid reasons for the president not to ask Congress for a legislative fix. To have public debate informs terrorists how we monitor them, harming our intelligence-gathering to an even greater extent than the New York Times revelation about the NSA program. Asking Congress for legislation would also weaken the legal argument, cited by every administration since 1978, that the president has constitutional authority beyond FISA to conduct warrantless wiretaps to acquire foreign intelligence information.

Yesterday, the Bush administration went a step further in tying top Syrian officials to the insurgency in Iraq. In his daily press briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan stated:

We remain deeply concerned about Syria's destablizing behavior in the Middle East and its continued support for terrorism. The regime in Syria has failed to comply with several Security Council resolutions. Today the Department of Treasury designated Assef Shawkat, pursuant to an executive order the President issued in May of '04. Among other things, this order allows the United States government to block the assets of individuals who play a role in Syria's support for terrorism.

Mr. Shawkat, as Syria's chief of military intelligence, has directly contributed to Syria's support for terrorism, including the insurgency in Iraq, Palestinian terrorist groups given shelter in Damascus, and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in Lebanon. Mr. Shawkat has also been deeply involved in Syria's ongoing interference in the destabilization of Lebanon. We are seeing democracy take firm root in Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinian Territories, and elsewhere in the region. Syria continues to be out of step with the direction the rest of the Middle East is headed.

Today's action is a significant signal that those like Mr. Shawkat, who support Syrian terrorism will be held to account. As you're well aware, we have previously designated other Syrian officials under this executive order, as well.

Of course, Shawkat works for President Bashar Assad, who, according to a September 26, 2005 Time article, is apparently quite familiar with insurgent leaders in Iraq.

Starting in November 2003, tribal sheiks and Baathist expatriates held a series of monthly meetings at the Cham Palace hotel in Damascus. They were public events, supposedly meetings to express solidarity with the Iraqi opposition to the U.S. occupation. (The January 2004 gathering was attended by Syrian President Bashar Assad.) Behind the scenes, however, the meetings provided a convenient cover for leaders of the insurgency, including Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed, the former Military Bureau director, to meet, plan and distribute money. A senior military officer told TIME that U.S. intelligence had an informant--a mid-level Baathist official who belonged to the Dulaimi tribe--attending the meetings and keeping the Americans informed about the insurgents' growing cohesion.

Saul Singer of the Jerusalem Post has an interesting piece on Iran here.

But Iran is not Libya, Iraq, or North Korea. It does not consider itself a pariah state, nor is it as self-isolated from the world. Though an oil exporter, Iran must import 40 percent of its refined fuel from abroad. Cutting off diplomatic ties, scientific exchanges, and the right to participate in sports events, such as the 2006 World Cup, in addition to the menu of sanctions that were imposed on Libya, would deal a devastating blow to the legitimacy of the Iranian regime.

What matters most now is speed and seriousness. Weak, lowest common denominator sanctions could be worse than nothing. If China or Russia are unwilling to allow the Security Council to impose a "Libya-plus" sanctions package, the US, UK, France and Germany should impose such sanctions as a group, and encourage all free nations to join them.

Iran is betting, even though it much weaker than the democracies it confronts, that the West will not have the will to stand up to its threats. The UN may continue fail its own Charter by proving an obstacle to, rather than a vehicle for, such collective action.

But this is not a reason for free nations to allow a single rogue state to usher in a future of increasing terrorism and nuclear blackmail... at best.

A friend of the Worldwide Standard sends along some thoughts on the recent op-ed piece, "The Real Choice in Iraq," penned by President Carter's national security advisor.

He writes:

In his January 8, 2006 op-ed in the Washington Post, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in enumerating his criticisms of the Bush Administration, wrote this:

The administration's definition of 'defeat' [regarding Iraq] is similarly misleading. Official and unofficial spokesmen often speak in terms that recall the apocalyptic predictions made earlier regarding the consequences of American failure to win in Vietnam: dominoes falling, the region exploding and U.S. power discredited.

I thought it might be interesting to find out specifically who Mr. Brzezinski may have had in mind in ridiculing the "apocalyptic predictions" (dominoes falling, the region exploding and U.S. power discredited) if America failed to win in Vietnam. It turns out he might have had in mind someone like the Director of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs and professor of law and government at Columbia University in the 1960s: Zbigniew Brzezinski.

In a March 1, 1964 op-ed in the Washington Post ("'Neutral' Viet-Nam a Chinese Backyard: Noted Student of Communism Says De Gaulle Suggestion Would Be U.S. Defeat and A Handover to Peking"), Mr. Brzezinski responded to a press conference by French President Charles de Gaulle, who concluded that the United States was neither capable nor had the will to stay in Southeast Asia. President de Gaulle argued for the "neutralization" of South Viet-Nam -- de Gaulle's gracious way of handing the area over to the Chinese, Mr. Brzezinski said. And what did Mr. Brzezinski think of this recommendation? Not much.

In his op-ed, Mr. Brzezinski wrote that it would "be nothing less than an American defeat. Furthermore, it would leave Southeast Asia without any countervailing political force to that of China. In effect, it would transform that area into a Chinese political back yard."

And then, under the heading "A Row of Dominos" (!), Mr. Brzezinski wrote this:

As a result it is certain beyond question that there would be immediate political instability in Thailand, whose northeast is already exposed to insurgency and whose politicians are already fearful that American commitments are not to be trusted. Malaysia, until two years ago an area of Communist insurgency, would be certain to fall, and the collapse of these states would have a direct impact on the present insurgency in Burma.

The collapse of the small Southeast Asian states would not only benefit China politically and economically but it would be likely to have further unsettling effects on India and Indonesia. One cannot predict precisely what would happen -- but it is clear that stability is not to be sought through neutralization.

Mr. Brzezinski concludes his op-ed this way:

The effect of the policy of neutralization would be an escalation of international tension. One may also add that the loss of South Viet-Nam would be likely to have a very negative impact on the American domestic scene. It would reawaken extreme right-wing claims that there has been a new betrayal, and it could result in a new wave of extremism in two or three years from now.

Next time Mr. Brzezinski might want to consult his own past writings in order to avoid sharply criticizing them.

Eric Lichtblau's piece, "2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim," in today's New York Times reports on a

high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department....The analysts' doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

At the end of the piece, Ambassador Joe Wilson is quoted:

Mr. Wilson said in an interview that he did not remember ever seeing the memo but that its analysis should raise further questions about why the White House remained convinced for so long that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

"All the people understood that there was documentary evidence" suggesting that the intelligence about the sale was faulty, he said.

Some points

The assessment Lichtblau is referring to is most likely the 2002 assessment the Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research produced following Wison's Niger trip. But the reporter fails to mention the view held by MOST other intelligence assessments. According to the Senate's 2004 bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,

The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq. (p. 73)

Will the New York Times seek out these other assessments?

The same Senate report also concluded:

Even after obtaining the forged documents and being alerted by a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst about problems with them, analysts at both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not examine them carefully enough to see the obvious problems with the documents. Both agencies continued to publish assessments that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa. In addition, CIA continued to approve the use of similar language in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union.(p. 77)

Regarding those forged documents, Lichtblau writes:

The analysts' doubts were registered nearly a year before President Bush, in what became known as the infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

The White House later acknowledged that the charge, which played a part in the decision to invade Iraq in the belief that Baghdad was reconstituting its nuclear program, relied on faulty intelligence and should not have been included in the speech. Two months ago, Italian intelligence officials concluded that a set of documents at the center of the supposed Iraq-Niger link had been forged by an occasional Italian spy.

In his 2003 address, President Bush stated:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

But the Times' reporting on State's INR assessment only addresses "the likelihood that Niger would try to sell uranium to Baghdad." But what about the Saddam "sought" part? Indeed, the British have stood by their assessment. In fact, the Butler report states 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. The report also makes the distinction between "sought" and "purchased."

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.

On another point, Saddam's relationship with Niger didn't begin in the 1990's. It goes back at least to the Osirak reactor days. According to the June 22, 1981 Newsweek,

The Osirak reactor was theoretically only for research purposes—but Iraq twice refused a French offer to supply it with low-enriched uranium, insisting instead on weapons-grade, 93 per cent enriched fuel. Iraq was also operating an Italian-built “hot cell” lab for extracting plutonium, and had arranged to buy large quantities of uranium from Brazil, Portugal and Niger—all without any investment in a nuclear-energy program.

Powerline has more here.

From the Associated Press:

LONDON, England -- There is a "very high" probability that a terrorist group will strike using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said in comments published Tuesday.

"I rate the probability of terror groups using (weapons of mass destruction) as very high," U.S. State Department counterterrorism coordinator Henry Crumpton was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "It is simply a question of time."

Crumpton said a biological attack was potentially the most troubling scenario. He said evidence from Afghanistan suggested al-Qaeda had been seeking to develop anthrax before the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.

"It is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me," he was quoted as saying. "I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow."

"As catastrophic as a nuclear attack would be, it would be self-contained. But if you look at a worst-case scenario for a biological attack, it would be difficult to determine whether or not it was a terrorist attack, and it would be far more difficult to contain."

Crumpton told the newspaper that U.S. and international efforts had severely disrupted the al-Qaeda network since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but that "in all probability" Osama bin Laden was still alive.

After exposing yet another top-secret program, the New York Times is now doing its best to portray the program as not having much intelligence value. Today's front-page story, "Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends," is the first of what will undoubtedly be a steady stream of other pieces where anonymous FBI sources leak against the NSA. But, if accurate, why is it surprising that much of the NSA data led to "dead ends" exactly? We still don't know everyone the 9/11 terrorists associated with and immediately following the attacks officials were worried that al Qaeda had inserted other "sleeper cells" inside the U.S. to carryout more attacks. The follow-on attacks never came but does that mean al Qaeda has no presence inside the U.S.? After our intelligence agencies failed to detect the 9/11 plot, we shouldn't presume that such cells might exist and use a variety of methods to detect them before they become operational? Do Democrats disagree? Do Democratic leaders agree with those saying that the president has no constitutional authority to authorize "wiretapping" outside of FISA?

Adm. Bobby Inman, a former NSA director, makes a similar point on intelligence collection in the Times piece:

It isn't at all surprising to me that people not accustomed to doing this would say, "Boy, this is an awful lot of work to get a tiny bit of information," [said Inman]. But the rejoinder to that is, Have you got anything better?

