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Al-Qaida recruiting local U.S. gang ties - (United Press International)
Washington, DC, Sep. 28 (UPI) -- Senior al-Qaida members reportedly are recruiting help from a violent Salvadoran gang with a history of smuggling people into the United States.
Al-Qaida recruiting local U.S. gang ties
Washington, DC, Sep. 28 (UPI) -- Senior al-Qaida members reportedly are recruiting help from a violent Salvadoran gang with a history of smuggling people into the United States.
The Washington Times reports U.S. officials said Adnan El Shukrijumah was spotted in July in Honduras meeting with leaders of El Salvador's notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, which immigration officials said has smuggled hundreds of Central and South Americans into the United States via the Mexican border.
The United States has a $5 million reward posted for the capture of El Shukrijumah.
Authorities said al-Qaida terrorists want to take advantage of a lack of detention space within the Department of Homeland Security, which has forced immigration officials to release non-Mexican illegal aliens back into the United States rather than return them to their home countries.
The Salvadoran gang, known to law enforcement authorities as MS-13 because members identify themselves with tattoos of the number 13, is thought to have established a major smuggling depot in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of Brownsville, Texas.
September 28, 2004 at 11:29 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (81) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Spy Imagery Agency Watching Inside U.S.
ue Sep 28,10:16 AM ET
By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
BETHESDA, Md. - In the name of homeland security, America's spy imagery agency is keeping a close eye, close to home. It's watching America. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 100 employees of a little-known branch of the Defense Department called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — and some of the country's most sophisticated aerial imaging equipment — have focused on observing what's going on in the United States.
Their work brushes up against the fine line between protecting the public and performing illegal government spying on Americans.
Roughly twice a month, the agency is called upon to help with the security of events inside the United States. Even more routinely, it is asked to help prepare imagery and related information to protect against possible attacks on critical sites.
For instance, the agency has modified basic maps of the nation's capital to highlight the location of hospitals, linking them to data on the number of beds or the burn unit in each. To secure the Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) funeral procession, the agency merged aerial photographs and 3D images, allowing security planners to virtually walk, drive or fly through the Simi Valley, Calif., route.
The agency is especially watchful of big events or targets that might attract terrorists — political conventions, for example, or nuclear power plants.
Everyone agrees that the domestic mission of the NGA has increased dramatically in the wake of Sept. 11, even though laws and carefully crafted regulations are in place to prevent government surveillance aimed at Americans.
The agency is not interested in information on U.S. citizens, stresses Americas office director Bert Beaulieu. "We couldn't care less about individuals and people and companies," he said.
But that's not good enough for secrecy expert Steven Aftergood, who oversees a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "What it all boils down to is 'Trust us. Our intentions are good,'" he said.
Adds Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington: "As a general matter, when there are systems of public surveillance, there needs to be public oversight."
Geospatial intelligence is the science of combining imagery, such as satellite pictures, to physically depict features or activities happening anywhere on the planet.
Outside the United States, it can be a powerful tool for war planners who may use imagery to measure soil wetness to determine if tanks could travel an area. It can help weapons proliferation experts look for ground disturbances that can indicate new underground bunkers.
Before Sept. 11, the NGA's domestic work often meant things like lending a hand during natural disasters by supplying pictures of wildfires and floods.
But now the agency's new Americas Office has been called on to assemble visual information on more than 130 urban areas, among scores of other assignments, including maps of the national mall, the country's high-voltage transmission lines and disaster exercises.
Sometimes, agency officials may cooperate with private groups, such as hotel security offices, to get access to video footage of lobbies and hallways. That footage can then be connected with other types of maps used to secure events — or to take action, if a hostage situation or other catastrophe happens.
The level of detail varies widely, depending on the threat and what the FBI (news - web sites) or another agency needs.
"In most cases, it's not intrusive," said the NGA's associate general counsel, Laura Jennings. "It is information to help secure an event and to have people prepared to respond should there be an attack, or to analyze the area where a threat has been made."
According to Executive Order 12333, signed by President Reagan in 1981, members of the U.S. intelligence community can collect, retain and pass along information about U.S. companies or people only in certain cases.
Information that is publicly available or collected with the consent of the individual is fair game, as is information acquired by overhead reconnaissance not directed at specific people or companies.
The NGA says it has aggressive internal oversight and its employees go through annual training on what is and isn't allowed.
"If they deviated from their own rules, how would it be discovered?" asks secrecy expert Aftergood. "I am not satisfied that they have an answer to that question."
One oversight committee in Congress noticed after Sept. 11 that an intelligence agency was snapping pictures of the United States, said a congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. A staff member is now monitoring the issue, and the aide said so far problems have not been spotted.
But Aftergood notes that while intelligence budgets have increased dramatically in the last five years, congressional oversight budgets have not.
Even the agency concedes gray areas do emerge.
Generally, for example, intelligence resources can't be used for law enforcement purposes. So the FBI or another agency could use an NGA-produced aerial photograph to solve a domestic crime. But the NGA couldn't take actions to target a specific individual, such as highlight a suspect's home, unless the information was linked directly to a national security issue.
Agency officials call that "passive assistance" and say certain legal tests must be met.
Law enforcement officials occasionally ask if the agency has information that could provide evidence about a crime — say, for example, whether a white truck was at a location at a certain time, Beaulieu said hypothetically.
"Yes, we will do a check," he said. "But I can't remember a single case where we actually even had an image for that day."
Jennings concedes that toeing such fine lines can be difficult.
"We look, we check, and it just so happens that we haven't had a situation where there is a smoking gun," she said. "We would analyze each one, case by case."
"Everybody wants to do the right thing and provide the information that is appropriate without overstepping their authority," she later added.
The NGA says it is working to build trust — with the public and with private companies.
Before Sept. 11, for instance, chemical plants and other critical sites weren't as cooperative as they are today, out of fear that aerial photographs might be shared with federal environmental regulators. NGA officials say the Homeland Security Department has been careful to protect proprietary information.
What if NGA analysts were to see an environmental crime?
"I don't think any of my people know enough to know an environmental crime," Beaulieu said.
September 28, 2004 at 08:57 PM in US | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - Audit Finds Large FBI Translation Backlog
Tue Sep 28, 2:29 AM ET
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Despite major increases in money and personnel, the FBI (news - web sites) is still failing to translate many al-Qaida surveillance recordings in a timely manner and faces a giant backlog of untranslated material from terrorism and espionage investigations, a new Justice Department (news - web sites) audit shows.
The report released Monday by Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, found more than one-third of al-Qaida intercepts authorized by a secret federal court were not reviewed within 12 hours of collection, as required by FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 123,000 hours of audio in languages associated with terrorists still had not been reviewed as of April 2004, the audit found. In addition, more than 370,000 hours of audio associated with counterintelligence had not been reviewed.
