Daily Archives: October 20, 2007

NEWS: The Syrian nuclear mirage

U.N. nuclear agency examines Syria images
By George Jahn, AP, October 19, 2007

U.N. experts have begun analyzing satellite imagery of the Syrian site struck last month by Israeli warplanes, looking for any signs it was a secret nuclear facility, diplomats said Friday.

It was unclear where the material was obtained or what exactly it showed. One of the diplomats, who is linked to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the experts were studying commercial images, contrary to earlier suggestions they came from U.S. intelligence.

Separately, a senior diplomat familiar with the issue indicated the experts were looking at several possible locations for the Israeli strike. Two other diplomats said initial examination of the material found no evidence the target was a nuclear installation, but emphasized it was too early to draw definitive conclusions. [complete article]

Syrians disassembling ruins at site bombed by Israel, officials say
By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick, Washington Post, October 19, 2007

While expressing concern over the prospect that Syria may have decided to launch a nuclear program in secret, some weapons experts question why neither Israel nor the United States made any effort before the secret attack — or in the six weeks since — to offer evidence to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a move that would trigger an inspection of Syria by the nuclear watchdog.

“The reason we have an IAEA and a safeguard system is that, if there is evidence of wrongdoing, it can be presented by a neutral body to the international community so that a collective response can be pursued,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “It seems to me highly risky and premature for another country to bomb such a facility.” [complete article]

US intelligence does not show Syrian nuclear weapons program, officials say
By Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story, October 18, 2007

One US intelligence source familiar with the events expressed concern about recent news reports describing Syria as having a functioning nuclear weapons program and cautioned against attributing those reports to the US intelligence community.

“The allegations that North Korea was helping to build a nuclear reactor have not been substantiated by US intelligence,” said this intelligence official, adding, “ but that hasn’t stopped Dick Cheney and his minions at the NSC, Elliot Abrams and Steve Hadley, from leaking the information [to the press], which appears to be misleading in the extreme.” [complete article]

See also, Syrian “copy” of Yongbyon? (Arms Control Wonk) and Syrian’s comment on bomb target mistranslated: U.N. (Reuters).

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ANALYSIS: The plan behind the Bhutto bombing

Bhutto bombing kicks off war on US plan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, October 20, 2007

The first shot has already been fired in the battle that Islamists have vowed to wage against the Washington-inspired and brokered attempt at regime change in Pakistan. It came in the form of twin bomb blasts aimed at Benazir Bhutto, the lynchpin in US machinations, within hours of her arrival in Karachi after years in exile.

The bombs narrowly missed Bhutto but killed up to 150 and injured hundreds of the rapturous supporters who thronged the Karachi streets to greet her. The windshield of her vehicle was shattered and members of her entourage on the roof of the vehicle were injured. A car that was part of her convoy was destroyed.

The attack was hardly a surprise. Militants see Bhutto’s return to Pakistani politics as a Western-backed coup against Islamists in Pakistan, akin to the arrival in the Afghan capital, Kabul, of the US-backed Northern Alliance in 2001. [complete article]

See also, Backstage, U.S. nurtured Pakistan rivals’ deal (NYT) and After bombing, Bhutto assails officials’ ties (NYT).

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ANALYSIS: Bush’s Iran war rhetoric

Bush’s war rhetoric reveals the anxiety that Iran commands
By Peter Baker, Washington Post, October 19, 2007

When President Bush this week raised the specter of World War III if Iran manages to build nuclear weapons, he not only roiled the diplomatic world, he also underscored how much Iran has come to shadow the political dialogue both here in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail.

While Iraq has faded from the Beltway debate for now, Iran has emerged as the top foreign policy topic of the moment. Democratic candidates are arguing about Bush’s efforts against Iran, with underdogs accusing front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton of giving the president a blank check. Republican candidates, on the other hand, are vying over who would be toughest on Iran, with each vowing to take military action if necessary.

Bush’s comments at his Wednesday news conference only fueled the discussion and may have also signaled a shift in his personal redline in Tehran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. With most attention focused on the doomsday scenario he invoked, another part of his answer may be telling. Although in the past he has said it is “unacceptable” for Iran to possess a nuclear bomb, Bush said Wednesday that it is unacceptable for it to even know how to build a bomb.

