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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

India-Pakistan
After Osama: Stop feeding the beast
2011-05-03
[Al Jazeera] After years of former Pak military dictator General Musharraf assuring the world that the late Osama bin Laden
... who has made the transition back to dust...
 was either dead or in Afghanistan, he was found and dispatched by US special forces in the town of Abbottabad, a mere 30 miles -- 50km -- as the crow flies from the capital Islamabad.

Abbottabad is a colonial era army "cantonment" or garrison town and home to the Pakistain Military Academy PMA Kakul, less than two miles from the compound in question. To put it in perspective, it is like capturing Carlos the Jackal just down the road from West Point or Sandhurst.

The notion that Pakistain's all pervasive Army-controlled Inter-Services Intelligence was unaware of bin Laden's presence beggars belief.

Although Bush-era National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley feigned total surprise about the location and its implications in an on-air interview after the news broke, WikiLeaks, as well as other sources such as investigative journalist Bob Woodward's most recent book, tell a very different story.

By 2008, the United States political and military leadership had lost all remnants of faith in the trustworthiness of the Pak military and its intelligence wing, the ISI, internally acknowledging that it consistently "hunted with the hounds and ran with the hares", including the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqanis, and the Lashkar-e-Taiba -- and was involved in planning terrorist attacks from Kabul to Mumbai.

Pak intelligence has had a close relationship with bin Laden since the early 1980s, when he acted as a courier, transferring funds from Saudi intelligence and its establishment to the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami to support the anti-Soviet jihad.
Qazi's Jamaat is such an obvious terrorism support organization that it would be asking way too much for the Pak government to crack down on it or even disband it.
It is no surprise that bin Laden chose to relocate to eastern Afghanistan, an area within Pakistain's sphere of influence, in 1996 -- after he was expelled from Sudan under US pressure.

Of course, the relationship has never been smooth -- Pakistain's opportunism alienated al-Qaeda just as much as such behaviour alienated the United States -- but also made it just as indispensable.

Funded by the US taxpayer
Despite this, the United States continued to funnel billions to the Pak armed forces in sophisticated weapons and cash -- most recently a $2 billion package announced in October 2010 under the State Department's Foreign Military Finance Program.

The US is paying, not only for the use of Pakistain as a logistical corridor to its troops in Afghanistan, but for the privilege of conducting an increasingly aggressive covert counter-terrorism campaign on Pak soil -- often against the Pak government's client groups.

Analysis by SISMEC, the New America Foundation and others showed a massive increase in drone strikes in the tribal area of North Wazoo after the summer of 2008, largely aimed at pro-ISI groups such as the Haqqani network.

Most recently, US security contractor Raymond Davis was held in Pakistain for almost two months (17 January to March 16, 2011) after fatally shooting two alleged ISI agents, when he was believed to be surveilling the LeT in Lahore.

As for Davis' claim that he thought he was being robbed, well that one's for the birds. The Davis saga came at the same time that the B.O. regime was reportedly finalising plans for the killing of Osama bin Laden, a coincidence that we are sure we will be hearing more about.

America's first attempt to kill Osama bin Laden came 13 years ago in August 1998, when president Bill Clinton launched "Operation Infinite Reach" in retaliation for the suicide kabooms that devastated US embassies in Nairobi and Daressalam.

Sixty six cruise missiles were launched from the Arabian Sea at camps in eastern Afghanistan to kill Al Qaeda's senior leadership who were due to meet in a shura council.

Pakistain's military leadership was informed by US counterparts shortly before the missiles entered their airspace, just in case they mistook it for an Indian attack (India and Pakistain had just tested nuclear weapons earlier in May).

Shortly after, bin Laden cancelled his planned meeting. Many US officials believe the Pak Army and the ISI tipped bin Laden off.

Covert operations
It is this long and frustrating history that explains why the US chose to conduct this mission covertly and unilaterally.