This backlog existed even though money for the FBI's language services had increased from $21.5 million in fiscal 2001 to about $70 million in fiscal 2004. The number of linguists had risen from 883 to 1,214 over that period, the audit found, while electronic surveillance collection in key languages such as Arabic and Pashto has risen 45 percent.
FBI critics on Capitol Hill said the audit indicates that the bureau's translation capabilities are far from adequate.
"It doesn't do anyone any good for the FBI to have the terrorists' attack plans in its hands but still not be able to see or hear what the plans are," said Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-Iowa, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites).
The audit was completed in July in classified form. The version released Monday was edited to remove sections classified as "secret" by the FBI.
The FBI also is not meeting Mueller's requirement that all al-Qaida communications collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act be reviewed within 12 hours of interception. During April 2004, the audit found, 36 percent of such communications authorized by the secret FISA court were not even received at FBI headquarters within 12 hours.
The audit found that the FBI still lacks language personnel necessary to do all the needed translation work, and limitations in its technology, especially computer storage capacity, also cause problems that lead to backlogs.
"Three years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil, the overall effectiveness of a major investigative tool in our antiterrorism arsenal is still in doubt," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont, senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Justice Department's translation mess has become a chronic problem that has obvious implications for our national security."
The audit made 18 recommendations for the FBI, many of which already have been implemented, Fine said. FBI officials told auditors they are hiring linguists as quickly as they can be found in such languages as Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, Chinese, Turkish and Kurdish.
"The FBI appears to be taking steps to address these issues, which are critical components of the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts," Fine said.
Mueller said the FBI's translation workload has doubled since the Sept. 11 attacks, and the bureau is committed to hiring more linguists and fixing the technological problems. One difficulty is that the FBI has trouble finding qualified linguists who can pass required security clearances for sensitive terrorism and intelligence investigations, he said.
But Mueller also said FBI linguists are now connected worldwide so that someone in one office can work on information collected by another office far away.
"We agree with (the inspector general) that more remains to be done in our language services program, and we are giving this effort the highest priority," Mueller said.
___
On the Net:
Justice Department inspector general: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
September 28, 2004 at 07:21 AM in FBI | Permalink | TrackBack (91) | Top of page | Blog Home
The Scotsman - Top Stories - Bin Laden likely to be in 'safe' Pakistan
MIKE COLLETT-WHITE IN KABUL AND AMIR ZIA IN KARACHI
AL-QAEDA leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are more likely to be in Pakistan than Afghanistan, the United States general leading the hunt for terrorists in the region said yesterday.
Lieutenant-General David Barno, who commands 18,200 soldiers hunting Islamic militants in Afghanistan, was speaking a day after Pakistani troops killed Amjad Hussain Farooqi, the al-Qaeda leader wanted for failed assassination attempts on Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf.
Security forces in Pakistan yesterday arrested several more suspected Islamic militants while Mr Musharraf welcomed the news of Farooqi’s killing.
Speaking from his heavily guarded US military compound in Kabul, Lt-Gen Barno said while most al-Qaeda operatives were in Pakistan, the group was working with remnants of the Taleban regime to destabilise Afghanistan’s presidential elections due to be held next month.
Explaining that there was no formal command structure linking the militant groups, he added: "The al-Qaeda elements here are helping to enable Taleban efforts to disrupt the Afghan political process.
"They clearly are facilitators for franchise terrorist organisations here as well as many other places in the world."
Lt-Gen Barno praised Pakistan, a key ally in the US’s war on terror, for its crackdown on foreign militants in remote tribal regions bordering Afghanistan and helping to capture al-Qaeda operatives hiding in cities and towns.
Dozens of al-Qaeda-linked militants have been captured or killed in Pakistan in recent months, including Farooqi, who was also wanted in connection with the killing of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
US-led forces in Afghanistan, by contrast, had probably not captured or killed a top al-Qaeda personality inside Afghanistan since 2002, Lt-Gen Barno said.
"We see relatively little evidence of senior al-Qaeda personality figures being [in Afghanistan] because they can feel more protected by their foreign fighters in remote areas inside Pakistan," he said.
"[Al-Qaeda] do a little bit of back-and-forth across the border, but all these terrorist groups recognise they are at great risk when they come into Afghanistan."
Remnants of Afghanistan’s hard-line Islamic regime, ousted in a US-led war in 2001 for failing to hand over Bin Laden after the 11 September attacks, have vowed to disrupt the landmark 9 October presidential poll which the US-backed incumbent, Hamid Karzai, is tipped to win.
Lt-Gen Barno said he is braced for a "spike" in violence as the country’s first presidential election approaches.
More than 1,000 people have died in Afghanistan, mostly in militant attacks, since last August.
Pakistan has more than 70,000 troops in its tribal belt, and complaints by US officials of a lack of commitment by Islamabad to prevent Taleban and allied Islamic militants from crossing into Afghanistan to fight an insurgency have annoyed Mr Musharraf.
The Pakistani president welcomed news of Farooqi’s death yesterday.
"We’ve eliminated one of the very major sources of terrorist threat," he said during an official visit to the Netherlands. "Not only was he involved in the attacks on me but also in attacks elsewhere and terrorist attacks elsewhere in the country.
"So a very big terrorist has been eliminated."
Mr Musharraf also said interrogation and intelligence reports suggested Bin Laden was still alive.
Farooqi was killed when security forces besieged his hideout in Nawabshah on Sunday after a phone-tap operation confirmed his presence there. Two Pakistani companions were captured and are under interrogation.
Brigadier Javed Cheema, an interior ministry official, said subsequent arrests were made in several parts of the country.
Police sources said at least three men were detained in the Sindh town of Sukkar, about 240 miles north of Karachi.
Farooqi, who had a price of 20 million rupees (£193,000) on his head, was considered the main Pakistani planner of two failed assassination attempts on Mr Musharraf, including a suicide assault on his motorcade on 25 December last year, which killed 15 people and wounded 45.
"He was the main local link of al-Qaeda," an official said.
Farooqi’s controller was believed to be Abu Faraj Farj, a Libyan who has emerged as a leading figure in al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
Farooqi was also one of seven men wanted in the 2002 kidnapping and killing of Mr Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter.
Farooqi’s death prompted authorities in Karachi to issue a red alert at foreign missions, government offices and places of worship.
"He was among the top terror masterminds," said Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel. "We have put security on alert to face any possible reaction to his killing."
Fayyaz Leghari, a deputy inspector general of police, said Farooqi had connections with foreign militants and was the main organiser and facilitator of major terror attacks in Pakistan.