The talk of military options has led to sometimes feverish speculation that a strike may be imminent, a notion dismissed by administration officials who say that Bush is committed to diplomacy at this point. But with 15 months left in office, Bush may eventually confront the choice of dealing with Iran’s program or passing the problem onto a successor. [complete article]

Mullen: US action in Iran last resort
AP, October 19, 2007

While military action against Iran is a last resort, the U.S. has the resources to attack if needed despite the strains of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said.

Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday the focus now is on diplomacy to stem Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support for insurgents in Iraq.

But, he told reporters, “there is more than enough reserve to respond (militarily) if that, in fact, is what the national leadership wanted to do.” [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: Scenarios for a post-occupation Iraq

Post-U.S. Scenarios: the bad, the worse, and the ugly
By Robert Dreyfuss, Mother Jones, October 18, 2007

Let’s just get the wishful thinking out of the way first. Peace won’t break out if and when the United States leaves Iraq; violence will continue, and possibly get worse. That’s not a rationale for leaving the troops in place, just a hard reality. How bad, exactly, will it be? Here are four scenarios, ranging from the horrific to the somewhat hopeful. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: The first hints of a new sovereign and unified Iraq?

First steps
Badger, Missing Links, October 18, 2007

“When you are surrounded by nothing but failure, then any success you can achieve will have a magnified effect,” writes historian Bashir Nafie in an overview of Iraqi politics. His starting point is the recent announcement of a six-faction resistance alliance (the gist of which was to unite two MB-related factions with the four-faction Iraqi-Islamist Reform and Jihad grouping led by the Islamic Army in Iraq). A small step, to be sure, says Nafie.

But look at what is going on in the other camps. The initial push from the National Pact proposed by Tareq al Hashemi (for instance he talked to Sistani about it) has quickly died, the problem here being that Hashemi, for all his occasional displays of courage, refuses to see things as they are. Under foreign occupation, proposals and visions and so on will inevitably be mutually conflicting, moreover they will, each of them, benefit from only the narrowest of popular support. Proposals based on “good will” alone in these circumstances will go nowhere. There needs to be a “central political force” with broad support (and Nafie doesn’t find it necessary to spell out the obvious, namely that this includes rejecting the foreign occupation). [complete article]

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NEWS: Mukasey faces tough questions on torture

Mukasey faces tough questions on torture
By Philip Shenon, New York Times, October 19, 2007

President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, declined today to say if he considered harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which simulates drowning, to constitute torture or to be illegal if used on terrorism suspects.

On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws passed by Congress, especially when it came to questions of national defense.

He suggested that both the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program and its use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, may be acceptable under the Constitution even if they go beyond what the law technically allows. Mr. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief may allow him to supersede laws written by Congress. [complete article]

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NEWS: Secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island

Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated
By Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, October 19, 2007

Allegations that the CIA held al-Qaida suspects for interrogation at a secret prison on sovereign British territory are to be investigated by MPs, the Guardian has learned. The all-party foreign affairs committee is to examine long-standing suspicions that the agency has operated one of its so-called “black site” prisons on Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that is home to a large US military base.

Lawyers from Reprieve, a legal charity that represents a number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, including several former British residents, are calling on the committee to question US and British officials about the allegations. According to the organisation’s submission to the committee, the UK government is “potentially systematically complicit in the most serious crimes against humanity of disappearance, torture and prolonged incommunicado detention”.

Clive Stafford Smith, the charity’s legal director, said he was “absolutely and categorically certain” that prisoners have been held on the island. “If the foreign affairs committee approaches this thoroughly, they will get to the bottom of it,” he said. [complete article]

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OPINION: Bush’s Pentagon Papers

Do we already have our Pentagon Papers?
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, October 19, 2007

They can’t help themselves. They want to confess.