In spite of face-saving Pak claims of joint execution, it was conducted in much the same way the US might have in a semi-hostile country, such as Syria in October 2008, rather than its proclaimed "frontline ally" in what used to be called the "war on terror".

It seems that Pak authorities had no clear idea of what was going on until it was all over, and a US helicopter bearing the SEAL team and bin Laden's body touched down at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

There is an inevitable question about timing. Why on earth did it take the US so long to succeed?

The standard, official defence was that this was a rugged area, filled with implacably hostile rustics. Today, questions are being finally asked about the Pak Army's complicity.

The truth is deeper, and more unpleasant, and has much to do with the ways in which dictators around the world manipulate US policy with embarrassing ease.

For almost seven years after 9/11, General Musharraf, a warmonger who seized power in a coup in 1999, assured Bush that he was the only man who could hold back the violent fundamentalists and prevent them from seizing control of Pakistain's government and its nuclear weapons.

The US should not push too hard, but rather leave Musharraf to crush the jihad boys.

The reality was that the Pak government deliberately supported the takeover of jihad boy parties -- such as the Islamist MMA alliance in 2003 -- and facilitated the comeback of the Taliban, all the while profiting handsomely from generous US aid and the lifting of nuclear sanctions.

This was despite the fact that democratically elected governments in both Afghanistan (Karzai's 2004 election was accepted as free and fair) and India complained vociferously of the Pak military's support of jihad boy groups in both their countries.

Eventually a newly amalgamated Pak Taliban turned on their former patrons in the government.

Despite this, Pakistain continued to support the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani group, and the LeT, and the politicians in the US continued to enrich a militarist dictatorship that fanned the flames of extremism at the cost of thousands of Asian and American lives.

A new approach
Since Bush's final year in power, freed from the baleful influence of Donald Rumsfeld, the US has taken a much firmer line with Pakistain's military -- calling its bluff by acting more directly against jihad boys, and demanding ever greater accountability (for example the Kerry-Lugar bill) for the billions in assistance poured into Pakistain.

However these measures were totally inadequate for the stew of militarism, illiteracy, and bad governance.

The Arab Spring has eroded many of the conventional assumptions about the relationship between dictators, Islamists and the West.

In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, we heard dictators playing the Islamist card for three decades -- "support us unless you want the faceless myrmidons to win".

The reality has been quite different. Dictators from Musharraf to Mubarak have relied on faceless myrmidons and Orcs and similar vermin to bring in the US aid they so desperately need to survive.

In the case of the Pak Army, they have been only too happy to feed the hand that bites them.

Musharraf, having worn out the patience of both the Pak public and his US patrons was finally forced out in August 2008.

He has been replaced with a weak civilian government that has served as little more than a useful facade for an army that remains addicted to both jihad and US money.

It is a stark warning of what the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt can turn into unless people remain vigilant.

Today, the US continues to lavishly fund the Pak military, while using drones and secret soldiers such as Raymond Davis to attack the jihad boy forces that the same regime supports. It is up to the US to stop feeding the beast.
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Iraq
Bush makes surprise farewell visit to Iraq
2008-12-14
President Bush on Sunday made a farewell visit to Iraq, a place that defines his presidency for better or worse, just 37 days before he hands the war off to a successor who has pledged to end it.

Air Force One, the president's distinctive powder blue-and-white jetliner, landed at Baghdad International Airport in the afternoon local time, after a secretive Saturday night departure from Washington and an 11-hour flight.

Bush planned a rapid-fire series of meetings with top Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The two were marking the recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which sets a deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, for the withdrawal of all American troops. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the agreement was "a remarkable document — unique in the Arab world because it was publicly debated, discussed and adopted by an elected parliament." Hadley said the trip "shows that we are moving into a different relationship ... with Iraqis rightfully exercising greater sovereignty, we in an increasingly subordinate role."

It was Bush's last trip to the war zone before President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20. Bush's most recent Iraq stop was over 15 months ago, in September 2007. For Bush, the war is the issue around which both he and the country defined his two terms in office. He saw the invasion and continuing fight — even after weapons of mass destruction, the initial justification for invading Iraq, were not found — as a necessary action to protect Americans and fight terrorism. Though his decision won support at first, the public now has largely decided that the U.S. needs to get out of Iraq.