September 27, 2004 at 09:54 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
Yahoo! News - US mum on slaying of Hamas militant in Syria, urges action against terrorism
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States refused to comment on or condemn the weekend killing in Syria of a founder of the radical Islamist Hamas movement in a bombing that has been blamed on Israel.
The State Department allowed that the death of Ezzeddin Sheikh Khalil, who was killed on Sunday when his booby-trapped car exploded in Damascus, had been "violent" but would not take any position on the slaying and reiterated its demands for Syria to crack down on alleged terrorists.
"We urge Syria to take steps to halt the activities of individuals and organizations that facilitate and direct violence and terror and that operate from Syrian territory," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.
"There are terrorist organizations and terrorist individuals operating out of Syria with the support and connivance of the government of Syria and that is not in the interests of peace and not consistent with statements in favor of peace," he said.
"Terrorism begets a cycle of violence that can be dealt with through ending support of terrorist organizations," he said, declining to speculate on who might have been behind the car bombing or characterize the explosion in any way except as "violent."
"I think a car bomb blowing somebody up is violent," Ereli said.
Syria and Hamas have both accused Israel of murdering Khalil and about 3,000 Palestinians, urging vengeance against the Jewish state at his funeral on Monday.
Israel has stopped short of taking responsibility for the attack but said Syria "cannot possibly enjoy immunity when it shelters the headquarters of terrorist organizations" and Israeli newspapers reported Monday that the killing bore the hallmark of the Israeli secret services.
Ereli would not be drawn on the question of responsibility for the attack but, when asked, mentioned in passing that the US policy of opposing so-called "targeted killings" by Israel remained unchanged.
"Our position on targeted killings I think is well known," he said, without elaborating.
Khalil's killing came just days after US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) held what he termed "positive" talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
The meeting marked a significant shift in recent negative developments in relations between Washington and Damascus which reached a low point earlier this year with the imposition of new US sanctions against Syria for its support of alleged terrorists and lack of cooperation in dealing on Iraq (news - web sites).
Ereli's comments on Monday seemed to contrast with Powell's upbeat remarks last week in which he said he sensed a "new attitude from the Syrians" on a variety of a US concerns.
In the wake of the killing, a senior State Department official said the United States feared possible anti-US demonstration and possible violence in Syria and had expressed concern to the Syrian government about the safety of US facilities there.
"There have been meetings in Syria between our ambassador and Syrian authorities to urge protections for American government facilities," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "In light of the violence, there is concern for further action."
The US embassy in Damascus urged Americans in Syria to be aware of the potential of unruly protests.
September 27, 2004 at 05:31 PM in Middle East | Permalink | TrackBack (99) | Top of page | Blog Home
CNN.com - Bin Laden 'alive and in Pakistan' - Sep 27, 2004
Monday, September 27, 2004 Posted: 2:23 PM EDT (1823 GMT)
(CNN) -- Intelligence indicates Osama bin Laden is alive, Pakistan's president says, and the top U.S. military official in Afghanistan believes the al Qaeda leader is probably in Pakistan.
On a visit to The Hague in the Netherlands Monday, Pervez Musharraf told reporters that interrogations of captured al Qaeda operatives and technological evidence indicate bin Laden is alive.
But when asked about bin Laden's current whereabouts, Musharraf replied: "Oh no, I don't know where he is. I wish I did," according to The Associated Press.
Lt. Gen. David Barno, commander of U.S-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, told Reuters news agency that top al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, were more likely to be in Pakistan than Afghanistan.
"We see relatively little evidence of senior al Qaeda personality figures being here (in Afghanistan) because they can feel more protected by their foreign fighters in remote areas inside Pakistan," he said on Monday.
Barno also said no major al Qaeda figures had been caught or killed in Afghanistan since 2002, but Pakistan has arrested or killed dozens linked to the network since March.
Lt. Col. Pam Keaton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, confirmed to CNN that Barno's comments were accurately reported by Reuters.
The comments came on the same day that Pakistani officials said police had killed one of the most wanted militants in the country, a man suspected of being a top al Qaeda operative. (Full story)
Amjad Hussain Farooqi was killed in an early morning raid in the small city of Nawab Shah, southern Pakistan, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told CNN on Monday.
Farooqi, who had a price of 2 million rupees ($34,000) on his head, has been accused of being involved in a spate of attacks.
He was a suspect in two assassination attempts against Musharraf last year in which 15 people were killed and 45 wounded. Farooqi is also a suspect in the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl two years ago, Ahmed said.
Pakistan, which has enraged Islamic militants by supporting Washington's campaign against terrorism, is leading its own operations to track down al Qaeda members in Afghanistan, particularly in tribal regions near its border with that country.
Islamabad has also been putting pressure on tribal leaders not to give shelter to al Qaeda or Taliban remnants believed to be in the area and possibly regrouping for new operations in Afghanistan.
The United States has no official involvement in those military efforts but has offered support.
Coalition forces in Afghanistan have been on bin Laden's trail for two and a half years in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
Following the attacks, in which almost 3,000 people died, the U.S. government named bin Laden as a prime suspect.
September 27, 2004 at 05:27 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
New York Post Online Edition: news
September 25, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has created a special commando task force to destroy the vicious terror network controlled by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — and twice has come very close to killing him, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
Military officials confirmed a report on Fox News Channel that a special unit of CIA operatives and Special Forces Commandos known as Task Force 626 has been assigned to hunting down and attacking Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group.
The new force is smaller than Task Force 121, the team that hunted down Saddam Hussein and is now in Afghanistan looking for Osama bin Laden.
The secret Zarqawi task force has operatives and paid informants penetrating the ultra-violent town of Fallujah and a Sunni-dominated Baghdad neighborhood known as "Little Fallujah."
Sources told The Post that twice, once last week in the village of Zoba near Fallujah, and once last summer in Fallujah, the U.S. narrowly missed killing the elusive Zarqawi.
Tawhid and Jihad's spiritual leader, Sheik Abu Anas al-Sami, was killed in a U.S. airstrike west of Baghdad last weekend.
September 26, 2004 at 08:11 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home
Summary: Why is Russia hopelessly mired in Chechnya? A new book skillfully details the history of the conflict, but it also goes astray in its often groundless invective.
Charles King is Associate Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is finishing a book on the politics and history of the Black Sea.
