Stop John Bolton!
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Stop John Bolton!
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| Iraq + war on terrorism + Middle East conflict + critical perspectives |
 AFRICA AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM Official pariah Sudan valuable to America's war on terrorismBy Ken Silverstein, Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2005 The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden here, even though Sudan continues to come under harsh U.S. and international criticism for human rights violations. The Sudanese government, an unlikely ally in the U.S. fight against terror, remains on the most recent U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. At the same time, however, it has been providing access to terrorism suspects and sharing intelligence data with the United States. Last week, the CIA sent an executive jet here to ferry the chief of Sudan's intelligence agency to Washington for secret meetings sealing Khartoum's sensitive and previously veiled partnership with the administration, U.S. government officials confirmed. [complete article] West Africa: The next Afghanistan?By Chris Hansen, NBC News, April 29, 2005 At a time when the United States has thousands of forces hunting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, international investigators say the United States is ignoring another terrorist outlaw -- former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who's hiding in plain sight in West Africa. This is a place most Americans and their government haven't paid much attention to. It is war-torn, remote and desperately poor. But that might be about to change. War crimes investigators have uncovered evidence that al-Qaida terrorists -- before and after 9/11 -- were using West Africa as a hideout and as a place to launder money. And they say Charles Taylor has been helping them. Taylor, who is allegedly responsible for the murder, rape and mutilation of 1.2 million people, was indicted more than two years ago for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges forced him from power in Liberia. [complete article] Reputed arms dealer targetedBy Stephen Braun, Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2005 The Treasury Department imposed broad financial sanctions Tuesday against the international arms network of Russian air transporter Victor Bout, freezing the assets of 30 companies and four individuals, including an American named as Bout's chief financial officer. The move is aimed at crippling a global air empire accused of violating weapons embargoes in African civil wars for more than a decade. In addition, U.S. officials for the first time publicly accused Bout's operation of massive arms shipments to the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Although freezing assets has been a key weapon for the U.S. in its campaign against Al Qaeda and charities and banks suspected of being terrorist fronts, it has rarely been used against nonaligned international figures like Bout. [complete article] Two years after 'end of war', Iraq still crippled by violenceAFP (via Yahoo), April 30, 2005 On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush declared the end of major hostilities in Iraq. Two years later, security is every Iraqi's dream but the new government faces a huge challenge to make it a reality. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," the US president said two years ago from the deck of an aircraft carrier, just weeks after invading Iraq. According to US figures, 138 American soldiers had died by then. After two years that saw the rise of a ruthless insurgency and daily car bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and urban fighting, the US military's death toll tops 1,500 while the Iraqi tally is too high to report accurately. [complete article] People power rattling politics of Latin AmericaBy Danna Harman, Christian Science Monitor, April 29, 2005 First came the indignation, then the street protests and the disapproving comments from foreign countries. It culminated last Sunday with an estimated 1.2 million Mexicans marching silently through center of the capital. But President Vicente Fox moved to defuse the political crisis Wednesday night by accepting the resignation of his attorney general, who had been leading the criminal case against popular Mexico City Mayor and 2006 presidential hopeful Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. Chalk up another victory for Latin American people power. In the 1990s, what politicians feared most was apathy. But lately, Latin Americans from Mexico City to Quito, Ecuador - much like the citizens of Ukraine and Lebanon - have been taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers. Civic protest is emerging as an increasingly effective - if controversial - political tool. The power of the megaphone has been amplified by new organizing technologies: e-mail, Internet chat rooms, and text messages make it easier to contact, inspire, and bring people together quickly. The pro-Lopez Obrador rally in Mexico City Sunday, for example, was coordinated via e-mail, with smaller protests in Los Angeles, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris. The ever-larger demonstrations are mostly peaceful, usually self-controlled, always televised - and more often than not successful. [complete article] Comment -- "People power" -- an expression that was probably dreamed up by someone in public relations and has since become a favorite among headline writers -- is an expression that probably makes George Bush (and for that matter most people in Washington and every other Western capital) slightly uncomfortable. People power's a fine thing for shaking up Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but as it spreads to the America's, it could be coming uncomfortably close to home. What if people power caught on in the United States? What if accountability was being demanded not just from governments in Kiev and Beirut but also those in London and Washington? The bread and circuses approach to democracy has so far been an effective guarantor of political apathy across America, but what if Americans in large numbers were to one day wake up from their political slumber and demand that they too deserve a truly representative government? Power failureBy Fred Kaplan, Slate, April 29, 2005 Two questions prompted by President Bush's press conference Thursday night: Does he believe what he said about Iraq and North Korea, or was he just yakking? And which prospect is more disturbing? If the president believes what he said, he doesn't comprehend the nature of either crisis. If he doesn't believe it and was just reciting the usual grab bag of cliches, what was his point? To deflect attention from an as-yet-undisclosed policy, or to obscure the lack of any policy at all? [complete article] Two detail Bolton's efforts to punish dissentBy Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, April 29, 2005 A former senior Bush administration official told Senate staff members yesterday that John R. Bolton, the president's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, sought to punish two State Department officials for disagreeing with him on nonproliferation issues, congressional sources said. And a former CIA chief, disputing Bolton, said the nominee had tried to fire a national intelligence officer who believed Bolton was exaggerating evidence on Cuba, they said. John S. Wolf, who served as assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation and as President Bush's senior envoy to the Middle East until last year, and Alan Foley, who ran the CIA's weapons of mass destruction office, were two of six people who were interviewed by staff members on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. [complete article] See also, Official says Bolton flouted travel rules (AP). Stirring the ethnic potBy Iason Athanasiadis, Asia Times, April 29, 2005 Today's Iran is the latest manifestation of a great and endlessly undermined Persian empire that once stretched from Iraq to Afghanistan, embracing a multitude of ethnicities along the way. The Islamic republic that came into being a generation ago is a microcosm of its imperial past, with Arabs, Azeris, Bakhtiaris, Balochis, Kurds, Turkmens and Lurs co-existing alongside the majority Persian population. But as this month's riots by ethnic Arabs in the southern province of Khuzestan