After a 10-hour-plus fight, Bush was met at the airport by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander Gen. Raymond Odierno. The president then climbed aboard a helicopter for a five-minute flight to the presidential palace. Other Iraqi officials on Bush's agenda were Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the country's two vice presidents, the speaker of the Council of Representatives and the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government Massoud Barzani.

Signs of the security gains made in Iraq, Bush arrived in daylight and was welcomed with a formal arrival ceremony — a flourish that was not part of his previous three trips to Iraq. Still, the trip was conducted under heavy security and a strict cloak of secrecy. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and police officers blocked streets, checked for roadside bombs and brought traffic to a standstill from Camp Victory, near the airport, to the Green Zone. And people with the president agreed to tell almost no one about the plans. The White House tried to avoid raising suspicion about the president's whereabouts by putting out false schedules detailing activities planned for Bush in Washington on Sunday.

Bush's visit came after Defense Secretary Robert Gates' unannounced stop in Iraq on Saturday, at a sprawling military base in the central part of the country. Gates will be the lone Republican holdover from the Bush Cabinet in the Obama administration.
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India-Pakistan
India unsure of Zardari's ability to fight terror
2008-09-29
(PTI) New Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is keen in trying to improve Indo-Pak relations and it came through clearly during his talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but it remains to be seen whether he will be able to implement anti-terror measures, official sources said today.

The sources said the joint statement after Zardari-Singh talks was a great step where Zardari was willing to say something in public to take on terrorism.

With Zardari making it known that he is only a 14-day president, India was not anxious to put him on the dock on terrorism issues, the sources said.

The President is committed but it remains to be seen whether he will implement the anti-terror measures, the sources said. Pakistan's resolve to jointly fight terrorism along with India was music to India's ears, the sources said.

The sources said both Bush and Singh were not sure if Zardari will be able to deliver on his promises.

Giving some more inputs on the talks between the Prime Minister and US President George W Bush, the sources said Iran did not figure and the Indian delegation was surprised when it did not come up. The sources said there was no attempt to impose ideas on India and there was no pressure on what positions it should take on international issues.

With Bush in the midst of strategies to deal with financial meltdown, sources said National Security Adviser M K Narayanan was asked by the Prime Minister to get in touch with his US counterpart Stephen Hadley and explore the option of shortening the meeting of the two leaders and cancelling the dinner if required to enable the President to be focussed.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
IDF head to visit, hold talks in US
2008-07-20
Less than a month after meeting the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff in Israel, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi left for the United States Saturday night for a week of talks - with a focus on Iran - with top US defense and diplomatic officials.

The visit is Ashkenazi's first to the US as chief of General Staff and comes following two visits Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen has made to Israel in the past seven months. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to visit the US at the beginning of August.

During his week-long visit, Ashkenazi will meet with Mullen, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and top members of the Senate Arms Committee. He will also meet with senior US intelligence officials.

As a sign of the friendship the two military chiefs have developed over the past year, Mullen will host Ashkenazi and his wife Ronit for a private dinner at his house in the Washington, DC area. When Mullen was here three weeks ago, Ashkenazi and his wife hosted him for a private dinner at their Kfar Saba apartment.

Ashkenazi will be accompanied during the trip by IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Avi Benayahu and IDF Strategic and Foreign Liaison Department head Brig.-Gen. Yossi Heiman.

The talks, officials said, would focus on a wide range of regional issues, including Hizbullah and Hamas's military buildup, Syria's continued support of terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program, which would top the agenda.

The officials said that the main purpose behind the trip was exchanging views on the different issues and maintaining relations with the US, Israel's strongest ally. Ashkenazi will also discuss different means that Israel has developed to counter roadside bombs - known in the US as improvised explosive devices (IED) - which is one of the greatest threats to American troops operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The purpose is to continue to create and maintain the deep military-level dialogue with the US," a senior official said.