And:

Admiral Inman...said the F.B.I. complaints about thousands of dead-end leads revealed a chasm between very different disciplines. Signals intelligence, the technical term for N.S.A.'s communications intercepts, rarely produces "the complete information you're going to get from a document or a witness" in a traditional F.B.I. investigation, he said.

Even so, while the Times claims "officials said the program had uncovered no active Qaeda networks inside the United States planning attacks," they also report that,

some of the officials said the eavesdropping program might have helped uncover people with ties to Al Qaeda in Albany; Portland, Ore.; and Minneapolis. Some of the activities involved recruitment, training or fund-raising....

[O]fficials agree that the N.S.A.'s domestic operations played a role in the arrest of an imam and another man in Albany in August 2004 as part of an F.B.I. counterterrorism sting investigation. The men, Yassin Aref, 35, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, are awaiting trial on charges that they attempted to engineer the sale of missile launchers to an F.B.I. undercover informant.

In addition, government officials said the N.S.A. eavesdropping program might have assisted in the investigations of people with suspected Qaeda ties in Portland and Minneapolis. In the Minneapolis case, charges of supporting terrorism were filed in 2004 against Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, a Canadian citizen. Six people in the Portland case were convicted of crimes that included money laundering and conspiracy to wage war against the United States.

It's also worrisome that, according to the Times, the F.B.I. "has struggled over the last four years to expand its traditional mission of criminal investigation to meet the larger menace of terrorism." The Times further noted:

The differing views of the value of the N.S.A.'s foray into intelligence-gathering in the United States may reflect both bureaucratic rivalry and a culture clash. The N.S.A., an intelligence agency, routinely collects huge amounts of data from across the globe that may yield only tiny nuggets of useful information; the F.B.I., while charged with fighting terrorism, retains the traditions of a law enforcement agency more focused on solving crimes.

The 9/11 Commission considered reform at the F.B.I. a top priority in the reorganization of America's intelligence community. Unfortunately, change at the F.B.I. hasn't been easy. Consider what this April 2004 Congressional Research Service report said on past reform efforts:

The FBI's current intelligence reform is not its first. Twice before -- in 1998, and then again in 1999 -- the FBI embarked on almost identical efforts to establish intelligence as a priority, and to strengthen its intelligence program. Both attempts are considered by some to have been failures.

Both previous attempts were driven by concerns that FBI's intelligence effectiveness was being undercut by the FBI's historically fragmented intelligence program. The FBI's three operational divisions, at the time -- criminal, counterterrorism and counterintelligence -- each controlled its own intelligence program. As a result, the FBI had trouble integrating its intelligence effort horizontally between its divisions. In intelligence world parlance, the programs were "stove-piped."

In 1998, the FBI attempted to address the stove pipe problem by consolidating control over intelligence under the authority of a newly established Office of Intelligence. It also took steps to improve the quality of its intelligence analysis, particularly in the criminal area, which was viewed as particularly weak.

Dissatisfied with the results, the FBI launched a second round of reforms the following year aimed at more thoroughly integrating FBI intelligence analysis in support of investigations. A new Investigative Services Division (ISD) was established to replace the Office of Intelligence, and to house in one location all FBI analysts that until then had been "owned" by FBI's operational divisions. Although the ISD was intended to provide each of the divisions "one-stop shopping" for their intelligence needs, it was never accepted by the operational divisions, which wanted to control their own intelligence analysis programs. In the wake of September 11, the FBI concluded that analysts would be more effective if they were controlled by the operational divisions. ISD was abolished, and analysts were dispersed back to the divisions in which they originally served.

Although observers blame the failure of both prior reform efforts on several complex factors, they put the FBI's deeply-ingrained law enforcement mentality at the top of the list. As one observer described it, efforts to integrate intelligence at the FBI were substantially hampered because resources dedicated to intelligence were gradually siphoned back to the FBI's traditional counter crime programs. Moreover, there was also little sustained senior level support for an intelligence function that was integrated with the Intelligence Community.

Post 9/11, we can't afford more intelligence reform failures.

Al Gore is back in the news attacking President Bush's counterterrorist policies. But perhaps Gore's actions as vice president with regard to arming Iran should also be scrutinized.

From the October 13, 2000 New York Times:

The 1995 agreement allowed Moscow to fulfill existing sales contracts for specified weaponry, including a diesel submarine, torpedoes, anti- ship mines and hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers. But no other weapons were to be sold to Iran, and all shipments were to have been completed by last Dec. 31.

In exchange for the Russian promises, the United States pledged not to seek penalties against Russia under a 1992 law that requires sanctions against countries that sell advanced weaponry to countries the State Department classifies as state sponsors of terrorism. Iran is on that list....

The Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement appeared to undercut a 1992 law, the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act, known as Gore-McCain after its principal sponsors, Mr. Gore, then a senator from Tennessee, and Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican. The law was rooted in concerns about Russian sales to Iran of some of the same weapons that the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement expressly allowed.

Senator McCain said this month that he was unaware of the deal that Mr. Gore struck with Mr. Chernomyrdin, which was codified in a document stamped "Secret" and signed in Moscow on June 30, 1995. Mr. McCain said a 'strong case can be made' that the Russian delivery of arms, especially the submarine, should have triggered sanctions against Moscow under the provisions of the Gore-McCain law.

'If the administration has acquiesced in the sale, then I believe they have violated both the intent and the letter of the law,' he said....

For example, E. Wayne Merry, former director of the political section of the American Embassy in Moscow, said in Congressional hearings earlier this year that the Gore- Chernomyrdin Commission had required hundreds of hours of busywork to pad its list of achievements, racking up piles of 'taxpayer-supplied evidence of American good will regardless of Russian performance, honesty or even desires.'

And the 1995 accord, which essentially exempted Russia from American sanctions on arms deliveries to Iran, emboldened Moscow to ignore other agreements, particularly on sales of missile and nuclear technology to Iran, according to Gordon C. Oehler, who directed the Nonproliferation Center of the Central Intelligence Agency until he retired in 1998.

'It was one more of these strange deals that Gore and Chernomyrdin had that were kept from people,' said Mr. Oehler, now a vice president with the Science Applications International Corporation in La Jolla, Calif. 'If this had been disclosed to Congress, the committees would have gone berserk, absolutely. But the larger problem is, if you have these under-the-table deals that give the Russians permission to do these things, it gives the signal that it's O.K. to do other things.'

...A classified annex specifies the weapons Russia was committed to supply to Iran: one Kilo-class diesel- powered submarine, 160 T-72 tanks, 600 armored personnel carriers, numerous anti-ship mines, cluster bombs and a variety of long-range guided torpedoes and other munitions for the submarine and the tanks. Russia had already provided Iran with fighter aircraft, surface-to- air missiles and other armored vehicles.

The weapons are not the top of the Russian lines, but they are among the best in the region and bolstered a military force in Iran that continues to grow in quality and quantity.

As Amb. Paul Bremer reveals in his book, there was tension within the Bush administration on the issue of troop strength in Iraq while he was in Baghdad. A Washington Post piece, "Rice's Rebuilding Plan Hits Snag," yesterday indicated that the tension over troop levels remains.

On Nov. 11, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced trip into Mosul, Iraq, to grandly inaugurate a new concept for rebuilding the country that she said "will marry our economic, military, and political people in teams to help these local and provincial governments get the job done."

The idea centered on establishing Provincial Reconstruction Teams, or PRTs, a tactic promoted in Iraq by the new U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, who had built similar operations when he was ambassador to Afghanistan. He declared in November that extending a coordinated U.S. presence into the provinces was "a new addition to our strategy for success in Iraq."

Three teams were rapidly established in Mosul, Kirkuk and Hilla, largely because the functional equivalent of consulates -- known in Iraq as regional embassy offices -- were simply relabeled PRTs. But the rollout of the rest of the plan appears uncertain as State and Defense Department officials haggle over a series of tough questions, including how to fund them, how to staff them, how to provide security -- and even whether they help or hinder plans to reduce the U.S. troop presence....

Other officials said, however, that the PRTs have become caught in a crossfire of different priorities. Rice and her aides have felt strongly that civilian officials need to pay greater attention to the provinces, a view that is seconded by military officials in those areas. Establishing the PRTs thus would be part of a counterinsurgency campaign, State Department officials said.

At the same time, the Pentagon is eager to reduce its military footprint in Iraq, making officials wary of a project that could require the deployment of troops on yet another new mission when they are trying to reduce the visibility of U.S. forces and turn over more areas to the Iraqis....

But military historian Frederick Kagan argues in the current Weekly Standard that "the biggest danger in Iraq is drawing down too quickly."

The president has repeatedly declared that the withdrawal will not adhere to any "artificial" political timeline. How can such statements be squared with a reduction in the U.S. presence at a time many regard as the tipping point in this war?

There were approximately 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq in the months leading up to the October referendum and the December elections. This represented an increase from the "normal" baseline of 138,000, intended to secure those momentous votes. The extra soldiers were not just pulling guard duty, however. On the contrary, the coalition used the additional forces to conduct a series of intelligent and aggressive operations along the Upper Euphrates valley and elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle to clear towns and villages of insurgents and establish Iraqi Security Forces in their wake to hold them. Coalition commanders and spokesmen have subsequently claimed that these operations played a critical role in allowing peaceful elections and in reducing the overall level of insurgent violence in the country (at least until recently). They are probably right....

Military news releases since the election have described no large-scale counterinsurgent operations at all....

The result of this shift in military operations is worrisome. From the beginning of the war, the coalition has lacked the number of forces that would be needed to clear and hold the Sunni Triangle, let alone the major population centers in Iraq. It will likely be many months before the ISF is capable of conducting such missions on a significant scale. If U.S. forces withdraw to training areas and cease operations against insurgents except for the odd joint raid or "cordon-and-knock," the insurgents may once again begin to establish safe havens in which to train and operate. The longer safe havens persist, the harder it will be to clear them out--and the longer it will be until the ISF troops are able to undertake the mission....