It is hard to think of a more likely pair of candidates for historical enmity than the Russian government and the Chechens. In the nineteenth century, Russia's expansion into the Caucasus was slowed by the opposition of local mountain peoples, of whom the Chechens were among the most fierce. Vicious frontier wars raged for much of the century and ended with the death or forced migration of hundreds of thousands of highlanders. The Chechens were targeted again in 1944, when the Soviet government packed off the entire nation, as many as half a million people, to Central Asia for allegedly collaborating with the Nazis. They were "rehabilitated" only in 1957, when they were allowed to return in diminished numbers to their autonomous republic in the northeastern Caucasus.
It is no surprise, then, that the loosening of Soviet control allowed this history to come to the fore yet again, fueling two new rounds of warfare: from 1994 to 1996 and from 1999 to the present. But as Matthew Evangelista shows in his impressive new book, predicting violence in Chechnya was easy. Explaining why it erupted when it did, and why the conflict now appears intractable, is far trickier.
WHY HERE? WHY NOW?
There are at least three broad ways of thinking about the origins of the Chechen conflict. The first focuses on history and culture. Altitude, as the saying goes, determines attitude, and one cannot observe the history of Chechen resistance to Russian rule without acknowledging the power of highland cultural norms -- codes of honor, a martial tradition that blurs the line between political rebellion and ordinary brigandage, the organization of society around rival clans -- in inspiring and sustaining violence. Political Islam has also played a role, in either its indigenous Sufi varieties or the militant Wahhabi form imported from the Arab world in the 1990s.
A second explanation attributes current problems to the legacy of the Soviet system itself. A standardized Chechen language was developed by Soviet linguists, just as many of the cultural symbols praised as timeless markers of Chechen identity were codified -- and in some cases manufactured -- during the Soviet period. Even Djokhar Dudaev, the trilby-wearing first president of Chechnya who was killed by a Russian rocket in 1996, learned what he knew of military tactics from the Soviet air force academy.
The problem with these two views is that there are plenty of conflict-prone regions in Eurasia that have inherited the same Soviet legacies but have still made the transition to postcommunism in relative peace. Consider Dagestan, a case that features prominently in Evangelista's book. Unlike any of the neighboring republics in the north Caucasus, the very name "Dagestan" -- the mountainous place -- is ethnically neutral, and for good reason: the republic is home to a bewildering mix of ethnic and linguistic groups. And many of these groups have histories of opposition to Russia at least as bloody as the Chechens'. Shamil, the great highland warlord and leader of the anti-Russian struggle in the nineteenth century, was a member of the Avar ethnic group, now the largest component of Dagestan's population. One could also name the Cherkess and Ingush in the Caucasus or the Crimean Tatars in Ukraine, all of whom were the victims of mass deportation from the 1860s to the 1940s, as evidence that suffering alone rarely motivates rebellion. In most of Russia's regions, the legacies of the past -- whether Soviet or pre-Soviet -- produced a preference for accommodation with Moscow after 1991. Only in Chechnya did they lead to war.
A third explanation for the violence of the 1990s thus concerns the idiosyncrasies of individual personalities and collective decision-making, and this is where Evangelista centers his analysis. Chechnya was not fated to end in violence. War came about because elites in Moscow thought it would serve as a deterrent to separatism elsewhere. Boris Yeltsin and his advisers were convinced that the growing militancy of the Chechen leadership in the early 1990s would produce a domino effect, a cascade of independence movements that would end in the disintegration of Russia itself. Similar concerns pushed Vladimir Putin in the direction of war, but calculations about his own political career may also have been at work. The rise of criminality and terrorism during the uneasy armistice from 1996 to 1999 turned Russian public opinion in favor of "doing something" about the Chechen menace, and Putin was able to ride the wave of popular support for a renewed war all the way to the presidency. There is little doubt that the resumption of violence in the fall of 1999 helped cement Putin's hold on power; since then, it has provided a convenient excuse for backtracking on some of the genuine reforms that came out of the otherwise disastrous Yeltsin era.
PAYING THE PRICE
If Yeltsin's war was purportedly about preserving the union, Putin's has now become about defending it -- against bandits, terrorists, and radical Islam. Both rhetorical devices have played well in Washington. There was Bill Clinton's shameful comparison of Chechnya with the American Civil War, as if international norms on the use of force -- especially against one's own citizens -- had not evolved in a century and a half. Since September 11, Putin has cast Chechnya as simply another theater in the global war on terrorism. That claim is less easy to dismiss than the portrayal of Yeltsin as a latter-day Lincoln. There are, no doubt, some Chechens who are fighting for national liberation, but their numbers are diminishing. The dogs of war -- people such as Salman Raduev, who recently succumbed to "internal bleeding" while in Russian custody, and Shamil Basaev, the mastermind of multiple hostage-taking episodes -- have now taken the helm. And their ties to the shadowy world of violent Islamist movements are manifold.
The human and material costs of the two Chechen wars are impossible to gauge with precision. Especially in the second war, the Russian government has restricted press access, and the profitable industry of kidnapping, a favored practice on all sides, has ensured that even the most intrepid observers have generally stayed away. But the broad outlines of the wars' devastating effects are clear. Tens of thousands of people have been killed -- many, perhaps most, of them civilians. The level of Russian military casualties is approaching that sustained by the Soviet Union during its ten-year quagmire in Afghanistan. Cities have been leveled by Russian bombs, and hundreds of thousands of citizens have been made refugees in neighboring republics and countries. The conflicts have had a negative effect on Russia's international standing and have helped push the country toward illiberal quasi-democracy, if not outright authoritarianism. They have brought terrorism to the heart of Moscow -- most recently in October 2002, when Chechen fighters seized an auditorium full of theater-goers, setting off a crisis that ended in the deaths of nearly 130 hostages during a gas attack by Russian security services. The war has thus had a doubly deleterious consequence for the Russian state: keeping it at arm's length from Western institutions while making it the West's partner in the minds of radical Islamists.
What might once have been a usable war now looks like an unwinnable one, and Evangelista's book is a detailed account of how things came to be this way. It is based on an exhaustive survey of the emerging memoir literature as well as on the work of prominent Russian analysts and journalists whose writings are not generally available to foreign readers. What the book lacks in the from-the-battlefield perspectives of Carlotta Gall, Thomas de Waal, and Anatol Lieven (all of whom covered the 1994-96 conflict), it more than makes up for with a compelling synthesis of new insights from Russian soldiers, scholars, and policymakers.
NOTHING PERSONAL
It is jarring, therefore, to read Evangelista's chapter on war crimes and international policy, a chapter that should have been the centerpiece of a broad indictment of U.S. and European responses to the war. It is instead a curiously emotional attack on Lieven, Jack Matlock, Robert Bruce Ware, and other leading Western experts. Evangelista's main charge is that these analysts have "sought to rationalize" -- by which he seems to mean "justify" -- Russian brutality, especially since 1999. He says that these writers' "poor understanding in general of international law" has led to their "ready acceptance" of indiscriminate bombing, civilian deaths, and numerous violations of basic human rights, all in the name of foiling separatism and fighting terrorists.