Ashkenazi will also meet with top American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials in Washington, and representatives of the Friends of the IDF in Miami. He will also visit Centcom headquarters in Tampa, and meet with senior members of the American media.
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India-Pakistan
Does Rogue Pakistani A.Q. Khan Have Advanced Design?
2008-06-16
The US is concerned that the illicit network set up by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan may have distributed designs for nuclear warheads as well as uranium enrichment technology. Stephen Hadley, US national security adviser, told reporters on Sunday: “We are very concerned about the A.Q. Khan network, both in terms of what they were doing by purveying enrichment technology and also the possibility that there would be weapons-related technology associated with it.”

His comments followed reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post claiming that the Khan network possessed plans for a nuclear warhead compact enough to be fitted on to a ballistic missile.
Don't worry, the National Intelligence Estimate assures us that Iran isn't working on a bomb ...
The reports raised the possibility that these designs could have been shared with states such as Iran and North Korea. Such technology would make it easier to transform nuclear material into an effective nuclear weapon.

The A.Q. Khan network was shut down under US pressure in 2004. Mr Khan, who is widely revered in Pakistan as the father of its nuclear bomb, was put under house arrest, but was never charged with any crimes. He recently gave an interview pressing Pakistan’s new government for his release.

The US and its allies have never been allowed to interrogate Mr Khan directly. They are still trying to determine exactly what kind of nuclear secrets were sold and to whom.

Asked whether there was any evidence that the network had passed on weapons technology as well as uranium enrichment technology, Mr Hadley said: “We have had some concerns about it.”

The possibility that the network may have traded in warhead designs as well as enrichment technology was first raised in 2003, when Libya abandoned its covert nuclear programme. Tripoli handed over the blueprint for a nuclear warhead – based on an old Chinese design – that was too bulky to be easily delivered by a missile.

However, the New York Times and Washington Post reports say that investigators have found the blueprint for a more advanced warhead that would be much easier to fit on to a missile on computers allegedly belonging to the AQ Khan network. The design may be based on a recent Pakistani nuclear warhead.

The Swiss government recently announced that it had destroyed 30,000 pages of documents related to the nuclear plans to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. However, the blueprints were reported to be in electronic form and there may be other copies circulating.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US shows evidence of alleged Syria-N. Korea nuke collaboration
2008-04-25
The Syrian nuclear reactor allegedly built with North Korean design help and destroyed last year by Israeli jets was within weeks or months of being functional, a top U.S. official said Thursday. The facility was mostly completed but still needed significant testing before it could be declared operational, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. However, no uranium — needed to fuel a reactor — was evident at the site, a remote area of eastern Syria along the Euphrates River.

The Syrian reactor was similar in design to a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon that has in the past produced small amounts of plutonium, U.S. officials said. Plutonium is highly radioactive and can be used to make powerful nuclear weapons or radiological bombs.

Top members of the House intelligence committee said Thursday after being briefed on the facility by intelligence and administration officials that the reactor posed a serious threat of spreading dangerous nuclear materials. "This is a serious proliferation issue, both for the Middle East and the countries that may be involved in Asia," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.

CIA Director Michael Hayden, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley briefed lawmakers, who were shown a video presentation of intelligence information that the administration contends establishes a strong link between North Korea's nuclear program and the bombed Syrian site. It included still photographs that showed a strong resemblance between specific features of the plant and the one near Yongbyon.

According to officials familiar with the presentation, it did not show moving images inside the facility or any North Korean workers, but included photographs that depict similarities between the North Korean and Syrian reactor designs.

Hoekstra and Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, told reporters after the closed meeting that they were angry that the Bush administration had delayed briefing the full committee for eight months. "It's bad management and terrible public policy to go for eight months knowing this was out there and then drop this in our laps six hours before they go to the public," Hoekstra said.