In short, it is better to risk having too many troops than too few. It is better to maintain active pressure on the insurgents than to wait until the Iraqis can do so. It is better to remain focused on the goal of this war. America's objective is not to withdraw from Iraq--we could do that tomorrow if we did not care about the consequences. America's objective is to establish a stable government there, which requires defeating the insurgency. Training Iraqi Security Forces is not a proxy for that goal, but one of several necessary preconditions. The temptation to subordinate our strategy to the establishment of that single precondition has always been the greatest threat to victory in Iraq.

Michael Schrage in today's Washington Post has an interesting piece, "Use Every Article In The Arsenal," related to this January 10, 2006 Worldwide Standard post:

Many liberals want to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, derail the current NSA surveillance operation tracking terrorist communications to the U.S., and remain outraged at U.S. covert "propaganda" efforts in Iraq -- Sen. Kennedy has called such efforts "a devious scheme." On this point, Reuel Gerecht argues in today's Washington Post that "the Bush administration shouldn't flinch from increasing its covert "propaganda" efforts in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The history in the last great war of ideas is firmly on its side." Gerecht asks:

Why did the United States spend so much covert-action money in Western Europe after World War II? Washington was unsure of Western Europe's commitment to democracy and its resolve to oppose the Soviet Union and its proxy European communist parties. The programs had to be clandestine: The foreigners involved usually could not have operated with open U.S. funding without jeopardizing their lives, their families or their reputations. Did these CA projects retard or damage the growth of a free press and free inquiry in Western Europe after World War II? I think an honest historical assessment would conclude that U.S. covert aid advanced both.

Similarly, Schrage writes:

Yet revelations that U.S. forces in Iraq have surreptitiously purchased and placed stories in the local media to promote the quality-of-life improvements they have made possible and to highlight the country's democratic progress have provoked journalistic outrage here at home....

Enough, already. The truth is, you can't wage a successful counterinsurgency campaign without an "information warfare" component ... Securing positive coverage for our troops in Iraq can be as important to their safety as "up-armoring" vehicles and providing state-of-the-art body armor. The failure to wage the media war is a failure to command....

But a "free" Iraqi press dominated by one-sided thuggery and threat is neither free nor fair....

Holding Iraq's nascent media to American ethical standards makes little sense. In a counterinsurgency war zone, the locals understandably pay close attention to the risks and rewards of raising one's media profile. Not all friendships, alliances and sympathies come free....

Moreover, such principled purity defies the precedents of historical American wartime and occupation experience. After World War II, both Gen. Douglas MacArthur's occupied Japan and Gen. Lucius Clay's occupied Germany imposed levels of press oversight and control that make Iraq's information environment look as unregulated as the blogosphere....

As recently as 1999, during NATO operations in Kosovo -- an environment far less hostile than occupied Iraq -- American military operatives secretly paid for planted stories in Serbian media outlets. The stories, which military officials insist were accurate, were intended to counter Milosevic's anti-NATO media campaign.

American media leadership is divided over its own ethics and obligations in protecting journalists in Iraq. On the one hand, many media outlets agreed to a news blackout to buy time for kidnapped Christian Science Monitor freelancer Jill Carroll. On the other, many Western media didn't hesitate to publicly reveal names of Iraqi media outlets accepting American funds, thus putting Iraqi lives at risk. The U.S. military, understandably, wants to protect its people and its allies, too.

From Agence France Presse:

January 15, 2006 Sunday

US must be willing to take military action against Iran: McCain

Agence France Presse: Washington should be prepared to take military action if necessary against Iran, a senior US lawmaker said Sunday, calling the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program the biggest international crisis in more than a decade.

"[There's only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option, that is, a nuclear-armed Iran," McCain said.] "Now, the military option is the last option but cannot be taken off of the table." US Senator John McCain said.

"This is the most grave situation that we have faced since the end of the Cold War, absent the whole war on terror," the Republican lawmaker told CBS television's "Face the Nation" program.

McCain said even the massive military commitments in Iraq should not allow the United States to rule out responding with force against Iran.

"We are tied up to a great degree. But that does not mean that we don't have military options," McCain said.

He added that such measures should only be resorted to after peaceful methods have been exhausted, including immediate UN action.

"We must go to the UN now for sanctions," McCain said.

"If the Russians and the Chinese, for reasons that would be abominable, do not join us, then we would have to go with the willing."

McCain, one of the most influential members of the US Senate and a leading contender to run for the White House in 2008, said that Washington also should try to counter Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by shoring up opposition democratic movements in Iran.

"The Iranian people are not happy under these mullahs. They have basically repressed and oppressed them. We got to do a lot more in encouraging pro-democracy in Iran," McCain said.

Asked it Iran posed a greater threat to US security than Iraq, McCain said: "I think at this time clearly it does."

"Now, the difference between Iraq and Iran is that Saddam Hussein had us all fooled, including his own generals, about having weapons of mass destruction. I think it's pretty clear in the mind of any expert that Iranians are about to acquire them," he said.

His comments came as Iran vowed to press on with its disputed nuclear program regardless of mounting international pressure.

The EU and the United States are pushing for Iran to be referred to the Security Council over what they fear is a covert weapons drive, leaving Tehran exposed to the prospect of international sanctions.

European, American, Chinese and Russian officials are due to hold talks on the crisis in London on Monday, when they are expected to set a date for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors.

The "monsters" were Saddam's Baathist thugs, reports Lewis M. Simons in the January National Geographic, and the baby was unearthed in one of the many mass graves discovered in Iraqi deserts since the March 2003 invasion. Simons went to Iraq to report on Camp Slayer, where scientists examine the "new forensic evidence of Saddam Hussein's murderous regime." He notes that Clark University's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies estimates that the Baathist regime murdered up to 240,000 men, women, children and infants. Here are some of the victims and how they died:

Patterns of neat bullet holes peppered skulls and garments, many of them the baggy trousers peculiar to Kurdish men. Staring at cardboard boxes filled with skulls in plastic bags and skeletons precisely arrayed on steel gurneys, inhaling the oddly metallic death smells....

"As you work with the victims, especially the children -- their clothing, the baby bottle, the little shoes, just like the ones we bought for our daughters years ago, the little hands, so expressive in death -- you have to try not to get into the heads of the monsters who did this, or it becomes overwhelming. You look at a perfectly knitted baby bonnet with two bullet holes in it, and you think, these could be your own kids," [said an American forensic scientist]. "The women often had children with them and received, perhaps, the blessing of being shot once at close range. All of this is based on clear evidence, not speculation."

[He] pointed out an entry hole at the top of the skull ... an exit hole near the left socket, and a radiating crack in the left cheek ... female, mid-30s, five foot four to five foot six....

Simon also notes:

Initially, X [an Iraqi forensic scientist] gladly agreed to be identified in this story. But shortly before it went to press he got word to me of death threats against him and his family.... The threats most likely where made by Sunni supporters of Saddam Hussein, who are striving to diminish evidence against the former dictator.

As Sen. John McCain has said, President Bush's "choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat."

Saddam was indeed a monster worth slaying.

It's easy to forget that the resolution authorizing force to kick Saddam out of Kuwait barely passed Congress. It's easy to forget that Iraq had passed frequent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections designed to ensure its compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or that its Manhattan Project-sized nuclear program went undetected by US intelligence. It's also easy to forget just how skilled Saddam became at deception post-Osirak.

Some history --

Iraq ratified the NPT in 1969. Twelve year later, Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. According to the June 22, 1981 Newsweek,

[t]he Osirak reactor was theoretically only for research purposes—but Iraq twice refused a French offer to supply it with low-enriched uranium, insisting instead on weapons-grade, 93 per cent enriched fuel. Iraq was also operating an Italian-built “hot cell” lab for extracting plutonium, and had arranged to buy large quantities of uranium from Brazil, Portugal and Niger—all without any investment in a nuclear-energy program.

In his 2002 book, The Threatening Storm, Clinton NSC official Kenneth Pollack wrote that Osirak “was the key to Saddam’s nuclear weapons program and ... was due to go online within a matter of weeks.” The bombing set Iraq’s “nuclear bomb program back by several years,” but it also “taught the Iraqis an important lesson. Thereafter, Saddam ordered a redoubling of the Iraqi program...camouflaged against detection.” (Pollack would subsequently note this regarding Saddam's nuclear program.)

After the Osirak attack, Iraq would pursue a secret nuclear weapons program that had gone undetected by Western intelligence and the IAEA until after the 1991 Gulf War. As former U.N. inspector David Kay wrote in a 1995 Washington Quarterly piece, Iraq would pursue this program while maintaining “its status as a full member” of the NPT because it was “the desire of the military and security services not to attract any undue attention to Iraq’s developing nuclear program that would complicate procurement and development efforts.”

The fact that Hussein was able to conceal his nuclear program was even more remarkable given that: 1) as the Washington Post noted in October 1991, the “scope and sophistication” of its program “resembled the Manhattan Project, the American effort that produced the first atomic bomb”; and 2) Iraq had passed regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On August 11, 1991, the Post reported that:

International inspectors...unearthed one of the most important—and disturbing—finds of the post-Cold War era: a huge assembly line for the covert manufacture of equipment to make an Iraqi bomb.

The location of the sophisticated, secret factory for manufacturing hundreds of uranium gas centrifuges was unknown to any foreign intelligence agency despite intense scrutiny and untouched by five weeks of severe aerial bombardment during the Gulf War that supposedly eviscerated the Iraqi nuclear project. As such, it is a monument to the world’s ignorance about what a determined bomb-builder such as Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein can do.

The factory was a key component in Iraq’s elaborate highly redundant and largely secret network of physics, chemistry and metallurgical laboratories, industrial mines, metalworking factories, electrical power generators, nuclear research reactors and radioactive waste processing sites—all aimed at swiftly putting a nuclear weapon in the hands of one of the world’s most ruthless leaders.

The Post also reported:

Despite repeated warnings and Saddam’s own public statements, Western experts consistently underestimated Iraq’s scientific and technical capabilities. Inspection officials now believe Iraq was only 12 to 18 months from producing its first bomb, not five to 10 years as previously thought.