These are sweeping and serious accusations. They are also highly inaccurate, if not libelous, and Evangelista needs far more than a series of selective quotes to buttress them. It is simply ridiculous to imply that Ware, arguably America's leading authority on Dagestan and a writer intimately familiar with the suffering of civilians in the north Caucasus, or Lieven -- who, as a former war reporter, knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of Russian bombs -- have somehow given Moscow a pass on wartime atrocities. There is nothing in the work of these writers that even hints at a "rationalization" of the war. They have simply made the important observation that the United States and other countries often find themselves wagging a finger at Russia for acts that are uncomfortably close to ones that they themselves have committed -- and, in the murky environment of the war on terrorism, may commit again. The enforcers of international law are also often its violators, and to note this paradox is not to endorse the policies that might follow from it. It is odd that Evangelista is unable to tell the difference.
Evangelista means to offer a critical analysis of Western, especially American, policy on Chechnya, and the intention is laudable. The substance, however, is sometimes sophomoric. "How has Russia managed to avoid the status of international pariah," he asks, "that Slobodan Milosevic earned for Serbia by his prosecution of wars in the former Yugoslavia?" The answer is that Russia is not Serbia. Russia's prosecution of the war has obviously been reprehensible. Mop-up operations have regularly led to civilian "disappearances" and deaths, and Moscow has been generally unwilling to prosecute its own officers and soldiers for known atrocities. As a matter of ethics, there is little doubt that the level of human suffering produced by the Russian government is at least as great as in conflicts in which the international community has intervened with force. But merely pointing out the inconsistency here is a lame critique. America's stance on Russia's conduct in Chechnya is simply in a different category from its policies on other egregious human rights violations -- say, those in the Balkans or Iraq. Inconsistency, after all, is the indispensable prerogative of great powers.
FEDERAL FEUD
Evangelista is right to challenge the Yeltsin government's claim, now muted under Putin, that the war was necessary to preserve the union -- that a failure to stand tough in Chechnya would give a green light to other would-be separatists. Evangelista argues convincingly that the Russian government's reactions to the problems of state weakness, particularly its resort to extreme violence, have actually made the problem worse. But the "flexible, negotiated federalism" advocated by Evangelista, the kind of arrangement worked out with many other Russian republics and regions after 1991, has not come without a price. This new-fangled federalism is in reality as far from good governance as the centralism of the Soviet era.
This point deserves further elaboration: Russia is still something close to an empire -- an electoral one, perhaps, but a political system whose essential attributes are simply not those of a modern state. Central power, where it exists, is exercised through subalterns who function as effective tax- and ballot-farmers: they surrender up a portion of local revenue and deliver the votes for the center's designated candidates in national elections in exchange for the center's letting them run their own fiefdoms. Viceroys sent from the capital keep tabs on local potentates but generally leave them to their own devices. State monopolies or privileged private companies secure strategic resources and keep open the conduits that provide money to the metropole. The conscript military, weak and in crisis, is given the task of policing the restless frontier -- fighting a hot war in Chechnya and patrolling the ceasefire lines of cold ones in the borderland emirates of Moldova, Georgia, and Tajikistan. Such arrangements do make for federalism of a sort, but in an older sense of the word. The concept comes, after all, from Rome's practice of accommodating threatening peoples by settling them inside the empire and paying them to be foederati, or self-governing border guards. It is federalism as an imperial survival strategy, not as a way of bringing government closer to the governed.
The problem with this system is not its fragility; as a form of political and economic organization, especially over vast stretches of territory, it has a track record far longer than that of the nation-state. It is, however, incompatible with the basic norms of liberal democracy and the free market. And that points to one of the chief criticisms that can be leveled against Western policy on the Chechen crisis: the insistence on interpreting the violence in the Caucasus as an embarrassing deviation from what is otherwise a path toward democracy. There may be plenty of reasons for the United States to tread lightly in its handling of the Chechen question. But treating Russia differently because it is a modern, democratizing state with an unfortunate terrorism problem is not one of them.
September 22, 2004 at 08:29 AM in Russia | Permalink | TrackBack (53) | Top of page | Blog Home
nited Nations Headquarters
New York, New York
PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the honor of addressing this General Assembly. The American people respect the idealism that gave life to this organization. And we respect the men and women of the U.N., who stand for peace and human rights in every part of the world. Welcome to New York City, and welcome to the United States of America.
During the past three years, I've addressed this General Assembly in a time of tragedy for my country, and in times of decision for all of us. Now we gather at a time of tremendous opportunity for the U.N. and for all peaceful nations. For decades, the circle of liberty and security and development has been expanding in our world. This progress has brought unity to Europe, self-government to Latin America and Asia, and new hope to Africa. Now we have the historic chance to widen the circle even further, to fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity, to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom.
The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism and all violence against the innocent. And both of our founding documents affirm that this bright line between justice and injustice -- between right and wrong -- is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation.
Wise governments also stand for these principles for very practical and realistic reasons. We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst. We know that free peoples embrace progress and life, instead of becoming the recruits for murderous ideologies.
Every nation that wants peace will share the benefits of a freer world. And every nation that seeks peace has an obligation to help build that world. Eventually, there is no safe isolation from terror networks, or failed states that shelter them, or outlaw regimes, or weapons of mass destruction. Eventually, there is no safety in looking away, seeking the quiet life by ignoring the struggles and oppression of others.
In this young century, our world needs a new definition of security. Our security is not merely found in spheres of influence, or some balance of power. The security of our world is found in the advancing rights of mankind.
These rights are advancing across the world -- and across the world, the enemies of human rights are responding with violence. Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, and every charter of liberty ever written, are lies, to be burned and destroyed and forgotten. They believe that dictators should control every mind and tongue in the Middle East and beyond. They believe that suicide and torture and murder are fully justified to serve any goal they declare. And they act on their beliefs.
In the last year alone, terrorists have attacked police stations, and banks, and commuter trains, and synagogues -- and a school filled with children. This month in Beslan we saw, once again, how the terrorists measure their success -- in the death of the innocent, and in the pain of grieving families. Svetlana Dzebisov was held hostage, along with her son and her nephew -- her nephew did not survive. She recently visited the cemetery, and saw what she called the "little graves." She said, "I understand that there is evil in the world. But what have these little creatures done?"
Members of the United Nations, the Russian children did nothing to deserve such awful suffering, and fright, and death. The people of Madrid and Jerusalem and Istanbul and Baghdad have done nothing to deserve sudden and random murder. These acts violate the standards of justice in all cultures, and the principles of all religions. All civilized nations are in this struggle together, and all must fight the murderers.