President Bush's failure to keep Congress informed has created friction that may imperil congressional support for Bush's policies toward North Korea and Syria, he said. "It totally breaks down any trust that you have between the administration and Congress," Hoekstra said. "I think it really jeopardizes any type of the agreement they may come up with" regarding North Korea.

The Syrian site has been veiled in secrecy until this week, with U.S. intelligence and government officials refusing to confirm until now suspicions that the site was to be a nuclear reactor.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush stood by the statement he made in October 2006 when he described North Korea as one of the world's leading proliferators of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. "The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action," Bush said then.

Perino refrained from describing what she thought the consequences could be. "Let's let the briefings take place and the declaration take place and we'll move on from there," she said. Perino said that the information being provided to lawmakers today will not come as a surprise to any member of the six-party talks.

The administration has thus far refused to reveal why it chose to release the information now, but the briefings come at a critical time in the diplomatic effort to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.

As part of that process, the North is required to submit a "declaration" detailing its programs and proliferation activity, but the talks are stalled over Pyongyang's refusal to publicly admit the Syria connection. However, officials say the North Koreans are willing to accept international "concern" about unspecified proliferation. By disclosing North Korean-Syrian cooperation to Congress, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and the public, the administration may have overcome that impasse by giving North Korea a "concern" that it can acknowledge in the declaration.

North Korea was aware that the administration would be releasing the information and its Foreign Ministry said Thursday that a visit to Pyongyang this week by a U.S. delegation to discuss the declaration made progress. It did not elaborate. At the same time, the administration's release of the intelligence shines light on alleged malfeasance by Syria, which has signed an international treaty requiring it to disclose nuclear interests and activity, and makes it easier for Israel to explain its decision to destroy the site.

Syria has not declared the alleged reactor to the International Atomic Energy Agency nor was it under international safeguards, possibly putting Syria in breech of an international nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

In the Syrian capital of Damascus, legislator Suleiman Haddad, who heads the parliament's foreign relations committee, told The Associated Press that the videotape does not deserve a response. "America is looking for any problem in order to accuse Syria," Haddad said by telephone. "Do we need Korean workers to work in Syria?"

"It is regretful to say that America is putting us among its enemies and therefore this talk (at Congress) does not deserve a response. America is trying to create an atmosphere of war in the region," Haddad said. He did not elaborate.

Israeli warplanes bombed the site in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007. A new, larger building has been constructed in its place. U.S. officials were also briefing members of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, at its Vienna headquarters.
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Home Front: WoT
Yesterday's Article on Nat'l Defense University Study bogus
2008-04-20
Via Instapundit:
"The Miami Herald story ("Pentagon Study: War is a 'Debacle' ") distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not "lay much of the blame" on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he "bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff." It does not single out "Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley" for criticism."

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Iraq
Pentagon institute calls Iraq war `a major debacle'
2008-04-18
I haven't read the report(not more than the first 4 pages) nor do I know the reputation of the author. I assume this report will be front page of the Tehran Times tomorrow though. Could someone with more knowledge please make some relevant comments to shed some light on this report and what it means? Is it relevant at all?

I'm curious to know to if and to what extent Cheney and Rumsfeld's involvement in day to day war operations have influenced our desired outcomes and eventual victories in the larger WoT. But first things first who is Joseph Collins?
WASHINGTON | The war in Iraq has become ``a major debacle'' and the outcome ``is in doubt'' despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute. The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations. It was published by the university's National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

``Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,'' says the report's opening line.

At the time the report was written last fall, more than 4,000 U.S. and foreign troops, more than 7,500 Iraqi security forces and as many as 82,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed and tens of thousands of others wounded, while the cost of the war since March 2003 was estimated at $450 billion.

``No one as yet has calculated the costs of long-term veterans' benefits or the total impact on service personnel and materiel,'' wrote Collins, who was involved in planning post-invasion humanitarian operations.

The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted ``manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers'' from ``all other efforts in the war on terror'' and severely strained the U.S. armed forces.

``Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there [in Iraq] were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East,'' the report continued.

The addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq last year to halt the country's descent into all-out civil war has improved security, but not enough to ensure that the country emerges as a stable democracy at peace with its neighbors, the report said.

``Despite impressive progress in security, the outcome of the war is in doubt,'' said the report. ``Strong majorities of both Iraqis and Americans favor some sort of U.S. withdrawal. Intelligence analysts, however, remind us that the only thing worse than an Iraq with an American army may be an Iraq after a rapid withdrawal of that army.''

``For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a `must win,' but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a `can't win.'''

The report lays much of the blame for what went wrong in Iraq after the initial U.S. victory at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It says that in November 2001, before the war in Afghanistan was over, President Bush asked Rumsfeld ``to begin planning in secret for potential military operations against Iraq.''

Rumsfeld, who was closely allied with Vice President Dick Cheney, bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the report says, and became ``the direct supervisor of the combatant commanders.''

''The aggressive, hands-on Rumsfeld,'' it continues, ``cajoled and pushed his way toward a small force and a lightning fast operation.'' Later, he shut down the military's computerized deployment system, ``questioning, delaying or deleting units on the numerous deployment orders that came across his desk.''

In part because ``long, costly, manpower-intensive post-combat operations were anathema to Rumsfeld,'' the report says, the U.S. was unprepared to fight what Collins calls ``War B,'' the battle against insurgents and sectarian violence that began in mid-2003, shortly after ``War A,'' the fight against Saddam Hussein's forces, ended.

Compounding the problem was a series of faulty assumptions made by Bush's top aides, among them an expectation fed by Iraqi exiles that Iraqis would be grateful to America for liberating them from Saddam's dictatorship. The administration also expected that ``Iraq without Saddam could manage and fund its own reconstruction.''

The report also singles out the Bush administration's national security apparatus and implicitly President Bush and both of his national security advisers, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, saying that ``senior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect.''

Collins ends his report by quoting Winston Churchill, who said: ``Let us learn our lessons. Never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. ... Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think that he also had a chance.''
Obtain the report here.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran froze nuclear programme four years ago, US intelligence report says
2007-12-04
Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and has not restarted it since, a stunning new assessment released by America's intelligence agencies has found.

The findings, published yesterday, contradict an assessment by US intelligence officials two years ago that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons and appeared to undercut President Bush's repeated and ominous warnings about a nuclear-armed Iran.

As recently as August Mr Bush gave warning that Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology could lead to a nuclear holocaust and that the US and its allies “will confront this danger before it is too late”. In October he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to a third world war.

Last night, however, Mr Bush's closest aides claimed that the finding was vindication for the White House's focus on a muscular but diplomatic approach to Iran.

The report, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report — the consensus view of all 16 US intelligence agencies — said that Iran still continued to enrich uranium, which meant that it might be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015 if it restarted its weapons programme. It also said that Iran's ultimate goal was still to develop the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

But it adds: “Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons that we have been judging since 2005.” Two years ago the NIE stated with “high confidence” that Iran was pursuing the nuclear bomb.

Yesterday's assessment said Iran's ultimate intentions about acquiring a nuclear weapon remained unclear, but that Tehran's “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs”.

It added: “Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program.”

The assessment is being published five years after the release of another report by the NIE which claimed that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing the nuclear bomb. The report was one of the most important pieces of evidence used by the White House to justify the invasion of Iraq.

It also comes amid a presidential campaign in which the issue of Iran has eclipsed Iraq as the most pressing foreign policy challenge facing America. Anti-Iranian rhetoric has been particularly bellicose among several leading Republican candidates.

The report addresses claims by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, that Tehran has 3,000 centrifuges enriching uranium. It says that Iran might have the centrifuges, but it is having technological difficulties in making them work.

Stephen Hadley, Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, said the report “offers some positive news”.

He added: “It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen.

“But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the Administration has been trying to do. And it suggests that the President has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution.”