Kay wrote that Iraq hid its program by keeping it “heavily compartmentalized” and employing a variety of deception techniques. For example, Iraq created a network of front companies to import nuclear-related materials “in quantities that were below the size that triggered controls.” Equipment was imported ostensibly for civilian purposes but was diverted to the nuclear program as well. (see here for UNMOVIC May 2003 report on Iraq's attempt to "conceal the extent of its import activities and to preserve its importing networks" for missiles, chems & bios)

The Iraqis, Kay continued, had an “accurate understanding of the limitations of U.S. technical collection systems...” and exploited these vulnerabilities through various methods, including:

construction of buildings within buildings... hiding power and water feeds to mislead as to facility use... diminishing value of a facility by apparent low security and lack of defenses... moving critical pieces of equipment at night....

Apparently, Iran has taken a page out of Saddam's nuclear weapons procurement book.

Evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime trained foreign terrorists surfaced soon after coalition forces entered Iraq. And, as this Wall Street Journal editorial explains, more evidence has mounted since.

U.S. Marines entered Iraq's Salman Pak in early April 2003. Here's how Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks characterized what the Marines discovered during an April 6, 2003 briefing:

This raid occurred in response to information that had been gained by coalition forces from some foreign fighters we encountered from other countries, not Iraq. And we believe that this camp had been used to train these foreign fighters in terror tactics. It is now destroyed....

With regard to Salman Pak, that's just one of a number of examples we found where there's training activity happening inside of Iraq. It reinforces the likelihood of links between this regime and external terrorist organizations.

Clear links with common interests. Some of these fighters came from Sudan, some from Egypt, some from other places. We have killed a number of them and we have captured a number of them. That's where the information came from....

The -- there are a number of nations that were involved. I don't know all of them. I know that we had some from Egypt, some from Sudan, in people that we captured. And that was before the raid -- that gave us information about the raid....

The nature of the work being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the type of training they received -- all these things give us the impression that there is terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak.... All of that, when you roll it together, their reports where they're from, why they might be here, tell us that there is still a linkage clearly between this regime and terrorism....

The Associated Press (April 6, 2003) further reported:

Hours after Marines occupied the base Sunday morning, a tour of the suspected terrorist training compound found a series of curious sights.

Plastic chairs were bolted to the ground facing each other, creating a kind of classroom in a clearing in the woods. A nearby storehouse was filled with gas masks, Baath Party plaques and bright orange rappelling gear. Farther along, speedboats lay beached in the shade of a tree.

The passenger plane's sun-bleached fuselage lay alone in a large, barren field. A fire engine sat at one intersection. Elsewhere, the twisted metal wreck of a double-decker bus stood near three decrepit green and red train cars.

The comments of Brig. Gen. Brooks are consistent with what the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes has reported:

The former regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq....

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence.

Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis.

While al Qaeda plots attacks on Americans, the political Left in the U.S. plots the impeachment of President Bush. The ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, demands a special committee be formed to "investigate impeaching" the president, and today he offers "kudos to my friend Liz Holtzman," a former Democratic congresswoman from New York, for penning The Nation magazine's current cover piece, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush." Ms. Holtzman writes:

Mobilizing the nation and Congress in support of investigations and the impeachment of President Bush is a critical task that has already begun, but it must intensify and grow. The American people stopped the Vietnam War--against the wishes of the President--and forced a reluctant Congress to act on the impeachment of President Nixon. And they can do the same with President Bush. The task has three elements: building public and Congressional support, getting Congress to undertake investigations into various aspects of presidential misconduct and changing the party makeup of Congress in the 2006 elections.

Drumming up public support means organizing rallies, spearheading letter-writing campaigns to newspapers, organizing petition drives, door-knocking in neighborhoods, handing out leaflets and deploying the full range of mobilizing tactics. Organizations like AfterDowningStreet.org and ImpeachPac.org, actively working on a campaign for impeachment, are able to draw on a remarkably solid base of public support.

How about mobilizing a rally against bin Laden, Zarqawi & company? Nah. They have a bigger fish to fry.

A short time ago, Sen. John McCain was asked about the "Bush lied us into war" line peddled by the anti-war crowd, including Ms. Holtzman, he responded:

[I]t's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people.

Will this crowd stop the "Bush lied" lie? Nah. It's part of their strategy to regain control of the House, so they can go after the president.

As the editor of The Nation wrote:

There are many reasons why it is crucial that the Democrats regain control of Congress in '06, but consider this one: If they do, there may be articles of impeachment introduced and the estimable John Conyers, who has led the fight to defend our constitution, would become Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Wouldn't that be a truly just response to the real high crimes and misdemeanors that this lawbreaking president has so clearly committed?

Fortunately, to paraphrase David Brooks in the New York Times today, voters are more interested in aggressively fighting the terrorists rather than the American counterterrorists.

From AP:

The British, French and German foreign ministers said Thursday that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a ''dead end'' and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

From today's New York Times:

The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency.

In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.

Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades.

"Al Qaeda killed two people from our group," said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. "They repeatedly kill our people."

The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.

"The Bush administration, working intensely to galvanize international pressure on Iran, has secured a guarantee from Russia that it will not block U.S. efforts to take Tehran's nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council," the Washington Post reports. "Still, Bush administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity saw the Russian decision as a victory and said they would spend the next several weeks lobbying China for a similar commitment. "We spent much of our time working on the Russians, but we're now moving the focus to China," said one administration official who would only discuss the backroom diplomacy on the condition of anonymity.

The Vice President made the following Iran related comments today in an interview on the Tony Snow Show:

"Do you have any doubt that they're trying to build up a nuclear weapons program?"

VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think it's pretty clear that that's their objective. If what they're really interested in is generating nuclear power, generating electricity from running reactors, they've been offered that opportunity, a guaranteed source of fuel that would be enriched only to the level necessary to run a civilian reactor.

The Russians would then take back the spent fuel so that it couldn't be reprocessed for the plutonium in it. And the Iranians could achieve their objective of having nuclear energy.

They've not been satisfied with that. What they want is the ability to enrich the uranium themselves, and that would allow them to take it up to a much higher level and purity that is required for nuclear weapons. The effort we've made to date through the EU, the European Union, working with the Brits and the French and the Germans has been to reach a diplomatic solution to this problem. But so far they've been unsuccessful. And given the track record there, as well as given some of the more outrageous statements that the new President has made, Ahmadinejad, doesn't inspire confidence, I don't think, in anyone. It obviously is an increasingly significant problem that the world is going to have to address.

"Should the world be considering a serious economic embargo of Iran?"

VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the next step will be probably to go before the U.N. Security Council. And that would be probably the number one item on the agenda would be the resolution that could be enforced by sanctions, were they to fail to comply with it.

Now, that's speculative at this point. No decision has been made on that, but that will be next step once the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency meets and concludes that the diplomatic track they've been on isn't going to work, then the next step would be for the Board of Governors to vote to refer the entire matter to the Security Council.

"Would it be fair to say that at least in the abstract we would like a regime change there?"

VICE PRESIDENT: I think it would be fair to say we'd like the Iranian government to operate in a way that is consistent with the standards that we expect of members of the international community. Not only do they appear to be on the path to develop nuclear weapons, but this also has been one of the prime terror-sponsoring states in world. They've been the prime mover behind Hezbollah. They have got a track record with respect to supporting terror that is a very bad one, if I can put it in those terms.

So this is a nation, whose government I don't believe serves them well at this point. I think you're right that there are a lot of Iranians who would like to see the policies changed. And we'll see what happens. They have -- occasionally hold elections, but they're very special kinds of elections. They're really not free and fair elections. The old guard controls who actually gets on the ballot, and so we have not seen, say, them produce what I would think of as a responsible government.

Vice President Cheney made the following comments today on Saddam-al Qaeda links in an interview on the Tony Snow Show:

Q Mr. Vice President, you have been spending a lot of time in recent days talking about the war on terror and how important it is to take it seriously. The Weekly Standard over the weekend published a long piece by Steve Hayes, who talked about emerging evidence of longstanding ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. You've heard it said many times there's no linkage between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. You've heard Democrats beat you and the President about the head and shoulders with this. Were there links to -- between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think Steve Hayes has done an effective job in his article of laying out a lot of those connections. I hark back to testimony by George Tenet when he was Director of the CIA. He went up before the Senate Intel Committee in open session -- this is on public record -- and said there was a relationship there that went back 10 years. What was never established was that there was -- that -- a link between Iraq and the attacks of 9/11.

Q Right, and I've heard you and the President say that many times.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's right.

Q And you correct it any time somebody tries to raise it.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's right. And so what some people have done is gotten very sloppy and said, well, there was no link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, and then jumped to the conclusion that there was no relationship at all with respect to al Qaeda.

And the Iraqis -- the fact is we know that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were heavily involved with terror. They were carried as a terror-sponsoring state by our State Department for many, many years. Abu Nidal operated out of there; Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Saddam Hussein was making payments to families of suicide bombers. All of this is very well established. And Steve Hayes is of the view -- and I think he's correct -- that a lot of those documents that were captured over there that have not yet been evaluated offer additional evidence that, in fact, there was a relationship that stretched over many years between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda organization.

As former judge and Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano explained:

[In the early 1970s] I was an officer of an organization called Concerned Alumni of Princeton, and this was an organization that sought to involve the opinion of the alumni in the governance of Princeton more than was being respected by the administration. It also sought to make sure that reserve officer training corps, commonly known as ROTC, stayed on the Princeton campus. It had been kicked off the Princeton campus....

It took many years of politicking by Concerned Alumni of Princeton, the organization and people in the organization to get ROTC back on campus. When we were undergraduates both Sam [Alito] and I were in ROTC.

See here, here and here for what's going on nowadays.

Tom Joscelyn has the story here. More information on the GSPC may be found here.

From an editorial in today's Investor's Business Daily:

The Dots Connect

Terrorism: If a trove of documents proved Saddam's Iraq served as a training ground for al Qaida-connected terrorists, shouldn't Congress want to know about it? Shouldn't the administration be making the most of it?

[The Weekly Standard's] Stephen Hayes has spent much of the Iraq War's duration knitting together this story, only to be ignored by the major media.... Hayes ... worked with unclassified documents that few others bothered to touch. It seems that U.S. military intelligence has been processing millions of evidentiary items that link Saddam to Islamic terrorists.

According to Hayes' report, Saddam was training thousands of jihadists: "The secret training took place primarily at three camps -- in Samarra, Ramadi and Salman Pak -- and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. . . . Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al-Qaida. . . . Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000."