We're determined to destroy terror networks wherever they operate, and the United States is grateful to every nation that is helping to seize terrorist assets, track down their operatives, and disrupt their plans. We're determined to end the state sponsorship of terror -- and my nation is grateful to all that participated in the liberation of Afghanistan. We're determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world -- and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator.
The dictator agreed in 1991, as a condition of a cease-fire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions -- then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say "serious consequences," for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world.
Defending our ideals is vital, but it is not enough. Our broader mission as U.N. members is to apply these ideals to the great issues of our time. Our wider goal is to promote hope and progress as the alternatives to hatred and violence. Our great purpose is to build a better world beyond the war on terror.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have established a global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In three years the contributing countries have funded projects in more than 90 countries, and pledged a total of $5.6 billion to these efforts. America has undertaken a $15 billion effort to provide prevention and treatment and humane care in nations afflicted by AIDS, placing a special focus on 15 countries where the need is most urgent. AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time, and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have joined together to confront the evil of trafficking in human beings. We're supporting organizations that rescue the victims, passing stronger anti-trafficking laws, and warning travelers that they will be held to account for supporting this modern form of slavery. Women and children should never be exploited for pleasure or greed, anywhere on Earth.
Because we believe in human dignity, we should take seriously the protection of life from exploitation under any pretext. In this session, the U.N. will consider a resolution sponsored by Costa Rica calling for a comprehensive ban on human cloning. I support that resolution and urge all governments to affirm a basic ethical principle: No human life should ever be produced or destroyed for the benefit of another.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have changed the way we fight poverty, curb corruption, and provide aid. In 2002 we created the Monterrey Consensus, a bold approach that links new aid from developed nations to real reform in developing ones. And through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their own people.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have acted to lift the crushing burden of debt that limits the growth of developing economies, and holds millions of people in poverty. Since these efforts began in 1996, poor countries with the heaviest debt burdens have received more than $30 billion of relief. And to prevent the build-up of future debt, my country and other nations have agreed that international financial institutions should increasingly provide new aid in the form of grants, rather than loans.
Because we believe in human dignity, the world must have more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious violence and ethnic cleansing. We must create permanent capabilities to respond to future crises. The United States and Italy have proposed a Global Peace Operations Initiative. G-8 countries will train 75,000 peacekeepers, initially from Africa, so they can conduct operations on that continent and elsewhere. The countries of the G-8 will help this peacekeeping force with deployment and logistical needs.
At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide. The United States played a key role in efforts to broker a cease-fire, and we're providing humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people. Rwanda and Nigeria have deployed forces in Sudan to help improve security so aid can be delivered. The Security Council adopted a new resolution that supports an expanded African Union force to help prevent further bloodshed, and urges the government of Sudan to stop flights by military aircraft in Darfur. We congratulate the members of the Council on this timely and necessary action. I call on the government of Sudan to honor the cease-fire it signed, and to stop the killing in Darfur.
Because we believe in human dignity, peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace. We've witnessed the rise of democratic governments in predominantly Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian cultures. Democratic institutions have taken root in modern societies, and in traditional societies. When it comes to the desire for liberty and justice, there is no clash of civilizations. People everywhere are capable of freedom, and worthy of freedom.
Finding the full promise of representative government takes time, as America has found in two centuries of debate and struggle. Nor is there any -- only one form of representative government -- because democracies, by definition, take on the unique character of the peoples that create them. Yet this much we know with certainty: The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.
Freedom is finding a way in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and we must continue to show our commitment to democracies in those nations. The liberty that many have won at a cost must be secured. As members of the United Nations, we all have a stake in the success of the world's newest democracies.
Not long ago, outlaw regimes in Baghdad and Kabul threatened the peace and sponsored terrorists. These regimes destabilized one of the world's most vital -- and most volatile -- regions. They brutalized their peoples, in defiance of all civilized norms. Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of us all.
The Afghan people are showing extraordinary courage under difficult conditions. They're fighting to defend their nation from Taliban holdouts, and helping to strike against the terrorists killers. They're reviving their economy. They've adopted a constitution that protects the rights of all, while honoring their nation's most cherished traditions. More than 10 million Afghan citizens -- over 4 million of them women -- are now registered to vote in next month's presidential election. To any who still would question whether Muslim societies can be democratic societies, the Afghan people are giving their answer.
Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty. Today, in this hall, the Prime Minister of Iraq and his delegation represent a country that has rejoined the community of nations. The government of Prime Minister Allawi has earned the support of every nation that believes in self-determination and desires peace. And under Security Council resolutions 1511 and 1546, the world is providing that support. The U.N., and its member nations, must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request, and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal, and free.
A democratic Iraq has ruthless enemies, because terrorists know the stakes in that country. They know that a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a decisive blow against their ambitions for that region. So a terrorists group associated with al Qaeda is now one of the main groups killing the innocent in Iraq today -- conducting a campaign of bombings against civilians, and the beheadings of bound men. Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters, so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders.
Our coalition is standing beside a growing Iraqi security force. The NATO Alliance is providing vital training to that force. More than 35 nations have contributed money and expertise to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. And as the Iraqi interim government moves toward national elections, officials from the United Nations are helping Iraqis build the infrastructure of democracy. These selfless people are doing heroic work, and are carrying on the great legacy of Sergio de Mello.
As we have seen in other countries, one of the main terrorist goals is to undermine, disrupt, and influence election outcomes. We can expect terrorist attacks to escalate as Afghanistan and Iraq approach national elections. The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat, it is to prevail.
The advance of freedom always carries a cost, paid by the bravest among us. America mourns the losses to our nation, and to many others. And today, I assure every friend of Afghanistan and Iraq, and every enemy of liberty: We will stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes of freedom and security are fulfilled.
These two nations will be a model for the broader Middle East, a region where millions have been denied basic human rights and simple justice. For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.
This commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups. The longsuffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders capable of creating and governing a free and peaceful Palestinian state.
Even after the setbacks and frustrations of recent months, goodwill and hard effort can achieve the promise of the road map to peace. Those who would lead a new Palestinian state should adopt peaceful means to achieve the rights of their people, and create the reformed institutions of a stable democracy. Arab states should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel. Israel should impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations. And world leaders should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause.
The democratic hopes we see growing in the Middle East are growing everywhere. In the words of the Burmese democracy advocate, Aung San Suu
Kyi: "We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary; democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency, and accountability." Here at the United Nations, you know this to be true. In recent years, this organization has helped create a new democracy in East Timor, and the U.N. has aided other nations in making the transition to self-rule.