demonstrated, Iran's multicultural milieu could also be its Achilles' heel, an open door for foreign opportunists seeking to infiltrate this fledgling nuclear power. Iran is particularly vulnerable to foreign penetration in that non-Persian, non-Shi'ite ethnic minorities inhabit its extremities. Aside from Khuzestan's Shi'ite Arabs, there are Sunni Balochis in the southeast, Sunni Kurds and Shi'ite Azeris in the northwest and Sunni Turkmens in the northeast. All these areas adjoin countries that are either hostile to Iran's ruling clerics or contain US troops. The United States has dramatically expanded its presence in the region post-September 11, 2001, even as it has raised the level of its anti-Tehran rhetoric. US troops and advisers currently reside in Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan. At the same time, Tehran maintains ambiguous relations with neighbors Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iraq, although it is currently on a regional charm offensive and a pro-Iranian government seems poised to come to power in Baghdad. [complete article] U.S. and Italy clash over shootingBy Julian Borger and John Hooper, The Guardian, April 30, 2005 Relations between the Bush administration and one of its closest European allies came under renewed strain last night when US and Italian investigators said they had failed to agree on the verdict of an inquiry into the shooting of an Italian intelligence agent by American soldiers in Iraq. The death last month of Nicola Calipari, a senior officer in military intelligence, has become one of the most controversial of the Iraqi occupation, bringing appalled condemnation in Italy from across the political spectrum. [complete article] Blair's dark day as Iraq row eruptsBy Michael White, Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, April 28, 2005 Labour yesterday suffered its worst day in the 2005 election campaign after Tony Blair finally succumbed to pressure to publish crucial legal advice on the Iraq war, but failed to stem the Conservative-led assault on his battered integrity. Privately anxious cabinet ministers admitted that the renewed eruption of the Iraq issue - in the shape of the six-paragraph summary revealed on the Guardian Unlimited website on Wednesday night - may prove "a gift to the Tories" a week from polling day, not the "damp squib" of Mr Blair's prediction. Ministers concede that the latest furore will probably push some demoralised Labour voters towards abstention. Labour confirmed that Mr Blair and his advisers had decided yesterday to rush out a full version of the attorney general's interim legal advice, given 12 days before the war began, in the hope of proving it was consistent with his final advice that the war was legal. Lord Goldsmith's legal opinion reveals the full extent of the attorney's concern about the risk of Britain being hauled before international courts which would even scrutinise allegations of war crimes by British troops. It warns that British troops must use no more force than necessary to get Iraq to disarm. The attorney also makes it plain to Mr Blair that, in law, regime change could not be an objective of military action - a problem which did not concern the Bush administration. [complete article] See also, A creature of ego and self-righteousness (The Guardian). REFRAMING THE ENERGY CRISIS Bush offers plan to bolster refineries and nuclear plantsBy Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, April 28, 2005 President Bush presented a plan on Wednesday to offer federal risk insurance to companies that build nuclear power plants and to encourage the construction of oil refineries on closed military bases in the United States. Mr. Bush also proposed giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to choose sites for new terminals to receive liquid natural gas from overseas. Mr. Bush's proposals, which he laid out to a friendly lunchtime audience of small-business owners at the Washington Hilton, would not lower domestic gasoline prices this summer. But they appeared to be a response to continuing criticism from Saudi Arabia that one reason for the high cost of gasoline is a lack of refining capacity in the United States. "Because of our foreign energy independence, our ability to take actions at home that will lower prices for American families is diminishing," Mr. Bush told the business owners, who were attending a conference organized by the Small Business Administration. "Our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American people." [complete article] Comment -- Forget about Bush's dyslectic slip (independence/dependence), this is how (under Karl Rove and Frank Luntz's directions) the energy problem has been reframed: It's not about consumption; it's about foreigners. It's all about supply and nothing about demand. America to Bush: Get out of Iraq!By Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, April 28, 2005 The Gallup Poll is out with the results of asking 1,003 real people what advice they would give Bush if they had the chance. If they could, topic one would be the war in Iraq. Consider this finding: Among Democrats, the top two things they would say to Bush are "get out of Iraq" and "you're doing a bad job." The top two things independents would say are "get out of Iraq" and "leave Social Security alone." The top two things Republicans would say are "you're doing a good job" -- and "get out of Iraq." Gallup, fantastically, [documents] the actual responses , along with the respondents' ages and genders. A selection: ˇ "Stop the (swear word) war." Male, age 56 ˇ "Keep following the Lord." Female, age 23 ˇ "That he's an idiot because he turned the surplus to the deficit." Female, age 35 ˇ "Get our troops out of Iraq. Use the money being spent in Iraq and work on the awful problems in this country." Female, age 58 ˇ "Let's go hunting!" Male, age 60 ˇ "Keep on plucking away and see where it leads." Male, age 85 ˇ "Lighten up and recognize he is in the wrong place at the wrong time." Male, age 75 ˇ "I'd say that I'm disappointed that he hasn't been indicted for war crimes." Male, age 56 ˇ "He doing a (swear word) of a good job and keep fighting those democrats." Male, age 78 ˇ "I'd probably go to jail for the rest of my life." Female, age 77 [complete article] Bombs aimed at Iraqi forces kill 24 peopleBy Lutfi Abu Oun, Reuters (via Yahoo), April 29, 2005 Car bombs targeting Iraqi security forces killed at least 24 people on Friday, immediately putting the new government under pressure to tackle an insurgency that shows no sign of weakening. Eighty-nine people, mostly police and National Guardsmen, were also wounded, police said, a day after a cabinet was formed following three months of post-election wrangling. [complete article] U.S. aide sees nuclear arms advance by North KoreaBy David S. Cloud and David E. Sanger, New York Times, April 29, 2005 The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday that American intelligence agencies believed North Korea had mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, an assessment that if correct, means the North could build weapons to threaten Japan and perhaps the western United States. While Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, said in Senate testimony that North Korea had been judged to have the "capability" to put a nuclear weapon atop its missiles, he stopped well short of saying it had done so, or even that it had assembled warheads small enough for the purpose. Nor did he give evidence to back up his view during the public session of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Still, his assessment of North Korea's progress exceeded what officials have publicly declared before. [complete article] BOLTON... Ex-official describes dispute with Bolton over intelligenceBy Douglas Jehl, New York Times, April 29, 2005 A former senior intelligence official, who was responsible for coordinating American intelligence assessments, directed his staff in 2003 to strongly resist assertions that John R. Bolton sought to make about Syria's weapons programs in Congressional testimony, the official, Robert L. Hutchings, said in an interview on Wednesday. Mr. Hutchings, now assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, was at that time the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, whose members clashed with Mr. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control, over what the intelligence officials regarded as his inflated assessment of the Syrian threat. [complete article] Former Asst. Secretary for Nonproliferation John S. Wolf interviewed by Senate Foreign Relations CommitteeBy Steven C. Clemons, The Washington Note, April 28, 2005 TWN has just learned from a senior level source that former Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation John Wolf has been interviewed by Republican and Democrat staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and validated that John Bolton demonstrated patterned and frequent vindictive behavior towards numerous subordinates at the State Department. The staff members also spoke with Ambassador Tom Hubbard, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, who was mentioned during the testimony provided by John Bolton at his first day of confirmation hearings. Transcripts of the interviews that Committee staff had with Wolf and Hubbard will most likely be made available on Monday next week. [complete article] Dead Iraqis - why an estimate was ignoredBy Lila Guterman, CJR, March/April, 2005 Last fall, a major public-health study appeared in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, only to be missed or dismissed by the American press. To the extent it was covered at all, the reports were short and usually buried far from the front pages of major newspapers. The results of the study could have played an important role in future policy decisions, but the press's near total silence allowed the issue to pass without debate. The study, though scientifically robust, had several elements working against it. One was its subject matter: Researchers had done a door-to-door survey of nearly 8,000 people in thirty-three locations in Iraq to estimate how many people had died as a consequence of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Americans, and their media, were reluctant to accept the study's conclusions -- that the number was likely around 100,000; that violence had become the primary cause of death since the invasion; that more than half of those killed were women and children. [complete article] Comment -- Like conspiracy theories about government, critiques of the mainstream media often credit news organizations with more power and purpose than they actually possess. The lack of coverage of the Lancet report had, in my opinion, much less to do with its content than Lila Guterman suggests. It was all about timing. The presidential election was a few days away and the Iraq-related story that was obsessing the Democrats and the media was Al-Qaqaa. Whether or not a few hundred tons of explosives had been looted was arguably of much less significance than the civilian death toll in Iraq, but al-Qaqaa was a story that engaged the election campaign and thus the US media. For an American newspaper editor to have shifted his readers' attention away from al-Qaqaa and onto a subject that neither presidential candidate wanted to address would not have required much understanding of statistics, it would have taken courage - a quality that remains in short supply throughout the media. SIGN OF THE TIMES Bush and Cheney flee from threatening cloudBy Sara Kehaulani Goo and Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post, April 28, 2005 The mysterious flying object first blipped across U.S. security radar 20 miles south of Reagan National Airport at 10:40 a.m. yesterday and appeared headed swiftly toward the District. About 15 minutes later, President Bush was in an underground bunker at the White House and Vice President Cheney was escorted off the White House grounds to a secure location, officials said. The "target" -- as Customs and Border Protection officials called it -- showed up on the radar intermittently. It was moving through restricted airspace at about the speed of a helicopter, said agency spokesman Gary Bracken. Customs officials reported the object's approach to the Domestic Events Network, a 24-hour secure communications line connecting all major security-related agencies. Army officials at Davison Army Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Va., spotted a low-flying helicopter in the area but could not determine whether it was the object that had set off the alert. After vanishing from radar, the target then reappeared several minutes later -- this time just seven miles from National Airport, stirring serious concern among Customs and Border Protection officials, Bracken said. The agency dispatched a Black Hawk helicopter to the scene. A U.S. Park Police helicopter and another from a local law enforcement agency, which were already airborne, also scanned the area. But all the search teams saw were clouds. Turns out, that's all it was. [complete article] Iraq's national assembly breaks deadlock, approves partial CabinetBy Hannah Allam and Huda Ahmed, Knight Ridder, April 28, 2005 Iraqi legislators applauded and exchanged congratulatory kisses after finally approving a partial Cabinet Thursday, even though political haggling left some key spots vacant three months after Iraqis risked their lives to vote in national elections. The nearly unanimous national assembly vote ended a deadlock that had undermined the credibility of the nation's first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Even the announcement ceremony was colored by ethnic and religious tension, showing that the new leaders were far from the model of Middle Eastern democracy that the Bush administration envisioned. The seven still-undecided spots included the defense minister, the post crucial to fighting Iraq's deadly insurgency, and the oil minister. Wrangling over those positions continued Thursday among the dominant Shiite coalition, the powerful Kurdish minority and Sunni Arabs who complained that they were bypassed. Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, said the vacancies would be filled within days, with a formal handover ceremony soon after. [complete article] See also, Promises of a significant Sunni stake in government foundered on hard politics (AP). BOLTON BATTLE The good soldier's revengeBy Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian, April 28, 2005 From the redoubt of his retirement, former secretary of state Colin Powell is beginning to exact revenge. His sterling reputation was soiled, having lost most of the important battles within the administration during the first term. While he lamented that he had been "deceived" into presenting false information before the United Nations to justify the Iraq war, he acted as the good soldier to the end, giving every sign of desiring to fade away. But now he has re-emerged to conduct a campaign to defeat President Bush's nomination of conservative hardliner and former undersecretary of state John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN. In seeking to prevent the bullying and duplicitous ideologue from representing the US before the international organisation, Powell is engaging in hand-to-hand combat with his successor. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's first true test has not arrived from abroad. Caught by Powell's flanking movement, she is trapped in a crisis of credibility, which she herself is deepening. [complete article] Bolton failed to clear meetings with leadersBy Douglas Jehl, New York Times (IHT), April 28, 2005 As under secretary of state, John Bolton routinely arranged meetings abroad with Israeli, Russian, British and French officials without first notifying the State Department offices responsible for relations with those countries, according to three former department officials. The officials described the practice by Bolton, who has been nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations, as unusual and a violation of department procedures. [complete article] Cut from Cheney's clothBy Richard Cohen, Washington Post, April 28, 2005 The reason the administration nominated Bolton is that his method of operating -- the exaggeration, the bullying -- was commonplace. It was the music by which the Bush administration marched us all to war. More specifically, it was the tune played by Cheney, Bolton's chief champion. The vice president, it is both authoritatively and repeatedly said, is the one who pushed Bolton on a presumably reluctant Secretary of State Rice. (Her predecessor, Powell, refuses to endorse Bolton's nomination.) Note that it was Cheney who belligerently told the two most important arms inspectors, the United Nations' Hans Blix and the International Atomic