Last month the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world's nuclear watchdog, reported that Iran was operating 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges, but it said it was unclear whether the country was pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Sure. Those centrifuges could be to make ice cream instead. Really hot ice cream.
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India-Pakistan
Dupe entry: Evidence suggests U.S. missile used in (AQ #3) strike
2007-11-02
False alarm. Story's from 2005.
Shrapnel that appeared to be from an American-made missile was found Sunday at the house where Pakistan said a top al-Qaida operative was killed in an explosion, although President Bush’s national security adviser declined to confirm the death.

U.S. and Pakistani officials declined to confirm an NBC report, citing anonymous officials, that the attack on the house where Hamza Rabia reportedly died was launched by a U.S. drone.
Here lies the sacrificial AQ #3 to commemorate Admiral Fallon's visit.

But local residents found at least two pieces of shrapnel at the blast scene inscribed with the designation of the Hellfire missile, which is carried by the U.S. Air Force’s unmanned, remote-controlled Predator aircraft. The metal pieces bore the designator “AGM-114,” the words “guided missile” and the initials “US.”

John Pike, director of the defense Web site GlobalSecurity.org, said the Hellfire is used almost exclusively by the U.S. military. Al-Qaida operatives would be unlikely to have Hellfire missiles, Pike said, although he said the possibility could not be completely discounted.

‘A good thing for the war on terror’
U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley declined to confirm that Rabia, said to be among al-Qaida’s top five leaders and responsible for planning overseas attacks, was dead or that the attack was carried out by a pilotless U.S. plane. “At this point we are not in a position publicly to confirm that he is dead. But if he is, that is a good thing for the war on terror,” Hadley told “Fox News Sunday.”

Rabia was involved in planning two assassination plots against Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and “we believe he was involved in planning for attacks against the United States,” Hadley said.
So a thorn in Musharaff's side too. In Pakistan, that's the one strike and you're out rule.

Musharraf said Saturday it was “200 percent confirmed” that Rabia was killed.
He was killed twice. Once for good luck.


The senior Pakistani intelligence official said the missile attack blew up a stockpile of bomb-making materials, grenades and other munitions. Pakistan Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said Rabia’s two Syrian bodyguards also died in the explosion.
Flowers on way to Pencilneck.

'A big blow for them'
Sources told NBC that Rabia was one of five men killed at a safehouse located in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan, near the town of Mirali.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed declined to comment on the report about Rabia’s remains but said there was “other information” besides the DNA tests that confirmed his identity. “He was a high-profile commander in the network. We were tracing him for the last two years,” Sherpao told The Associated Press on Sunday. “Naturally any person killed in their hierarchy is a big blow for them.”

An intelligence official said U.S. help was involved in tracking Rabia down and “eliminating the threat” that he embodied. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Local residents said that the men were killed by an unknown number of missiles fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft. The witnesses said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been the result of the missiles detonating explosives inside the safehouse.

On Saturday, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, citing sources it did not identify, reported that the attack on a mud-walled home near Miran Shah may have been launched from two pilotless planes.

Associates from outside Pakistan retrieved the bodies of Rabia and two other foreigners and buried them in an unknown location, the report said.

Rabia had moved up al-Qaida ranks
Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information’s sensitivity, said Saturday that Rabia was believed to be an Egyptian and head of al-Qaida’s foreign operations, possibly as senior as the No. 3 in the terrorist group, just below al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri. They are believed to be hiding in a rugged area along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

Rabia’s death would not enhance the prospect of catching either bin Laden or al-Zawahri, according to another Pakistani intelligence official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job. The official said intelligence agents had no clue about the whereabouts of bin Laden or al-Zawahri.

Rabia filled the vacuum created this year by the capture of the previous operations chief, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the two U.S. officials said.

Rabia would have been responsible for training, recruiting, networking and, most importantly, planning international terrorist activities outside the Afghan-Pakistan region. He had a wide array of jihadist contacts, one official said, and was believed to be trying to reinvigorate al-Qaida’s operations.