... Last November, Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra wrote John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, asking for a more complete accounting of evidence found in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. The response was sluggish, reflecting the Defense Department's understandable reluctance to dump so much documentation on a hostile media.

President Bush should pop it open. Americans need to know the evidence, which overwhelmingly justifies stopping Saddam with force. Meanwhile, the media establishment lionizes reporters who reveal secret government surveillance of terrorists....

Many liberals want to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, derail the current NSA surveillance operation tracking terrorist communications to the U.S., and remain outraged at U.S. covert "propaganda" efforts in Iraq -- Sen. Kennedy has called such efforts "a devious scheme." On this point, Reuel Gerecht argues in today's Washington Post that "the Bush administration shouldn't flinch from increasing its covert "propaganda" efforts in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The history in the last great war of ideas is firmly on its side." Gerecht asks:

Why did the United States spend so much covert-action money in Western Europe after World War II? Washington was unsure of Western Europe's commitment to democracy and its resolve to oppose the Soviet Union and its proxy European communist parties. The programs had to be clandestine: The foreigners involved usually could not have operated with open U.S. funding without jeopardizing their lives, their families or their reputations. Did these CA projects retard or damage the growth of a free press and free inquiry in Western Europe after World War II? I think an honest historical assessment would conclude that U.S. covert aid advanced both.

From a December 3, 2001 USA Today piece>:

Saddam, under intense international scrutiny after the Gulf War, also had strong ties to Khartoum, and Iraqi intelligence was well represented in the stew of Islamic radicals, insurrectionists and foreign agents pouring through the city.

"We were convinced that money from Iraq was going to bin Laden, who was then sending it to places that Iraq wanted it to go," says Stanley Bedlington, a senior analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism center from 1986 until his retirement in 1994.

"There certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had pretty strong ties to bin Laden while he was in Sudan, whether it was directly or through (Sudanese) intermediaries. We traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq."

Fast forward to the current Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes has uncovered the following:

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

Key Question

By 1997, a splinter group emerged from the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafi Group for Call and Combat, or GSPC. But exactly what was the relationship between the GSPC and al Qaeda? Some say not much; others say the GSPC had very close ties to bin Laden. Well, consider what the Center for Defense Information, a liberal think tank in Washington, DC, had to say on the issue of a connection between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

To be continued...

Will Iran be referred to the UN Security Council or will China and Russia thwart real action?

BBC News reports that,

Iran has removed international seals from a nuclear facility and will begin research there in the coming hours.

The move ends a two-year suspension of research, and could result in Tehran being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

France called the move a "grave error", and the UK said the world was running out of patience with Iran.

Western countries fear Iran's nuclear programme could be used to make atomic bombs, but Tehran denies such a goal.

One revealing anecdote from Ambassador Bremer's book, My Year in Iraq, involves West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller. On September 23, 2003, Bremer briefed the Senate Democratic caucus on Iraq.

I started to explain why the supplemental appropriation was important by noting "the lessons of history," having in mind the failures following World War I and the success after World War II. Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia rudely interrupted, "We all know our history, Mr. Ambassador. Don't bother us with history."

I paused and then continued to describe how after World War I, the Allies had withdrawn after saddling Germany with crushing debt.

"We don't want to hear about history!" Rockefeller shouted.

The hell with you, I thought. I plunged on. (p. 173)

Of course, what Sen. Rockefeller could really have used was a review of recent history -- particularly on what he said on the Senate floor on October 10, 2002 in support of the resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein. Given his strong grasp of history, it's rather odd he's forgotten it. Some highlights:

As the attacks of September 11 demonstrated, the immense destructiveness of modern technology means we can no longer afford to wait around for a smoking gun. September 11 demonstrated that the fact that an attack on our homeland has not yet occurred cannot give us any false sense of security that one will not occur in the future. We no longer have that luxury.

September 11 changed America. It made us realize we must deal differently with the very real threat of terrorism, whether it comes from shadowy groups operating in the mountains of Afghanistan or in 70 other countries around the world, including our own.

There has been some debate over how "imminent" a threat Iraq poses. I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated.

And:

Saddam's government has contact with many international terrorist organizations that likely have cells here in the United States.

And:

He could make those weapons [WMD] available to many terrorist groups which have contact with his government, and those groups could bring those weapons into the U.S. and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly.

Rockefeller added:

Some argue it would be totally irrational for Saddam Hussein to initiate an attack against the mainland United States, and they believe he would not do it. But if Saddam thought he could attack America through terrorist proxies and cover the trail back to Baghdad, he might not think it so irrational.

If he thought, as he got older and looked around an impoverished and isolated Iraq, that his principal legacy to the Arab world would be a brutal attack on the United States, he might not think it so irrational. And if he thought the U.S. would be too paralyzed with fear to respond, he might not think it so irrational.

The top presidential envoy to Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, Ambassador Paul Bremer, is out with his new book, My Year in Iraq. What's clear from his memoir is that there were deep divisions among Bush officials -- particularly between Bremer and Sec. Rumsfeld -- on the issue of U.S. troop levels in Iraq going back to May 2003. Bremer also suggests that Sec. Powell was far more hawkish (and irritated) on getting the security situation in Iraq under control than media reports in the U.S. had indicated. For example, for months Bremer, and later Powell, pressed for an attack on the renegade Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia. In fact, when the attack on Muqtada was about to commence, Powell told the president, the vice president, and others:

(Page 331)

"It's not just a question of his militia. At the end of the operation, Muqtada's got to be gone."

On the troop strength debate, here are just a few examples Bremer offers regarding his disagreement with Sec. Rumsfeld:

(Page 10)

The [Rand] analysis was stunning. I agreed with Secretary Rumsfeld's efforts to transform the American military to the meet the emerging challenges of the 21st century.... But did the situation on the ground in Iraq support the conclusion that we would need only a third of the occupation forces sugessted by the Rand study?

That afternoon, I had a summary of the draft copied and sent it down the corridor to Don Rumsfeld. "I think you should consider this," I said in my cover memo.

I never heard back from him about the report.

(Page 155, 162)

Don Rumsfeld flew back to Baghdad on Thursday, September 4 [2003]....

I knew that the principal reason for his trip was to assess personally the options to reduce American forces. And I also knew that he was putting a lot of pressure on the military to find a rationale to make that happen.

It would be my job to make the case that we needed to keep enough troops in Iraq to stabilize the country.

My concern about the Pentagon's fixation with the "metrics" of security forces training was confirmed on September 12 [2003] when I received a memo from Don Rumsfeld addressed to General Abizaid and me....

Rumsfeld's memo made clear that real pressure was building in Washington to "ramp up the Iraqi numbers" so as to "put less stress on our forces, enabling us to reduce the U.S. role." Of course, this was the correct goal...[but] this, I had insisted, would take time, at least a year according to our experts."

(Page 209)

"There's a tendency in DOD to equate an Iraqi policeman with an American soldier and to assume that what matters is the aggregate total number of people -- Coalition and Iraqis -- involved in security at any given moment. This is flat-out misleading."

I said that although the secretary of defense had insisted that the planned troop reductions would "conditions driven," this was not entirely correct. In fact the drawdown seemed more driven by the Army's concern over their planned spring troop rotations.

(Pages 356-7)

On May 17 [2004], I had a meeting with General Sanchez to discuss the war.

What would you do if you had two more divisions, Rick? I asked him.

He was a practical soldier who didn't normally speculate about the hypothetical when there were so many concrete problems to address each day.

But he answered immediately. "I'd control Baghdad."

He hated the fact the insurgents seemed able to operate openly in the capital....

On May 18, I gave Rice a heads-up that I intended to send Secretary Rumsfeld a very private message suggesting that the Coalition needed more troops....

That afternoon I sent my message to Rumsfeld. I noted that the deterioration of the security situation since April had made it clear, to me at least, that we were trying to cover too many fronts with too few resources....

I stressed that while I did not think our mission was on the brink, I felt we were in a dangerous situation. I recommended that he consider whether the Coalition could deploy one or two additional divisions for up to a year.

I verified that the secretary received my message. I did not hear back from him.

No doubt Sec. Rumsfeld will respond to Amb. Bremer in time.

Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the DLC in Washington, DC, wrote the following today on his blog, BullMooseblog.com:

Intelligence Design

[I] continue to believe that the NSA eavesdropping program was just swell.

After hearing the various arguments pro and con on the controversial program, the Moose only wishes President Bush and other Presidents had earlier ignored FISA and had extensively and aggressively tapped into electronic data of terrorist suspects' communications to the United States. Of course, prior to 9/11 there was no great imperative to sidestep FISA.

It is interesting that no prominent opponent of the program has called for its elimination. Some objectors are playing with the "I" word, but even they are not suggesting that we shut down this nefarious threat to our freedoms.

There is an entirely valid point that we should update our laws to monitor this type of eavesdropping. That is a difficult task, but it is worth exploring. We are in for the long haul in this war against Jihadism, and we must think anew. There may be a better way to implement checks and balances in light of this new threat.

But, we should be grateful to the President and General Hayden, rather than outraged that they refused to be hampered by FISA and implemented the interception of vital military intelligence from the enemy. Any President, Republican or Democrat, worth his salt would have done the same. No President is above the law nor immune from the responsibility from defending the citizens of the United States.

A dangerous and frightening complacency has fallen upon the land. There is little concern about the continuing terrorist threat. The Senate delays passing an extension of the Patriot Act while civil liberties attorneys bicker about dotting the i's and crossing the t's. In some quarters, the Jihadist threat has been replaced by the Bushie threat.

The word has gone out - a CNN reporter might have been eavesdropped upon! Why should we be all that concerned about a dirty bomb or Iranians with nukes when a warrantless NSA might have detected enemies' call to the States! The Constitution is being shredded! If this crowd had been around during the Civil War or WWII, surely they would have submitted the articles of impeachment on Lincoln and FDR for their manifold Constitutional transgressions.

Joe Klein's column in this week's Time Magazine is must reading particularly for all Democrats.

He writes,

"For too many liberals, all secret intelligence activities are "fruit," and bitter fruit at that. The government is presumed guilty of illegal electronic eavesdropping until proven innocent. This sort of civil-liberties fetishism is a hangover from the Vietnam era, when the Nixon Administration wildly exceeded all bounds of legality—spying on antiwar protesters and civil rights leaders...