Energy Agency's Mohamed ElBaradei, that if the Bush administration found their judgment questionable, "we will not hesitate to discredit you" -- a Boltonesque piece of diplomacy if there ever was one. Note also that it was Cheney who applauded when he got intel he liked and growled when he was told something he didn't like. [complete article] Rank and file have taken heat for Abu GhraibBy Charlie Savage, Boston Globe, April 28, 2005 With his job on the line over the shocking revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib prison last year, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the world to ''watch how democracy deals with wrongdoing and scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes and, indeed, our own weaknesses." Now, exactly one year after the photographs from Abu Ghraib became public, the Defense Department has placed seven low-ranking guards under court-martial. No general -- or colonel, or CIA intelligence officer, or political appointee -- has faced any charges. Human rights groups yesterday seized on the anniversary to reiterate their dismay over the lack of command responsibility, saying Abu Ghraib will be remembered as much for who wasn't held accountable as who was. But while investigations into the Iraqi prison case have come to a close, the scandal has led to broader revelations about the mistreatment of prisoners in US military custody around the world. [complete article] Leaders in Iraq attempt to engage insurgentsBy Solomon Moore, Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2005 Some Iraqi officials are hoping that the elected government will give them a credible argument to use against the insurgency: that far from being a puppet of America, it is a sovereign expression of the nation's popular will. "Many of the insurgents have kept fighting because they look at Iraq as an occupied country," said Hachim Hassani, speaker of the National Assembly, or parliament, and one of Iraq's most prominent Sunni Arabs. Hassani said high-level government officials had met with insurgent leaders since the Jan. 30 election. "Now we have a chance to convince them of Iraqi sovereignty." Even with a new government, convincing fighters to lay down their arms will be difficult because of the fragmented and brutal nature of the insurgency and the continued presence of about 150,000 U.S. and other foreign troops on Iraqi soil. In addition, there is a sense within Iraq's Sunni minority that they have become marginalized in a nation they dominated, and some influential Sunnis have argued that no real dialogue can take place until the troops leave. [complete article] Iraqi legislator slain, underscoring dangerBy Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post, April 28 , 2005 After one attempt on her life, Lamia Abed Khadouri Sakri went underground, moving out of the home she shared with a brother who was crippled in the attack, colleagues say. On Wednesday, gunmen found Sakri at her new house in a middle-class Baghdad neighborhood. They knocked on her door, she answered and they shot her, according to news accounts. Sakri, a longtime political activist elected to the National Assembly in January, was the first member of Iraq's three-month-old transitional government to be assassinated. To an insurgency that singles out Iraqis associated with the country's U.S.-backed leadership, the determined, middle-aged Shiite Muslim woman in a head scarf was a prime target, a soft target. [complete article] The changing face of JerusalemBy Matthew Price, BBC News, April 28, 2005 Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. The Palestinians say east Jerusalem including the Old City will be the capital of their future state. Israel says the city will remain undivided. By that it means both Jewish west Jerusalem and the east - which is mostly inhabited by Palestinians - will be inside the future final borders of Israel. And to make sure that happens some Israelis are taking things into their own hands. "We have four families who live here in a small enclave, amongst all these Arabs and Palestinians in east Jerusalem. "And I really think this is the forefront of Zionism today, realising that there is a land war going on. "And whoever wins that land war, Jews or Arabs, is going to be able to take control of the eastern side of the city. [complete article] Analyst fears global oil crisis in three yearsBy John Vidal, The Guardian, April 26, 2005 One of the world's leading energy analysts yesterday called for an independent assessment of global oil reserves because he believed that Middle Eastern countries may have far less than officially stated and that oil prices could double to more than $100 a barrel within three years, triggering economic collapse. Matthew Simmons, an adviser to President George Bush and chairman of the Wall Street energy investment company Simmons, said that "peak oil" - when global oil production rises to its highest point before declining irreversibly - was rapidly approaching even as demand was increasing. "This is a new era," Mr Simmons told a conference of oil industry analysts, government officials and academics in Edinburgh. "There is a big chance that Saudi Arabia actually peaked production in 1981. We have no reliable data. Our data collection system for oil is rubbish. I suspect that if we had, we would find that we are over-producing in most of our major fields and that we should be throttling back. We may have passed that point." [complete article] Diplomatic challenges face Rice on her first Latin American tourBy Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2005 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday began her first official trip to Latin America, a region that is suddenly posing challenges to American diplomacy. On the eve of her arrival here for meetings with Brazilian officials, Rice praised South America's "remarkable" progress away from dictatorships, saying it was in some ways leading the trend toward democratic reform that the Bush administration was trying to promote around the world. Yet in recent months, U.S. officials have found themselves facing an escalating confrontation with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and have discovered that neighboring countries are largely unwilling to join efforts to isolate him. [complete article] I never lie, says Blair as new doubt is cast on warBy George Jones, The Telegraph, April 28, 2005 Tony Blair's honesty was thrust back to the centre of the election campaign last night with the leaking of a confidential minute showing he was told less than two weeks before the Iraq war that it could be declared illegal. As Mr Blair was telling the nation on one television channel that he had "never told a lie" another was broadcasting fresh allegations that he misled the country about the legality of the war. Legal advice submitted by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General - which Mr Blair has sought to keep secret - voiced doubts about going to war without a second United Nations resolution. It is understood that Lord Goldsmith warned that soldiers could be brought before the International Criminal Court. [complete article] See the Full text: summary of attorney general's legal advice on March 7 2003. Iraq's Al-Jaafari submits cabinet planBy Qassim Abdul-Zahara, AP (via WP), April 27, 2005 Iraq's new prime minister said Wednesday he submitted a complete list of 36 Cabinet members, including seven women, a critical step before the National Assembly votes on a new government drawing in the main ethnic and religious groups and ending a three-month stalemate. [complete article] Powell declaring warBy David Frum, ConfirmBolton.com, April 27, 2005 ...the challenge to Bolton comes not from the opposition party but from dissident factions within the president's own party. If Bolton loses, George W. Bush will have lost too: lost control of his party, his administration, and his foreign policy. [complete article] Comment -- To hear it from David Frum, it sounds like if Bolton doesn't get confirmed, Bush might as well throw in the towel. Since Bolton's neocon supporters are kind enough to allow comments, these are my two cents (reproduced here, just in case they get deleted from ConfirmBolton.com): So, it turns out that Colin Powell is Darth Vader and only John Bolton can save the world. One small detail that Mr. Frum chooses to ignore: Margaret Cifrino, Powell's spokeswoman, says that Powell "returned calls