Because I believe the advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world, today I propose establishing a Democracy Fund within the United Nations. This is a great calling for this great organization. The fund would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law and independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions. Money from the fund would also help set up voter precincts and polling places, and support the work of election monitors. To show our commitment to the new Democracy Fund, the United States will make an initial contribution. I urge other nations to contribute, as well.
Today, I've outlined a broad agenda to advance human dignity, and enhance the security of all of us. The defeat of terror, the protection of human rights, the spread of prosperity, the advance of democracy -- these causes, these ideals, call us to great work in the world. Each of us alone can only do so much. Together, we can accomplish so much more.
History will honor the high ideals of this organization. The charter states them with clarity: "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights," "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."
Let history also record that our generation of leaders followed through on these ideals, even in adversity. Let history show that in a decisive decade, members of the United Nations did not grow weary in our duties, or waver in meeting them. I'm confident that this young century will be liberty's century. I believe we will rise to this moment, because I know the character of so many nations and leaders represented here today. And I have faith in the transforming power of freedom.
May God bless you. (Applause.)
* Released by the White House
September 21, 2004 at 09:16 PM in US | Permalink | TrackBack (23) | Top of page | Blog Home
US capital a magnet for foreign spies | csmonitor.com
Alleged spying by Taiwan and Israel indicates a broader trend, experts say: Espionage, even by 'friends,' is rising.
By Faye Bowers | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – A highly respected US State Department official was arrested last week, suspected of passing secret government documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents. And earlier this month, word leaked that the FBI is investigating a Pentagon official for possibly providing classified information to Israel.
The cases are alarming enough, in that two men in sensitive positions may be betraying their country. But together they also highlight one less well-known fact: Espionage against the US is increasing, rather than decreasing,in the post-cold-war era, experts say. Because the US has become the sole dominant military and economic power in the world, friends and foes alike want access to more information than the US readily shares with them.
"There is an ever-present threat of foreign intelligence collection against the US," says a US law enforcement official. "And it's not only the traditional, like military capabilities. It's foreign policy planning, and there is a vast interest in patent materials, not only for machines, but for research."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation regularly updates a closely held list of the countries that threaten national security due to espionage operations. "The top five countries on that list are China, Israel, Russia, France, and North Korea. Others include Cuba, Pakistan, and India," says an official close to the FBI.
The latest unclassified information - a 2000 report prepared for Congress by the National Counterintelligence Center - lists the "most active collectors" against the US as China, Japan, Israel, France, Korea, Taiwan, and India. And, experts say, Al Qaeda conducts espionage here as well.
Of course, the US isn't above snooping on its friends and foes either. Just a couple of years ago, France deported two Americans accused of conducting espionage there.
Arthur Hulnick, a professor of international relations at Boston University, former CIA official, and author of a new book, "Keeping us Safe: Secret Intelligence and Homeland Security," says a student recently asked him, "Do we ever spy on our friends?"
"Only when we have to," Professor Hulnick responded, tongue in cheek. "Of course we do," he adds. "Why wouldn't we do it, if they don't give us what we want? And why wouldn't they do it to us?"
Government officials and outside experts say foreign agents focus on four primary areas: US military capabilities, foreign policy strategy, technological expertise, and business plans. The first two are the most common, according to the US law-enforcement official. But he says that foreign intelligence agents don't target just people who work at the Pentagon. They try to make inroads with contractors - those responsible for, say, a ship or airplane. Or subcontractors - those responsible for small parts that make up the larger ships, airplanes, and tanks.
The FBI carries out a number of sting operations in these areas. But many of them never become public. "They're just not prosecutable," the law enforcement agent says. "The persons involved are usually outside the jurisdiction of the court because they have diplomatic immunity."
In these cases, they are asked to leave the US and are prevented from reentering. Another problem, according to the law-enforcement official, is that when the cases involve highly classified military activity or industrial espionage, the government and private sector choose not to prosecute. "They don't want to exacerbate the situation by publicizing it, revealing trade secrets in litigation" he says.
The FBI says it has a large counterintelligence unit, but the numbers of agents involved and numbers of ongoing cases are classified. And FBI counterintelligence teams routinely watch employees of foreign embassies.
Still the recent arrest and leak of another possible infraction indicate progress is being made.
Donald Keyser, a career State Department employee and expert on US-Chinese-Taiwanese relations, was released on a $500,000 bond last week after he was officially charged with lying about an unsanctioned trip to Taiwan.
According to an affidavit filed in the US District Court in Alexandria, Va., FBI agents followed Mr. Keyser this summer and saw him pass documents to two Taiwanese agents. The court documents also said Mr. Keyser made an unsanctioned trip to Taiwan after official visits to China and Japan. He never reported the trip to Taiwan to his superiors, and allegedly later lied about it.
"If it indeed turns out to be true, it's a classic approach," says Hulnick. "The way you entice someone is to ask for documents. First you ask for something simple, like a phone book. It doesn't have to be secret. And little by little, you begin asking for the good stuff."
Hulnick goes on to say that it's totally understandable that Taiwan would want to know US aims toward China and Taiwan.
"We don't have relations with Taiwanese technically, so they want to make sure we're not selling them out to the People's Republic of China," he says. "The best way to do that is to get somebody on the inside who is willing to cooperate."
The other FBI investigation apparently resulted from a FBI routine surveillance of a senior Israeli diplomat. The bureau is now investigating a Pentagon employee and officials from an Israeli lobby for possibly handing a highly classified foreign-policy document about Iran to Israeli officials. That investigation has not yet resulted in charges, but officials say the scope of that probe has broadened.
September 20, 2004 at 01:44 PM in US | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home
US spy agencies believe strikes on Iran wouldn't work: report
WASHINGTON (AFP) Sep 19, 2004
US spy agencies have played out "war games" to consider possible pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and concluded that strikes would not resolve Washington's standoff with Tehran, Newsweek magazine reported Sunday.
"The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating," an unnamed Air Force source told the magazine in its latest issue.
The Central Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency played out the possible results US strikes, the magazine reported.
Hawks within President George W. Bush's administration haev advocated for regime change in Tehran -- through covert operations or force if needed, Newsweek said.
But with US-led forces facing almost daily attacks in Iraq, no one in Bush's cabinet has taken up the cause, the report said.
The United States believes Iran is using a civlian nuclear program to mask a weapons development effort.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is strictly aimed at generating electricity, despite suspicions it is seeking to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons.
Uranium is enriched through centrifuges to make what can be fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also the explosive material for atomic bombs.