"At the very least, the Administration should have acted, with alacrity, to update the federal intelligence laws to include the powerful new technologies developed by the NSA. But these concerns pale before the importance of the program. It would have been a scandal if the NSA had not been using these tools to track down the bad guys. There is evidence that the information harvested helped foil several plots and disrupt al-Qaeda operations...

"There is also evidence, according to U.S. intelligence officials, that since the New York Times broke the story, the terrorists have modified their behavior, hampering our efforts to keep track of them—but also, on the plus side, hampering their ability to communicate with one another."

Klein trenchantly concludes,

"In fact, liberal Democrats are about as far from the American mainstream on these issues as Republicans were when they invaded the privacy of Terri Schiavo's family in the right-to-die case last year.

"But there is a difference. National security is a far more important issue, and until the Democrats make clear that they will err on the side of aggressiveness in the war against al-Qaeda, they will probably not regain the majority in Congress or the country."

If there is evidence that the NSA program was a Nixonian dirty tricks operation, everything would change. But, absent that revelation, the Moose is pleased that the Administration was doing everything possible to thwart another attack. Facile comparisons with Nixon are silly and inappropriate when there is absolutely no proof of a domestic political spy scheme.

There will never be a Democratic President until the American people believe that the donkey will be as or more forceful than the Republicans in combating the Jihadists. And when that arrives, a Democratic President may rue the day when his party sought to tie the hands of the Chief Executive. Some Democratic Senators who aspire to that office should keep that in mind as they grill Sam Alito over the next couple of weeks.

The Moose is a Hamiltonian mammal and is comforted that there was energy in the Executive on this one.

Virginia's Gerard Alexander has an insightful piece in today's Chicago Sun-Times on the divide between European elites and average European citizens.

Why are politics so different in Europe and the United States, considering that the two have wealthy economies and share a lot of cultural roots? Do Europeans and Americans really have sharply divergent views about war and peace, taxes and welfare, and trade and development? It's true that Europeans have become somewhat less religious than Americans and that European governments provide somewhat more public housing, retirement income, health care and other "social benefits" than the U.S. government does. These are differences. But they are also magnified out of proportion by the workings of democratic politics. In a democracy, major parties and coalitions craft their platforms and rhetoric to attract the "median voter," that is, the hypothetical voter at the exact center of the political spectrum, whose swing can determine an election. In most European countries, the median voter is, for example, both less religious and more dependent on government than the median voter in the United States.

This makes political differences appear very stark, by tugging American politics to the right and European politics to the left. For example, American liberals when running for office have little choice but to sideline provocative progressive language and instead loudly proclaim conservative-sounding themes like individual responsibility, the private sector, and toughness on crime and national security. Democratic presidential candidates in particular assume this centrist pose -- just think of John Kerry in the home stretch of his 2004 campaign or Hillary Clinton today. Democrats steer clear of any suggestion that they want to make America more like, say, Europe. This positioning is so thorough that Europeans and other outside observers are often unaware that a sizable left-liberal minority even exists in the United States.

The opposite happens in Europe. In countries like Germany, France, Spain and Sweden, center-right politicians compete for a very different kind of median voter, leaving them little choice but to avoid talk of toughness at home or abroad, and instead to defend the welfare state, strict secularism and a kindler, gentler foreign policy. Germany's Christian Democrats, for instance, often compete with the Social Democrats to see who can raise public pensions more, not to cut or reform them. In the same way, European business leaders who understand supply-side incentives, job creation and taxes and regulation more or less like American conservatives do, are careful to censor "radically" free-market talk so an not to marginalize themselves politically. And European conservatives avoid any suggestion that they want to make their countries more like America. This positioning -- in this case to the center-left -- is so thorough that Americans and other outside observers might not even realize that every European country hosts a sizable minority of conservatives.

The perception that Europe is uniformly center-to-center-left is reinforced by the fact that public expression is often monopolized by a collusive journalistic, intellectual and Eurocrat elite whose "arrogance [is] almost beyond belief," in the words of American conservative commentator William Kristol. Mainstream European press discussions of free markets, America and robust conservatism are so routinely paranoid and hyperbolic as to make Howard Dean look temperate by comparison.

This collusive expressive elite conceals what are sometimes important divergences between elites and average European citizens. Consider last year's country-by-country debates over the proposed European Union constitution. In a country like the Netherlands, parliamentarians and journalists overwhelmingly favored this treaty. Many of their citizens seemed not to agree. So long as this discontent was limited to public opinion polls, elites could explain it away as a shallow fit of popular temper. The true extent of the elite-popular divergence was only revealed when citizens rejected the constitution in a referendum by 62 percent to 38 percent. Who knows how much dissent like that was concealed by the fact that 15 of the 25 EU governments preferred not to hold even consultative referendums for adopting a proposed constitution?

So Europe might just be waiting for a breakthrough by ideas a lot more like those that are currently politically dominant in America. William Kristol has suggested that, in a way, Europe is stuck politically in America's 1990s, with a cultural and political elite plagued by drift, failure and scandal -- but without the breakthrough achieved in America by reform-minded conservatives like Rudy Giuliani and, yes, Newt Gingrich. If anything, though, Western Europe sometimes seems even stuck further behind than that. Many Europeans still respond to unemployment with protectionism and government jobs programs; leaders routinely speak of corporatist-style "social dialogue" between the state and major interests; a center-right prime minister argues that subsidized agriculture is central to France's economic dynamism; few expect Europeans to act resolutely to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and governments try to stem globalization with what one scholar calls a "social democratic Maginot Line." All this calls to mind nothing so much as the 1970s. Gradual changes in European societies, economies, and politics might yet make Europeans more like Americans, instead of the other way around.

This Wall Street Journal editorial explains why.

Some critics have argued that the surveillance now at issue could have been conducted within the confines of FISA. But that doesn't appear to be true. FISA warrants are similar to criminal warrants in that they require a showing of "probable cause"--cause, that is, to believe the subject is an "agent of a foreign power." But if the desired object of surveillance is a phone number found on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's computer, you may not even know the identity of its owner and you can't show probable cause....

As for the judiciary, one question that Congressional hearings should explore is whether FISA itself is unconstitutional. That is, whether it already grants the courts too much power over the executive branch's conduct of foreign policy by illegitimately imposing the "probable cause" standard.

Laurence Silberman, a former deputy attorney general, testified on this point while Congress was debating FISA. He also pointed out that while fear of exposure is a strong disincentive to executive abuse of surveillance power, "since judges are not politically responsible, there is no self-correcting mechanism to remedy their abuses of power" in such matters. In other words, FISA grants the judiciary a policy supremacy that the Constitution doesn't.

There are many questions contained in the 9-11 Commission report that remain unanswered. For example, page 66 of the report states:

In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties on his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban.

Has the intelligence community made any progress in getting answers to the following questions:

Who were the "al Qaeda members"?
Who were the "Iraqi intelligence" officials?
Who were members of the "Iraqi delegation"?
Zawahiri "had ties of his own to the Iraqis." Who were they?
Who were the "Iraqi officials"?
Who were the Bin Ladin "aides"?

A November 24, 1997 Time magazine piece, "America the Vulnerable," stated that:

officials in Washington are deeply worried about what some of them call "strategic crime." By that they mean the merging of the output from a government’s arsenals, like Saddam’s biological weapons, with a group of semi-independent terrorists, like radical Islamist groups, who might slip such bioweapons into the U.S. and use them.

Who were these officials?
Intelligence community officials?
Clinton White House officials?
What intelligence did these officials base their "deep worry" on?

And did President Clinton base his November 15, 1997 remarks in Sacramento on the same intelligence that prompted government "officials" to be "deeply worried" about a Saddam-supplied bioterror attack on U.S. soil?

think about it [Iraq's disarmament] in terms of the innocent Japanese people that died in the subway when the sarin gas was released; and how important it is for every responsible government in the world to do everything that can possibly be done not to let big stores of chemical or biological weapons fall into the wrong hands, not to let irresponsible people develop the capacity to put them in warheads on missiles or put them in briefcases that could be exploded in small rooms. And I say this not to frighten you.

Just a thought but Bush administration officials may want to emphasize victory in Iraq a bit more and troop withdrawals a little less.

DNC chair Howard Dean isn't about to let a war get in the way of playing politics. On the DNC web site, -- see here (scroll down a bit) -- you will find a picture of a grinning Dean standing next to a large stack of Freedom of Information Act requests with the caption:

Shortly after the New York Times publicized the president's domestic-spying-without-a-warrant program, over 160,000 Americans signed a Freedom of Information Act Request along with Governor Dean in an attempt to determine just why President Bush believed he had the authority to undermine the Constitution. Earlier today Joe Sandler, DNC attorney, delivered each and every one of those FOIA requests to the Department of Justice.

Several days earlier, the ACLU had sent along their FOIA requests to the Justice Department.

ACLU Demands Records About Warrantless Spying by National Security Agency

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today submitted records requests under the Freedom of Information Act to the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency for information about the NSA's program of warrantless spying on Americans, which was authorized by President Bush....

Of course, the ACLU has never been a fan of the NSA. From the July 29, 2001 Washington Post:

In 1999, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence declared that the NSA was "in serious trouble," desperately short of capital and leadership. Civil libertarians, Internet privacy activists and encryption entrepreneurs -- not to mention the European Parliament and thousands, perhaps millions, of ordinary Europeans -- question the continuing need for such an agency, describing the NSA as an "extreme threat to the privacy of people all over the world," in the words of an American Civil Liberties Union Web site.

Perhaps the Democrats can dust off Michael Dukakis for the 2008 race.

"Hundreds of millions of pounds of equipment was imported into the African country over a three-year period before the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 and has since disappeared," according to The Guardian. The paper has been reporting daily on the contents of a leaked European intelligence assessment.

"The suspicion arises that at least some of the machinery was not destined for or not only destined for Sudan," the assessment says. "Among the equipment purchased by Sudan there are dual-use goods whose use in Sudan appears implausible because of their high technological standard...."

Investigators say the machinery has not been found in Sudan. Nor has it been found in Libya, since Tripoli gave up its secret nuclear bomb project in December 2003. Given Osama bin Laden's long relationship with Sudan, where he lived before moving to Afghanistan, there had been suspicions of al-Qaida involvement. But the goods have not been found in Afghanistan either.