from senators" and "he has not reached out to senators." I guess it's unforgivable that the senators would have solicited the opinion of Bolton's former boss. Why should he know anything? BUSH'S WILL TO POWERBattle on Bolton nomination could wound the president, too By Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, April 27, 2005 Administration officials said that Mr. Bolton, who has in the past expressed disdain for the United Nation, was the right man to reform an organization that the hawks in the administration consider virtually irrelevant. But Republicans close to the administration also said that a powerful motive for the White House was simply showing strength and an unwillingness to back down, particularly after Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state who often warred with the hawks, expressed private doubts to Republican senators last week about Mr. Bolton. "It would mean that Colin Powell had influence to block someone," said a Republican close to the White House. "It's a troubling sign if the president can't get him confirmed." [complete article] GOP pushes Bolton floor voteBy Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington, Washington Post, April 27, 2005 Dan Bartlett, a senior adviser to Bush, said the president is eager for a floor fight over the United Nations and the need to shake it up. "A vote for John Bolton will be a vote for change at the United Nations," he said. "A vote against will be for the status quo. The president believes the status quo is unacceptable and wants a person ... who will be an agent for change." [complete article] Comment -- So, the White House claims that John Bolton is the essential agent for change at the United Nations. Forget about those of us who think this sounds reminiscent of "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" -- if Bolton is so indispensible at the UN, how come he wasn't nominated to replace Negroponte? How come, less than a year ago, Bush's first pick was not Bolton but instead the mild-mannered John Danforth? The issue here is now shifting away from Bolton's temperament and on to George Bush's ego. Pursuing a strategy that hinges on a test of wills is obviously intended to provide a demonstration that the president has the power to enforce his will, but it seems like a sign of desperation that this early in his administration he'd stake so much on winning this particular battle. If he loses, the murmurs of "lame duck" will turn into a loud chorus. The war for intel independenceBy Ray McGovern, AntiWar.com, April 26, 2005 President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are framing the trials of John Bolton, their nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, as a partisan political squabble. It is much more than that. It is rather a matter of life and death for the endangered species of intelligence analysts determined to "tell it like it is," no matter what the administration's policies may be. For them, the stakes are very high indeed. The Bush administration strongly resists the notion that the intelligence on Iraq, for example, was cooked to the White House recipe. And with the president's party controlling both houses of Congress and the president appointing his own "independent" commission to investigate, Bush and Cheney have until now been able to prevent any meaningful look into the issue of politicization of intelligence. But the Bolton nomination has brought it very much to the fore, and there will be serious repercussions in the intelligence community if, despite his flagrant attempts to intimidate intelligence analysts, Bolton is confirmed by the Senate. [complete article] Bolton debate ignores battle over intelligenceBy Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe, April 26, 2005 The decades-long conservative mistrust of the CIA -- the fear that career intelligence analysts are too slow to recognize threats and too cautious in their estimates of enemy strength -- is the elephant in the hearing room as senators battle over John R. Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be US ambassador to the United Nations. But the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which last week delayed consideration of Bolton's nomination to assess more evidence that he mistreated subordinates, seems reluctant even to acknowledge the elephant's presence, let alone try to hunt it down. Bolton, who is accused of seeking retribution against two intelligence officers who questioned his assertion that Cuba has a biological weapons program, stands ready to broadcast his interpretations of US intelligence to the world as UN ambassador. But even some Democrats seem more comfortable attacking Bolton for his bullying style than for misusing intelligence to favor his hawkish view of Cuba. [complete article] U.S. figures show sharp global rise in terrorismBy Susan B. Glasser, Washington Post, April 27, 2005 The number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last year, according to U.S. government figures, a sharp upswing in deadly attacks that the State Department has decided not to make public in its annual report on terrorism due to Congress this week. Overall, the number of what the U.S. government considers "significant" attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides who were briefed on statistics covering incidents including the bloody school seizure in Russia and violence related to the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir. Terrorist incidents in Iraq also dramatically increased, from 22 attacks to 198, or nine times the previous year's total -- a sensitive subset of the tally, given the Bush administration's assertion that the situation there had stabilized significantly after the U.S. handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government last summer. [complete article] INSURGENCY Pentagon plays down new rise in Iraq violenceBy Bradley Graham, Washington Post, April 27, 2005 ...over the past month, the daily total has edged up to about 50 or 60 attacks, about half of which are resulting in significant damage, injuries or deaths, according to Pentagon figures. Of particular concern for U.S. authorities has been a rise in the number of suicide car-bomb attacks, some of which are now being used in tandem. Myers singled out this trend yesterday. In the past, U.S. military authorities have attributed the suicide attacks not to Iraqi Sunni militants who dominate the insurgency but to foreign Islamic extremists who have joined the fight in Iraq. But U.S. analysts are still trying to identify the forces behind the rise in the suicide missions and have not ruled out the possibility that it reflects a hardening of Sunni opposition as a political impasse persists over the formation of a new Iraqi government. [complete article] CIA warns Iraqi insurgents trying to fashion chemical weaponsAFP (via Khaleej Times), April 26, 2005 Insurgents fighting against US forces and the new government in Iraq are making a concerted effort to gain chemical weapons capability and have already used old Iraqi chemical munitions in their attacks, the top US weapons investigator has warned. Charles Duelfer, head of a CIA-led team of experts who unsuccessfully searched for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, said Monday the danger that rebels could gain the know-how for manufacturing crude chemical devices "remains an important concern." [complete article] Once taboo words 'civil war' now spoken in IraqBy Luke Baker, Reuters, April 26, 2005 Civil war. It's a phrase everyone in Iraq has strenuously avoided for the past two years. Yet now, with no government formed three months after elections, and tensions deepening between Iraq's Muslim sects and other groups, it's on many people's minds. Several clashes between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in events apparently unrelated to the two-year-old anti-U.S. insurgency have highlighted the danger in recent months. Whereas once politicians were not willing to utter the term for fear of dignifying it, it is no longer taboo. "I do not want to say civil war, but we are going the Lebanese route, and we know where that led," says Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to the Interior Ministry who spent years in exile before returning to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's overthrow. "We are going to end up with certain areas that are controlled by certain warlords ... It's Sunni versus