How else to explain the torture memorandums that continue to flow out of the inner sancta of this administration, the most recent of which were evidently leaked to the New York Times. Those two, from the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department, were written in 2005 and recommitted the administration to the torture techniques it had been pushing for years. As the Times noted, the first of those memorandums, from February of that year, was “an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.” The second “secret opinion” was issued as Congress moved to outlaw “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” treatment (not that such acts weren’t already against U.S. and international law). It brazenly “declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard”; and, the Times assured us, “the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums.” [complete article]

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NEWS: Fox helps boost Islamophobia

FOX to air controversial documentary on Islam
Fox News, October 18, 2007

A controversial film that PBS axed from its documentary series about the post-Sept. 11 world will be broadcast for the first time nationwide this week by the FOX News Channel.

The documentary, originally titled “Islam vs. Islamists,” was produced by ABG Films with $675,000 in public funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It was originally slated to run earlier this year as part of PBS’ “America at a Crossroads” series.

The film follows moderate Muslims who have challenged the “Islamists” who espouse a more radical view of their religion. The film shows the Islamists advocating, among other things, the imposition of Sharia law on Muslims in the West, the stoning of women who commit adultery, and even violence and terrorism. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The “America at a Crossroads” series included an episode devoted to Richard Perle – in fact a devotional representation of Perle presented by Perle.

After having paid homage to the neocons in this way, perhaps PBS couldn’t justify capping this with a boost for Islamophobia. Naturally, Fox is only too eager to step into that role.

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NEWS: Hezbollah slams U.S. call for ‘partnership’ with Lebanon army

Hezbollah slams U.S. call for ‘partnership’ with Lebanon army
AP, October 19, 2007

Hezbollah on Friday denounced a senior Pentagon official’s call for a U.S. strategic partnership with Lebanon’s army, saying American attempts to boost military ties were a ploy for domination and could turn the country into another Iraq.

Washington has dramatically increased military aid to Lebanon’s pro-Western government over the past year. On Thursday, Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, said the U.S. wants to make military ties even closer, with a strategic partnership to strengthen the country’s forces.

Edelman said in an interview with Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. television that the building up of the military would mean the Shiite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah would have no excuse to bear arm. His comments came on the same day that a Lebanese newspaper reported that Washington is proposing a treaty with Lebanon that would make it a strategic partner and lead to the creation of American bases. [complete article]

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NEWS: The tortured “peace process”

Rice leaves Palestinians frustrated
By Ashraf Khalil, Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2007

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up her Middle East shuttle diplomacy tour Thursday, leaving Israeli officials seemingly reassured and Palestinians searching for a silver lining.

Rice, who flew from Jerusalem to London to meet with Jordanian King Abdullah II, essentially shot down the primary Palestinian demands after several days of back-and-forth meetings with Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders in advance of a proposed peace conference this fall.

“Condoleezza Rice made it clear that she in fact agrees with most of Jerusalem’s demands,” said an editorial Thursday in the Israeli daily Maariv.

Rice’s visit was so noncontroversial from the Israeli perspective that much of the Israeli media gave it only token coverage. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: How the Christian right could defeat Giuliani

How the Christian right could defeat Rudy — and make Hillary president
By Alex Koppelman, Salon, October 19, 2007

One of Rudy Giuliani’s chief attractions to Republican primary voters is supposed to be electability. “We’re going to need the strongest possible Republican who can win in every state,” the former New York City mayor said during an August campaign stop, “and I’m the only one who can do that.” Giuliani, the narrative goes, can change the electoral map of the country, taking stronghold states away from the Democrats and providing the last, best defense against the looming specter of President Hillary Clinton.

But the largest single voting bloc in the GOP is not ready for the coronation of a pro-choice candidate like Giuliani. A group of key Christian conservative leaders voted at a Sept. 29 meeting in Salt Lake City to consider supporting a socially conservative third-party candidate if Giuliani is the Republican nominee; the same group will meet in Washington on Saturday for further discussion of the third-party option. Conservative anger is real, at least for now. As longtime conservative activist Richard Viguerie, who was at the first meeting, told Salon, “If Giuliani is the nominee, it will be the end of the Republican Party. There’s no way that conservatives are going to continue to play the role of mistress, and here’s a man who’s wrong on every single social issue.” Viguerie predicts disaster for a Giuliani candidacy. “In a two-way race, I think he’d be hard-pressed to get 40 percent of the vote. In a three-way race, he won’t come close.” [complete article]

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