"A huge amount of dual-use equipment was bought by Sudan and people don't know where it went to," Mr Albright [of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security] said. "It's a big mystery. The equipment has not been found anywhere."

From today's New York Times.

Microsoft has shut the blog site of a well-known Chinese blogger who uses its MSN online service in China after he discussed a high-profile newspaper strike that broke out here one week ago.

The decision is the latest in a series of measures in which some of America's biggest technology companies have cooperated with the Chinese authorities to censor Web sites and curb dissent or free speech online as they seek access to China's booming Internet marketplace.

Microsoft drew criticism last summer when it was discovered that its blog tool in China was designed to filter words like "democracy" and "human rights" from blog titles. The company said Thursday that it must "comply with global and local laws."

The move by Microsoft comes at a time when the Chinese government is stepping up its own efforts to crack down on press freedom. Several prominent editors and journalists have been jailed in China over the last few years and charged with everything from espionage to revealing state secrets.

Abdul-Halim Khaddam has more tough words for his former boss, Bashar Assad.

Khaddam, who was deeply involved in the Syrian presence in Lebanon, said Assad's ''mistakes'' on the domestic and international front had weakened the Syrian regime beyond repair to the point where ''it can no longer reform itself. It has become like a model 1916 car.''

''I am convinced that the regime committed big mistakes against Syria and Lebanon ... and consequently it must shoulder its responsibility in front of the Syrian people,'' Khaddam said. ''I think the regime has no chance of surviving in the long term.''

Madeleine Albright, William Cohen and William Perry and other former government officials met with the president today to confer on Iraq. This may be a good time to review the Clinton administration's case against Saddam Hussein. Some highlights:

* The New York Times reported that at a November 14 [1997] meeting the "White House decided to prepare the country for war." According to the Times, "[t]he decision was made to begin a public campaign through interviews on the Sunday morning television news programs to inform the American people of the dangers of biological warfare." During this time, the Washington Post reported that President Clinton specifically directed Cohen "to raise the profile of the biological and chemical threat."

* On November 16, Cohen made a widely reported appearance on ABC's This Week in which he placed a five-pound bag of sugar on the table and stated that that amount of anthrax "would destroy at least half the population" of Washington, D.C."

* In an article ("America the Vulnerable; A disaster is just waiting to happen if Iraq unleashes its poison and germs," November 24, 1997), Time wrote, "officials in Washington are deeply worried about what some of them call 'strategic crime.' By that they mean the merging of the output from a government's arsenals, like Saddam's biological weapons, with a group of semi-independent terrorists, like radical Islamist groups, who might slip such bioweapons into the U.S. and use them."

* In Sacramento, November 15, Clinton painted a bleak future if nations did not cooperate against "organized forces of destruction," telling the audience that only a small amount of "nuclear cake put in a bomb would do ten times as much damage as the Oklahoma City bomb did." Effectively dealing with proliferation and not letting weapons "fall into the wrong hands" is "fundamentally what is stake in the stand off we're having in Iraq today."

* He [President Clinton] asked Americans to not to view the current crisis as a "replay" of the Gulf War in 1991. Instead, "think about it in terms of the innocent Japanese people that died in the subway when the sarin gas was released [by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo in 1995]; and how important it is for every responsible government in the world to do everything that can possibly be done not to let big stores of chemical or biological weapons fall into the wrong hands, not to let irresponsible people develop the capacity to put them in warheads on missiles or put them in briefcases that could be exploded in small rooms. And I say this not to frighten you."

* Cohen began a November 25, 1997 briefing on the Pentagon report by showing a picture of a Kurdish mother and her child who had been gassed by Saddam's army. A bit later, standing besides the gruesome image, he described death on a mass scale. "One drop [of VX nerve agent] on your finger will produce death in a matter of just a few moments. Now the UN believes that Saddam may have produced as much as 200 tons of VX, and this would, of course, be theoretically enough to kill every man, woman and child on the face of the earth." He then sketched an image of a massive chemical attack on an American city. Recalling Saddam's use of poison gas and the sarin attack in Tokyo, Cohen warned that "we face a clear and present danger today" and reminded people that the "terrorist who bombed the World Trade Center in New York had in mind the destruction and deaths of some 250,000 people that they were determined to kill."

* Under a (Clinton admin.) White Paper's "nuclear weapons" section, it observed: "Baghdad's interest in acquiring nuclear or developing nuclear weapons has not diminished"; "we have concerns that scientists may be pursuing theoretical nuclear research that would reduce the time required to produce a weapon should Iraq acquire sufficient fissile material"; "Iraq continues to withhold significant information about enrichment techniques, foreign procurement, weapons design, and the role of Iraq's security and intelligence services in obtaining external assistance and coordinating postwar concealment."

* At Tennessee State on February 19, Albright told the crowd that the world has not "seen, except maybe since Hitler, somebody who is quite as evil as Saddam Hussein." In answering a question, she sketched some of the "worse" case scenarios should Saddam "break out of the box that we kept him in. . . ." "Another scenario is that he could kind of become the salesman for weapons of mass destruction--that he could be the place that people come and get more weapons."

* One of the lessons of history, Albright continued, is that "if you don't stop a horrific dictator before he gets started too far--that he can do untold damage." "If the world had been firmer with Hitler earlier," said Albright, "then chances are that we might not have needed to send Americans to Europe during the Second World War."

* Secretary Albright held a briefing on Desert Fox and was asked how she would respond to those who say that unlike the 1991 Gulf War this campaign "looks like mostly an Anglo-American mission." She answered:

We are now dealing with a threat, I think, that is probably harder for some to understand because it is a threat of the future, rather than a present threat, or a present act such as a border crossing, a border aggression. And here, as the president described in his statement yesterday, we are concerned about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's ability to have, develop, deploy weapons of mass destruction and the threat that that poses to the neighbors, to the stability of the Middle East, and therefore, ultimately to ourselves.

A fuller report on what Clinton officials had to say about Saddam may be found here.

Policy Review has an interesting piece available only on its website, policyreview.org. Its author, Tony Corn, has a unique perspective on the "Global War on Terrorism," having served in U.S. embassies in Bucharest, Moscow, and Paris and at the U.S. Missions to the EU and to NATO in Brussels.

The challenge confronting the West today is at once less than a full-fledged clash of civilizations and more than some unspecified war on terrorism: It is first and foremost an insurgency within Islam, which began in earnest in 1979, and for which the West remained, at least until 2001, a secondary theater of operations. From 1979 on, the revolution in Iran, the invasion of Afghanistan, the re-Islamization from above in Pakistan, the surge of Saudi activism in the Broader Middle East and the concurrent marginalization of Egypt within the Arab world (following the Camp David accords) combined to give birth to a qualitative and quantitative change of paradigm whereby pan-Arabism — the main movement in the Middle East since 1945 — was supplanted by pan-Islamism. But precisely because this insurgency within Islam is an insurgency, the terrorism paradigm — with its traditional focus on the criminal nature of the act and its exclusion of the political dimension — is largely irrelevant, save at the tactical level. The West is no more at war with terrorism today than it was at war with blitzkrieg in World War II or revolution during the Cold War. The West is at war with a new totalitarianism for which terrorism is one technique or tactic among many. At the operational and theater-strategic level, then, counterinsurgency is a more relevant paradigm than counterterrorism; and at the national-strategic level, the nexus between insurgency and weapons of mass disruption will have to be given at least as much importance as the much-discussed nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction

Four years after the September 11 events, and barely two years into the occupation of Iraq, there are signs that the Beltway talking heads are once again having the vapors. Yes, Iraq has been costly in both blood and treasure, and conducted in a sub-optimal manner. But Iraq was a necessary war, and it was worth it....
Whatever the outcome in Baghdad, the Iraqi tree should not be allowed to mask the jihadist forest. In that respect, there is something vulturesque in the doves’ recent assault on the hawks. Though in the past four years the neoconservatives, confronted by a “new kind of war,” have indeed at times come up with the wrong answers, the fact remains that in the previous decade, the same neocons, more consistently than any other group, came up with the right questions — and nobody listened. And while some military paleo-cons undeniably showed early on a better grasp of tactical and operational realities at the theater level, the civilian neocons overall continue to have a crisper perception of the real challenges at the strategic level — and yes, that includes Iran.

With a belligerent North Korea on its doorstep, Tokyo announces that it will jointly develop with the United States a sea-based interceptor missile for a missile defense system.

On October 11, 2001, intelligence officials are worried that al Qaeda sleeper cells inside the U.S. may strike, while Rep. Pelosi apparently worries about the methods the NSA is employing to detect them. Her letter, dated Oct. 11, 2001, to then NSA head General Michael Hayden is quite astonishing. Think about it. America is at war, and the military is on full alert. Thirty days after the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon are hit, killing thousands, intelligence officials are still deeply worried that al Qaeda had inserted other "sleeper cells" into the continental U.S. to carryout more attacks, possibly with chemical or biological weapons. U.S. officials are doing all they can to rapidly detect these cells and destroy them before they can act or escape to a new location.

From the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. Believes More Attacks Are Planned," September 30, 2001:

U.S. intelligence officials believe that Osama bin Laden long ago began orchestrating a significant terrorist counterpunch to the expected U.S. retaliation for the attacks on New York and the Pentagon....

Authorities fear that the Bin Laden operatives who would carry out such terrorist attacks may already be in place, hidden and ready to go--just as they were before Sept. 11....

Another federal law enforcement official confirmed that a significant number of federal agents are not participating in the current investigation into the attacks. Instead, they are being held in reserve in anticipation of possible secondary attacks.

The comments by the official mark the first time that the Bush administration has said it believes that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda already have in place follow-up attacks and an infrastructure for carrying them out.

To prevent an attack, the NSA was apparently trying to get any relevant foreign intelligence it collected into the hands of the FBI as fast as possible. But the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee had a different perspective than General Hayden.

From today's New York Times coverage of Pelosi's October 11, 2001 letter to Gen. Hayden:

In the briefing, Ms. Pelosi wrote to General Hayden, "you indicated that you had been operating since the Sept. 11 attacks with an expansive view of your authorities" with respect to electronic surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations.

"You seemed to be inviting expressions of concern from us, if there were any," Ms. Pelosi wrote, but she said that the lack of specific information about the agency's operations made her concerned about the legal rationale used to justify it.