One Pakistani intelligence official said Rabia had been the target of a Nov. 5 attack in the same area that killed eight people, but he managed to escape. That attack initially was blamed on militants setting off bombs they were making.

Miran Shah is a strategic tribal region where al-Qaida militants are believed to be hiding and where Pakistani forces have launched several operations against them.
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Southeast Asia
Bush to levy sanctions against Myanmar
2007-09-25
NEW YORK - President Bush on Tuesday will announce additional sanctions against the military dictatorship in Myanmar to support the push for democracy in that Asian country, the White House said Monday. Bush, in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly, will announce financial sanctions against key members of the regime and those who provide them financial aid, said Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser.

The U.S. action came amid a growing series of anti-government protests in Myanmar, also known as Burma. As many as 100,000 protesters led by a phalanx of barefoot monks marched Monday in the most powerful show of strength yet.

"It's very interesting what is happening in the country with the Buddhist monks who have joined this effort," Hadley said. "Our hope is to marry that internal pressure with the external pressure coming from the United States and the United Nations and really all countries that are committed to freedom to try to force the regime into a change."

Hadley would not be specific about the financial sanctions to maintain what he called an element of surprise against those who might try to hide their assets. But he said they would target key members of the regime and those who provide financial support to them.

He also said there would be a visa ban against those associated with the regime, including their families. "He will call for the United Nations and for other countries there to do all they can to support a process of political change in Burma," Hadley said.

The U.S. restricts imports and exports and financial transactions with Myanmar. Washington also has imposed an arms embargo on Myanmar.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US ramps up Iran attack plans after Germany refuses additional sanctions
2007-09-11
A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed Tuesday.

Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy

— and also gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.
The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy — and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.
spit I grow weary of such 'allies'.


Germany's withdrawal from the allied diplomatic offensive is the latest consensus across relevant U.S. agencies and offices, including the State Department, the National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the most ardent proponent of a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, has had his chance on the Iranian account and come up empty.

Political and military officers, as well as weapons of mass destruction specialists at the State Department, are now advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the diplomatic approach favored by Burns has failed and the administration must actively prepare for military intervention of some kind. Among those advising Rice along these lines are John Rood, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation; and a number of Mideast experts, including Ambassador James Jeffrey, deputy White House national security adviser under Stephen Hadley and formerly the principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs.

Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, "everyone in town" is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.

On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran's known nuclear targets.

Most relevant parties have concluded such a comprehensive attack plan would require at least a week of sustained bombing runs, and would at best set the Iranian nuclear program back a number of years — but not destroy it forever. Other considerations include the likelihood of Iranian reprisals against Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers; and the effects on American troops in Iraq. There, officials have concluded that the Iranians are unlikely to do much more damage than they already have been able to inflict through their supply of explosives and training of insurgents in Iraq.

The Bush administration "has just about had it with Iran," said one foreign diplomat. "They tried the diplomatic process. China is now obstructing them at the U.N. Security Council and the Russians are tucking themselves behind them.

"The Germans are wobbling …There are a number of people in the administration who do not want their legacy to be leaving behind an Iran that is nuclear armed, so they are looking at what are the alternatives? They are looking at other options," the diplomat said.

Vice President Cheney and his aides are said to be enjoying a bit of "schadenfreude" at the expense of Burns. A source described Cheney's office as effectively gloating to Burns and Rice, "We told you so. (The Iranians) are not containable diplomatically."

The next shoe to drop will be when Rice and President Bush make a final decision about whether to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and/or its lethal subset, the Quds Force, as a terrorist entity or entities. FOX News reported in June that such a move is under consideration.

Sources say news leaks about the prospective designation greatly worried European governments and private sector firms, which could theoretically face prosecution in American courts if such measures became law and these entities continued to do business with IRGC and its multiple financial subsidiaries.

If the Bush administration moves forward with such a designation, sources said, it would be an indication that Rice agrees that Burns' approach has failed. Designation of such a large Iranian military institution as a terrorist entity would also be seen, sources said, as laying the groundwork for a public justification of American military action.

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