Shi'ite, that is the issue that is really in the ascendancy right now, and that wasn't the case right after the elections." [complete article] Iraqi leaders give 6 cabinet posts to SunnisBy Ellen Knickmeyer and Caryle Murphy, Washington Post, April 27, 2005 Iraq's new Kurdish and Shiite Arab political leaders agreed to a cabinet split Tuesday, giving six posts to the holdout Sunni Arab minority, top politicians involved in the negotiations said. Who those Sunnis would be remained publicly unresolved, as did other final elements of the agreement. [complete article] Gallup: 50% of Americans now say Bush deliberately misled them on WMDsEditor and Publisher, April 26, 2005 Half of all Americans, exactly 50%, now say the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Gallup Organization reported this morning. "This is the highest percentage that Gallup has found on this measure since the question was first asked in late May 2003," the pollsters observed. "At that time, 31% said the administration deliberately misled Americans. This sentiment has gradually increased over time, to 39% in July 2003, 43% in January/February 2004, and 47% in October 2004." Also, according to the latest poll, more than half of Americans, 54%, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while 43% approve. In early February, Americans were more evenly divided on the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq, with 50% approving and 48% disapproving. Last week Gallup reported that 53% now believe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was "not worth it." But Frank Newport, editor in chief at Gallup, recalled today that although a majority of the public began to think the Vietnam war was a mistake in the summer of 1968, the United States did not pull out of Vietnam for more than five years, after thousands of more American lives were lost. [complete article] With Syria out, Lebanon clout growsBy Nicholas Blanford, Christian Science Monitor, April 27, 2005 Elite Syrian paratroops in pressed camouflage uniforms and red berets marched alongside their Lebanese counterparts at an old airfield here Tuesday in a colorful farewell ceremony that formally ended Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon. The departure of the last batch of Syrian troops was a historic moment for the Lebanese and underlined just how dramatically and quickly Syria's grip on this tiny Mediterranean country has weakened after 15 years of near-total domination. With the pro-Syrian establishment in Beirut continuing to unravel by the day, any hope that Damascus might have harbored of retaining some level of influence in Lebanon appears to be fading fast. "The question should be what influence will Lebanon have on Syria," says Michael Young, a Lebanese political analyst. "Syria was stronger militarily but it was never stronger politically, economically, culturally ... in all the domains Syria imposed its order through force," Mr. Young says. "At this point, to my mind, Lebanon is stronger." [complete article] U.S. may sell bunker busters to IsraelReuters (via MSNBC), April 26, 2005 The Pentagon notified Congress on Tuesday of a proposed sale to Israel of 100 guided bunker-busting bombs, a move that analysts said could prompt concerns about a unilateral Israel strike against Iran. Israel has requested the sale by the Lockheed Martin Corp. of GBU-28s worth as much as $30 million, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a notice required by law for government-to-government military sales. The GBU-28 was developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground and would be used by the Israeli air force on its U.S.-built F-15 aircraft, the agency said. Israel -- believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear armed state -- has denied speculation that it might make a military strike on Iran to prevent it from producing an atomic bomb. [complete article] BEYOND BOLTON Foreign policy disputes are subtext in battle over BoltonBy Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright, Washington Post, April 26, 2005 In public, the controversy over John R. Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador has focused on his handling of personnel issues and his managerial skills. But the first big battle of President Bush's second term also reflects long-standing tensions among Republicans over the thrust of U.S. foreign policy. Allegations that Bolton has been abrasive have become a metaphor for the broader problem of the United States' image abroad, with Republicans who favor a less confrontational and unilateral approach seeing an opportunity to press their point of view. It is all the more striking at a time when the Bush administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has tried to rebuild relations with allies in Europe and Asia. Now Bush and Rice must decide how hard they want to press Bolton's case with the bevy of Republican moderates who hold his fate in their hands. The consequences could extend beyond Bolton. [complete article] Ex-officials say Bolton inflated Syrian dangerBy Douglas Jehl, New York Times, April 26, 2005 John R. Bolton clashed repeatedly with American intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 as he sought to deliver warnings about Syrian efforts to acquire unconventional weapons that the Central Intelligence Agency and other experts rejected as exaggerated, according to former intelligence officials. Ultimately, the former intelligence officials said, most of what Mr. Bolton, then an under secretary of state, said publicly about Syria hewed to the limits on which the C.I.A. and other agencies had insisted. But they said that the prolonged and heated disputes over Mr. Bolton's proposed remarks were unusual within government, and that they reflected what one former senior official called a pattern in which Mr. Bolton sought to push his public assertions beyond the views endorsed by intelligence agencies. [complete article] Ex-diplomat calls U.N. nominee 'unworthy'By Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2005 Another former high-ranking State Department official has urged senators not to approve John R. Bolton as United Nations ambas- sador, saying Bolton has "no diplomatic bone in his body" and is "unworthy of your trust." Frederick Vreeland, a former U.S. ambassador to Burma and Morocco appointed by President George H.W. Bush, joined a growing chorus of ex-officials taking sides on Bolton. "If it is now U.S. policy not to reform the U.N. but to destroy it, Bolton is our man," Vreeland wrote in a letter to Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The letter was released by Biden's office. [complete article] Terror in the past and future tenseBy Robert Wright, New York Times, April 26, 2005 ...there is ultimately no alternative to international arms control. It will have to be arms control of a creatively astringent, even visionary, sort. And achieving it will be a long haul - incremental, halting progress, over many years, through a series of flawed but improving agreements that are at first less than global in scope. But for now the details don't matter, because the Bush administration opposes the basic idea. Why? Because John Bolton is not just the undersecretary for arms control, but the guiding spirit, so far, of the administration's arms control philosophy. To get other nations to endure intrusive monitoring, America would have to submit to such monitoring. People of Mr. Bolton's ideological persuasion insist that this amounts to a sacrifice of American sovereignty. And they're right; it's just a less objectionable sacrifice of sovereignty than letting terrorists blow up your cities. Weeks before 9/11, the Bush administration antagonized much of the civilized world by rejecting an arduously negotiated protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention. The protocol would have put teeth in the treaty, making member nations, which forswear the possession of bioweapons, open their soil to inspectors. Would 9/11 and the ensuing anthrax attacks soften the administration's opposition? Or - since the protocol was no doubt imperfect - might the administration at least suggest an alternative international inspections regime? Two months after 9/11, Mr. Bolton told a gathering of member states that the answers were no and no. (Who needs inspections? Mr. Bolton told the assemblage that the existence of Iraq's bioweapons program was "beyond dispute.") [complete article] Report finds no evidence Syria hid Iraqi armsBy Dana Priest, Washington Post, April 26, 2005 U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday. Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD." Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein's government, however, the investigators were "unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials." [complete article] Sunni Arab set to win top defence post in IraqBy Andrew England and Awadh al-Taee, Financial Times, April 26, 2005 Senior members of the Shia coalition with a majority in Iraq's parliament said on Monday they had agreed to have a Sunni Arab in the key post of defence minister. The decision follows weeks of political negotiations in which various Kurdish, Shia and Sunni parties which competed in elections in January have fought for representation in the new and much delayed government. Giving the defence post to a Sunni Arab is thought to satisfy a key demand by Sunni, who dominated the military and the ruling Ba'ath party under the regime of Saddam Hussein and who now make up the bulk of Iraq's insurgents. It may be a step towards a long-sought political solution to the two-year guerrilla war. [complete article] Blair: Iraq anger could let in ToriesBy Jackie Ashley, The Guardian, April 26, 2005 Under ferocious pressure over how he took Britain to war in Iraq and facing calls for a full inquiry from the Liberal Democrats, Tony Blair has hit back by warning that those trying to "send me a message" will let in scores of Tory MPs in marginal constituencies across Britain. In an interview with the Guardian, he says: "This election in the end isn't decided on a global set of opinion polls, it's decided in constituencies; and if you look at those constituencies, there are a few hundred or a few thousand votes either way that determine a lot of them. "The Conservative campaign isn't based on a get-in-by-the- front door strategy, it's based on get-in-by-the-back door, with people thinking that they're sending a message but ending up with the opposite result to what they want." [complete article] See also, With 10 days to British vote, war emerges as top issue (NYT). Unready for combatBy Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 26, 2005 When Dustin W. Peters, an Air Force supply technician, arrived in Kuwait in January 2004, all he and his fellow airmen knew was that they would be supporting US troops in Iraq. But when their unit received its assignment, they recalled, they were stunned: They would be protecting supply convoys traveling along Iraq's violent roadways. Peters, 25, was killed last summer when his Humvee was struck by a roadside bomb near the town of Bayji, placing him among at least 13 Air Force and Navy members to die in Iraq while on assignments that were different from what they signed up for -- and with far less training than military personnel who usually performed those missions, according to a Globe analysis of Pentagon statistics. At least 3,000 Navy and Air Force personnel such as Peters -- trained mainly in noncombat specialties such as mechanics and construction -- are serving on the front lines of the Iraqi insurgency. The Iraq war is the first military engagement in which such large numbers of air and naval personnel are serving in combat roles on the ground, facing imminent threat of attack. [complete article] Italian hostage outraged at 'clearing' of U.S. soldiersBy Philippe Naughton, The Times, April 26, 2005 An Italian journalist rescued from hostage-takers in Iraq last month has reacted angrily to a US military investigation absolving American soldiers of responsibility for killing the man who rescued her. Nicola Calipari, a senior Italian intelligence agent, was shot dead on March 4 when US soldiers fired at his car as he took the reporter, Guiliana Sgrena, to Baghdad airport. A report leaked by an American army official in Washington last night was said to have cleared US troops of any culpability for his death. The official said the soldiers had followed their rules of engagement and should not therefore face charges of dereliction of duty. [complete article] Pope Benedict reaches out to MuslimsBy Elisabeth Rosenthal, IHT (NYT), April 26, 2005 On his first official full day as pope, Benedict XVI on Monday reached out for the first time to Muslims, saying he was "grateful" for their presence at his investiture ceremony and hoped for a "growth of dialogue between Muslims and Christians" at local and international levels. There were many such surprises during Benedict's public appearances on Monday, giving the world its first glimpse perhaps of the priorities and style that will define his papacy. A man who had been widely criticized as a narrow-minded theologian reached out to other religions. A man who previously talked about creating a purer, smaller Roman Catholic Church was talking about offering Catholicism to the world. A man whose previous public face was stern and remote turned funny, personal - physical even. Comparing being elected pope to being beheaded by a guillotine, he said he had prayed during last week's conclave of cardinals that he would not win the job. [complete article] Familiar face emerges in Iran voteBy Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, April 26, 2005 From the depths of Iran's political malaise, one name keeps floating to the top as presidential elections slated for June 17 edge closer: Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The former president and chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, who has been the center of political gravity more than any other politician since the 1979 Islamic revolution, has not yet stated that he will run. Still, as if by default, Mr. Rafsanjani is being hailed by some as a pragmatic conservative who alone can bridge vicious political divides and steer Iran through foreign crises that range from its nuclear program to forging détente with the United States. [complete article] Abbas says Hamas should disarm after electionsDaily Star, April 26, 2005 Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Monday he expects Hamas to hand in its weapons after Palestinian elections this summer, but he stopped short of threatening to disarm the Islamic militants by force. However, the Islamic group's response was swift dismissing the call and saying Abbas should disarm his own Fatah movement first. [complete article] Syria's Ba'athists loosen the reinsBy Sami Moubayed, Asia Times, April 26, 2005 A new Ba'ath Party law is to be created in Syria, breaking the socialist parties' monopoly over politics in that country, in place (with the exception of the years 1961-63) since 1958. The move is a calculated gamble on the part of the government, and will also challenge a US bill against Syria calling for "Assistance to Support a Transition to Democracy in Syria". [complete article] Troubles mount in White House, Bush agenda bogged downBy William Douglas, James Kuhnhenn and Steven Thomma, Knight Ridder, April 22, 2005 President Bush painted his second-term vision in bold, aggressive strokes: He would reform Social Security, continue to reshape the nation's education system and remodel the nation's judiciary by appointing more conservative judges to the federal bench. "I've earned capital in this election and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on: Social Security, tax reform, moving the economy forward, education and winning the war on terrorism," Bush told reporters two days after he won re-election. Three months into his second term, however, Bush's bold agenda is bogged down by public skepticism about some of his proposals, growing resistance from Democrats, dissension within his party's ranks and what some analysts consider second-term hubris. [complete article]  Keep track of the latest news Bloglines is a free online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs - including The War in Context - and rich web content. To sign up, click the button below:  Temper, temper, temper ...By James Carney, Time, May 2, 2005 President Bush's choice of John Bolton to represent the U.S. at the United Nations was meant to roil the diplomatic world. The man is outspoken in his derision of the international organization and famous for his fiery language against countries that oppose American wishes. But there is a saying in Washington that you meet on the way down all the people you stepped over on the way up. And that is what appears to have put Senate