One step that the agency took immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ms. Pelosi wrote in her letter, was to begin forwarding information from foreign intelligence intercepts to the F.B.I. for investigation without first receiving a specific request from the bureau for "identifying information."

In the past, under so-called minimization procedures intended to guard Americans' privacy, the agency's standard practice had been to require a written request from a government official who wanted to know the name of an American citizen or a person in the United States who was mentioned or overheard in a wiretap.

Some may call this pre-9/11 thinking in a post-9/11 world. Republicans should welcome the debate.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says Israel should be "wiped off the map" and apparently believes that the rest of the world will huff and puff but do little to stop Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons.

From today's New York Times:

Iran could be gambling that even if it restarts nuclear research activities, it would once again avoid international sanctions. Despite threats by both the United States and the Europeans to refer Iran to the Security Council for punitive action after it resumed activities at Isfahan, the countries were forced to back down in the face of opposition from China and Russia, which each have veto power there.

The Washington Post's David Ignatius has some interesting comments from Lebanon's Walid Jumblatt on Tehran's close link to Damascus and the need for regime change in Syria.

But it's unclear what Rep. Pelosi's position was on the program at the time. Her letter to then NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden leaves many questions unanswered.

As a senior Republican Capitol Hill staffer told me:

So let me get this straight: Pelosi knew about the NSA work back in October 2001—and her only problem with it was whether or not the President signed off on it? Does that mean that she believed the President has the authority to conduct this national security operation?

Tom Joscelyn has an interesting take here on some of the anonymous sources cited in the New York Times reporter's new book.

This one.

Here is what the Daily Kos founder had to say a while back -- comments that got him removed from the Kerry for President web site blogroll.

Wall Street Journal BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, April 2, 2004 5:08 p.m. EST

'Screw Them'
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who runs the Angry Left Daily Kos blog, had this to say in a post yesterday about the murders of four American contractors who were helping to deliver food in Fallujah, Iraq:

"Every death should be on the front page

Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

Zuniga has taken down the original post, but in a new post he acknowledges it and offers a partial retraction, which essentially amounts to saying he didn't actually "feel nothing"; in fact, he was angry at the victims...."

(Update) From the Washington Post, April 11, 2004:

2 Victims In Fallujah Ambush Buried

An Army veteran killed by insurgents while working as a private contractor in Iraq was buried Saturday with military honors at a national cemetery.

The service for Jerko Zovko was held largely in Croatian, reflecting his family heritage.

Zovko, who was known as Jerry, was fluent in English, Croatian, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

His brother, Tom, read from a condolence note sent by an American who knew Zovko in Iraq, describing him as a renegade who found time to create a rooftop pool in a desert barracks and was willing to be a leader.

"He wanted to help the Iraqis, and he wanted to do it on their terms," Tom Zovko told the mourners.

Zovko, 32, was one of four American security workers killed March 31 when they were hit by rocket-propelled grenades in a rebel ambush in Fallujah. Jubilant mobs dragged the burned bodies through the streets and hung two from a bridge, but Zovko's family did not know whether his was one of them.

In Clarksville, Tenn., about 200 people attended a memorial service for another worker killed in the ambush, Michael Teague, 38. Teague, a 12-year Army veteran, also received military honors, and members of his motorcycle club escorted the hearse.

"He knew the price of being a warrior," Teague's wife, Rhonda, said. "He was devoted to duty, honor and country. He loved his son, loved his family."

Teague and Zovko worked for Blackwater USA, a private security consultant. Loved ones said Saturday that both men were devoted to making the world a better place.

This one.

And below is what its founder had to say a while back -- comments that got him removed from the Kerry for President web site blogroll.

Wall Street Journal
BY JAMES TARANTO
Friday, April 2, 2004 5:08 p.m. EST

"Screw Them"
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who runs the Angry Left Daily Kos blog, had this to say in a post yesterday about the murders of four American contractors who were helping to deliver food in Fallujah, Iraq:

"Every death should be on the front page

Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

Zuniga has taken down the original post, but in a new post he acknowledges it and offers a partial retraction, which essentially amounts to saying he didn't actually "feel nothing"; in fact, he was angry at the victims. Blogger Michael Friedman has a screen shot of the original post.

It's worth noting that the Daily Kos is popular among Democratic leaders. Zuniga is a principal in the Armstrong Zuniga political consulting firm, which touts the Daily Kos as "the most popular political weblog with over 3 million monthly visits." Friedman has a list of congressional candidates who advertise on the site, and in a February posting Zuniga reported that Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, "asked if I would post" a "Message to Blog Community."

About Zuniga's comments, we have nothing to say. They speak for themselves.

And it isn't to prosecute a more vigorous war against America's enemies. From The Nation:

There are many reasons why it is crucial that the Democrats regain control of Congress in '06, but consider this one: If they do, there may be articles of impeachment introduced and the estimable John Conyers, who has led the fight to defend our constitution, would become Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Wouldn't that be a truly just response to the real high crimes and misdemeanors that this lawbreaking president has so clearly committed?

Here's more on Rep. Conyers.

New York Times reporter James Risen reaches this conclusion in his just released book, State of War. Let's see how many media outlets bother to quote it in their coverage of the book's other "revelations."

Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute has written extensively on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- see here and here. In the case of the 9/11 plot, Schmitt noted in the Washington Post that FISA might have prevented FBI agents from detecting and preventing the al Qaeda attack.

Consider the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the French Moroccan who came to the FBI's attention before Sept. 11 because he had asked a Minnesota flight school for lessons on how to steer an airliner, but not on how to take off or land. Even with this report, and with information from French intelligence that Moussaoui had been associating with Chechen rebels, the Justice Department decided there was not sufficient evidence to get a FISA warrant to allow the inspection of his computer files. Had they opened his laptop, investigators might have begun to unwrap the Sept. 11 plot. But strange behavior and merely associating with dubious characters don't rise to the level of probable cause under FISA.

Liberals claim that "FISA presented no barriers" to getting a warrant to examine Moussaoui's laptop. The failure to get one "was simply a case of a poorly trained agent" misinterpreting the law.

Schmitt explains below why this latest FISA myth is nonsense.

At first, “the myth” was that FISA played no role in the failure to examine Moussaoui’s laptop computer. But now that the quotes from the Joint Inquiry show that it was a central consideration, the new “myth” is apparently that FISA was misunderstood by "a poorly trained agent." If properly read, FISA was no problem at all.

Yet, the screw-up was not, as the earlier suggested, “simply a case of a poorly trained agent.” According to the congressional joint inquiry, the “poorly trained agent” was supported in his position by “several FBI attorneys with whom” he consulted.

Second, as for the Deputy General Counsel’s (DGC) remarks, they are more smoke than fire. Yes, one can get a warrant for someone who is an agent of any international terrorist group, except that, in this case, the Chechen rebels to which Moussaoui was linked were not on the State Department list of recognized foreign terrorist groups. And, indeed, as the 9/11 Commission notes: after French intelligence provided information suggesting a connection between Moussaoui and the Chechen rebels, “this set off a spirited debate between the Minneapolis Field Office, FBI headquarters, and the CIA as to whether the Chechen rebels and Khattab [a rebel leader] were sufficiently associated with a terrorist organization to constitute a ‘foreign power’ for purposes of the FISA statute. FBI headquarters did not believe this was good enough, and its National Security Law Unit declined to submit a FISA application.” And the fact that, according to the DGC, no one in the national security unit said the Chechens “were not a power that…could qualify as a foreign power under the FISA statute” is the kind of double-negative that can only be characterized as post 9/11 CYA since the issue being debated was whether one could make a positive case for considering the rebels a terrorist group.

As for the claim of the FBI attorneys that, had they been aware of the Phoenix field office’s concerns about al-Qaeda flight training in the US, they would have sent a FISA request forward to Justice, it may well be true. Nevertheless, this does not mean that they would have gotten Justice to move forward on their request or that a FISA judge would have approved it. Just like FBI headquarters before them, the lawyers at Justice would have asked: What evidence do we have that Moussaoui is connected to a recognized terrorist organization and, in particular, al Qaeda? And the answer would have been virtually nothing. All the government would have had was the suspicious coincidence of pilot training and suspicions about Moussaoui’s own radical – 1st Amendment protected – Islamic beliefs. Neither would likely have been sufficient for a FISA judge to conclude he had “probable cause to believe” that Moussaoui was an agent of a terrorist group. It was not until September 13 that a possible link of Moussaoui to al Qaeda surfaced from British intelligence.

Now, we can all pretend that FISA can be read more liberally but the record shows that it hasn’t been. For example, when one looks at the congressional investigation of Wen Ho Lee, senators from both the left and the right made a complaint similar to the one we are hearing today. After setting out in their report on the investigation the lengthy list of highly suspicious behavior on the part of Lee – behavior which was potentially far more problematic than what the Bureau had on Moussaoui – they argued that a FISA warrant should have been granted. But no FISA warrant was granted because, at the end of the day, there was nothing the FBI could show of a concrete nature that would have moved a judge to conclude that he had a “plausible cause to believe” that Lee was an agent of a foreign power.

Given the abuses that took place in the past, it is not surprising that people want to hold onto FISA. Yet to continue to pretend that FISA, when read as it was intended to be read, doesn’t create a hurdle that makes terrorist investigations more difficult than common sense would suggest is necessary is itself a myth.

From today's Washington Post:

After the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Madrid just before Spanish elections, a Norwegian think tank, Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt, discovered an Islamist strategy paper on an obscure Web site that might have signaled the attacks ahead of time. The document said, "It is necessary to make utmost use of the upcoming general election in Spain in March next year. We think that the Spanish government could not tolerate more than two, maximum three blows, after which it will have to withdraw [troops from Iraq] as a result of popular pressure."

More straight talk from the New York Post's Ralph Peters.

IRAQ made impressive progress in 2005. You wouldn't have known it from the daily news coverage or the surrender-now demands of left-wing extremists, but the long-suffering nation marched forward.

Here and abroad, the enemies of freedom insisted that failure was inevitable. Terrorists, insurgents, journalists with agendas, global America-haters and the Democratic Party's national leadership all tried to force our troops out of Iraq, no matter the consequences for the 26 million human beings who'd be left behind.