approval of the controversial nomination in jeopardy. In the seven weeks since Bush named him, Bolton has been getting reacquainted with some of those people he offended during a 24-year career in the Federal Government. They are, among others, the two intelligence analysts who claim that as a senior State Department official during Bush's first term, Bolton tried to have them fired or reassigned when they disagreed with him; the foreign-aid worker who says Bolton, then a private attorney, chased her down a Moscow hotel hallway in 1994 in an effort to intimidate her; and the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea who complained that Bolton had misled the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by suggesting that the ambassador had approved an incendiary speech Bolton made about North Korea in 2003. [complete article] NSA is in the habit of disclosing the identities of AmericansBy Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2005 The National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on electronic communications around the world, receives thousands of requests each year from U.S. government officials seeking the names of Americans who show up in intercepted calls or e-mails -- and complies in the vast majority of cases without challenging the basis for the requests, current and former intelligence officials said. The volume of requests and the NSA's almost reflexive practice of disclosing Americans' identities -- which under federal law are shielded unless there is a compelling intelligence reason for releasing a name -- have come as a surprise even to some members of Congress and government officials deeply involved in intelligence matters. Officials from the NSA and other agencies say that the disclosures are proper and that there are significant protections against abuse. But the practice is coming under new scrutiny because of the recent disclosure that John R. Bolton, President Bush's nominee for ambassador to the U.N., submitted numerous requests for the identities of U.S. officials whose conversations were recorded by the NSA while monitoring overseas targets. [complete article] In war's name, public loses informationBy Charlie Savage, Boston Globe, April 24, 2005 Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks. No one is tracking the amount of unclassified information that is no longer accessible. For years, a citizen who wanted to know the name and phone number of a Pentagon official could buy a copy of the Defense Department directory at a government printing office. But since 2001, the directory has been stamped ''For Official Use Only," meaning the public may not have access to such basic information about the vast military bureaucracy. [complete article] U.N. human rights investigator in Afghanistan ousted under U.S. pressureCherif Bassiouni interviewed by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, April 28, 2005 This past week, news emerged that the U.S. forced out a top human rights investigator at the United Nations just days after he released a report criticizing the US for committing human rights abuses in Afghanistan. The Egyptian-born law professor Cherif Bassiouni had spent a year in Afghanistan interviewing Afghans, international agency staff and the Afghan Human Rights Commission. His official title was "independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan." In his new report, Bassiouni accused US troops of breaking into homes, arbitrarily arresting residents and torturing detainees. He estimated that around 1,000 Afghans had been detained. Bassiouni also indicated that the US-led forces had committed "sexual abuse, beatings, torture and use of force resulting in death." He wrote, "When these forces directly engage in practices that violate... international human rights and international humanitarian law, they undermine the national project of establishing a legal basis for the use of force." [complete article] Group says U.S. sent up to 150 to possible torture sitesBy Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2005 A civil liberties group investigating allegations of prisoner abuse will report today that since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. agents have secretly transported up to 150 detainees to countries that may practice torture. Such transporting, known as rendition, is more widespread than the government has reported, according to Human Rights Watch. In a report issued a year after the earliest revelations of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the group said the renditions, along with abuses of foreign detainees by U.S. forces, were possible violations of international law. The group also said an Army investigation clearing top U.S. military commanders of wrongdoing in the scandal at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad established the need for an outside inquiry. [complete article] IRAQ'S POWER VACUUM Leadership void fuels disarray in IraqBy Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2005 The protracted delay in forming an Iraqi government is imperiling the appointment of its prime minister, providing a new impetus for the insurgency and fanning renewed suspicion of the U.S. role here, Iraqi and Western observers say. Doubts are growing that the government, once formed, will have time to complete the constitution-writing process -- its principal task -- by the mid-August deadline. Almost three months since lawmakers were chosen in the landmark Jan. 30 election, they have yet to agree on the composition of a government. The transitional National Assembly has held several meetings but, stymied by ethnic, religious and political divides, has yet to set its bylaws or begin discussing the constitution. [complete article] Allawi's demands said to be sticking point in IraqBy Ashraf Khalil, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2005 As haggling over the formation of a new Iraqi government continued Sunday, members of the largest parliamentary bloc blamed the delay on brinksmanship by outgoing interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and predicted they would form a new administration without him. [...] "The Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdish slate are the two main winners, and we have agreed on everything. What is delaying us is the participation of others," said Alliance lawmaker Sami Askari. He said Allawi was demanding the deputy prime minister job and control of four ministries, including either Defense or Interior, as well as veto power over government resolutions. Allawi's party won 40 out of the 275 assembly seats, compared with 140 for the Alliance and 75 for the Kurds. "They are requesting more than they deserve," Askari said. [complete article] Rice and Cheney are said to push Iraqi politicians on stalemateBy Richard A Oppel Jr. and Joel Brinkley, New York Times, April 25, 2005 Worried about a political deadlock in Iraq and a spike in mayhem from an emboldened insurgency, the Bush administration has pressed Iraqi leaders in recent days to end their stalemate over forming a new government, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney personally exhorting top Kurdish and Shiite politicians to come together. The White House pressure, reported by Iraqi officials in Baghdad and an American official in Washington on Sunday, was a change in the administration's hands-off approach to Iraqi politics. The change was disclosed as insurgents unleashed a devastating technique, with twin double bombings at a police academy in Tikrit and an ice cream parlor in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad that killed 21 and wounded scores more. In both attacks, a second bomb detonated within minutes after the first, killing and wounding policemen and bystanders who had rushed to care for victims of the initial blasts. The explosions hit two of the favored targets of Sunni Arab insurgents: police recruits, whose training is critical to improving security in Iraq and providing the United States an exit strategy; and Shiites, who make up a majority in Iraq but nearly three months after national elections have yet to form a new government - a failure that American officials fear is giving strength and confidence to the insurgents. [complete article] BLAIR IGNORED LEGAL ADVICE Proof Blair was told war could be ruled illegalBy Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday, April 24, 2005 The Iraq war has erupted as a major Electio |