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September 20, 2004 at 12:50 PM in Iran | Permalink | TrackBack (47) | Top of page | Blog Home
World Press Review - Iraq - George Bush - Vietnam
Farrukh Saleem, The Friday Times (independent), Lahore, Pakistan, April 21, 2004
On April 5th, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) told the Brookings Institution that "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam" adding that "Iraq was never a threat to the United States and that Bush took the country to war under false pretenses, giving Al-Qaeda two years to regroup and plant terrorist cells throughout the world."
Is Iraq Bush's Vietnam? Not so far. In Vietnam, the U.S. suffered 47,369 battle deaths, 10,799 other deaths, while an additional 153,303 U.S. troops were wounded. In Iraq, as of April 6th, a total of 623 Americans had died and an additional 3,457 U.S. troops had been wounded.
Iraq is home to 16 million Shiites and around 7 million Sunnis. The Sunni Triangle area, north and west of Baghdad, including cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Baqubah, has been the most volatile. Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had appealed to the Shiites of Iraq to remain "patient with U.S. troops" and "to oppose anti-U.S. violence." Most Shiite areas, as a consequence, remained relatively calm. But then, on March 28th, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority shut down Al Hawsa for 60 days. Al Hawsa's publishers were accused of "inciting violence against coalition troops."
In walks Moqtada al-Sadr, a 30-year old, firebrand anti-U.S. Shiite cleric. Al Hawsa's publishers are al-Sadr's followers and al-Sadr commands the Jaish al-Mahdi, the 'Army of the Hidden Imam'. Moqtada al-Sadr inherited a large following from his father Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr (who was assassinated by Saddam in 1999). Moqtada is influenced more by Iranian ayatollahs than by the Iraqi ones and is a believer in the Khomeini's doctrine of vilayat-al-faqih or 'rule by clerics' (Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad Sistani of Iraq supports direct elections while Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran prescribes rule by the clergy).
To be certain, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, and the undisputed spiritual leader, is Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad al-Sistani. Grand Ayatollah Sistani is against the doctrine of vilayat-al-faqih and preaches abstinence for clerics from direct politics. Sistani also remains an adamant supporter of direct elections and is opposed to the mostly Sunni, but secular, Baath Party. So is Bush. Sistani could not have toppled Saddam without Bush. Sistani now wants Iraq to become stable and peaceful. So does Bush.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is the other Shiite cleric who matters. Abdul Aziz heads the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution and is backed by the al-Badr Brigade. Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, Abdul Aziz's older brother, was assassinated last year. Abdul Aziz has closely allied himself with Grand Ayatollah Sistani.
Iraq has a total of four living grand ayatollahs: Grand Ayatollahs al-Sistani, al-Najafi, al-Hakim and al-Fayadh. Al-Najafi and al-Fayadh hardly ever speak on political issues. Al-Sistani and al-Hakim do not endorse an all-out uprising against the occupying forces (at least not at this stage). All four grand ayatollahs have time and again counseled the 16 million Iraqi Shiites "to remain patient with foreign troops."
Vietnam is a bad analogy. The Vietnam War was in essence a proxy war between the U.S. on the one side and the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China on the other side. The Vietcong guerrillas received regular supplies of munitions and troops from the U.S.S.R. as well as China, while South Vietnam was fully backed by the U.S. (and her allies, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Korea and the Philippines). In the case of Iraq, surrounded by Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Turkey, there is very little, if any, munitions or troops for either the Sunni 'insurgents' or the Shiite militias.
Moqtada al-Sadr is young and is considered a 'radical' by the conservative Najaf-based clerical hierarchy. Grand Ayatollahs al-Sistani, al-Najafi, al-Hakim and al-Fayadh all have outstanding scholarly credentials and all favor a quietist approach to politics. Moqtada, in his explicit anti-U.S. rhetoric, has not only challenged the U.S. but also the grand ayatollahs. Moqtada seems to have overplayed his hand. Ultimately, Iraqi Shiites are going to listen to their grand ayatollahs and Iraqi politics will eventually be dominated by the grand ayatollahs. It's the grand ayatollahs who will decide if Iraq is to become "Bush's Vietnam" or not.
September 20, 2004 at 12:42 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (71) | Top of page | Blog Home
MSNBC - War-Gaming the Mullahs
The U.S. weighs the price of a pre-emptive strike
By John Barry and Dan Ephron
Newsweek
Sept. 27 issue - Unprepared as anyone is for a showdown with Iran, the threat seems to keep growing. Many defense experts in Israel, the United States and elsewhere believe that Tehran has been taking advantage of loopholes in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is now within a year of mastering key weapons-production technology. They can't prove it, of course, and Iran's leaders deny any intention of developing the bomb. Nevertheless, last week U.S. and Israeli officials were talking of possible military action—even though some believe it's already too late to keep Iran from going nuclear (if it chooses). "We have to start accepting that Iran will probably have the bomb," says one senior Israeli source. There's only one solution, he says: "Look at ways to make sure it's not the mullahs who have their finger on the trigger."
After the Iraq debacle, calls for regime change without substantial evidence of weapons of mass destruction are not likely to gain a lot of traction. But if the allegations are correct, Iran is only one of the countries whose secret nuclear programs hummed along while America waged a single-minded hunt for WMD in Iraq. Another is North Korea, which hasn't stopped claiming that it's turning a stockpile of spent fuel rods into a doomsday arsenal. And arms-control specialists are increasingly alarmed by Brazil's efforts to do precisely what Iran is doing: use centrifuge cascades to enrich uranium—with a couple of key differences. Unlike Iran, Brazil has never signed the NPT's Additional Protocol, which gives expanded inspection rights to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And unlike Iran, Brazil is not letting the IAEA examine its centrifuges. If the Brazilians go through with their program, it's likely to wreck the landmark 1967 treaty that made South America a nuclear-free zone. But the White House has shown scant concern about the risk.
The Iran crisis is more immediate in the eyes of the Bush administration, in part because Iran is among the president's "Axis of Evil." Israel, which has long regarded Iran as a more dire threat than Iraq, is making thinly veiled threats of a unilateral pre-emptive attack, like its 1981 airstrike against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. "If the state decides that a military solution is required, then the military has to provide a solution," said Israel's new Air Force chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Elyezer Shkedy, in a newspaper interview last week. "For obvious reasons," he added, "we aren't going to speak of specifics." U.S. defense experts doubt that Israel can pull it off. Iran's facilities (which it insists are for peaceful purposes) are at the far edge of combat range for Israel's aircraft; They're also widely dispersed and, in many cases, deep underground.
But America certainly could do it—and has given the idea some serious thought. "The U.S. capability to make a mess of Iran's nuclear infrastructure is formidable," says veteran Mideast analyst Geoffrey Kemp. "The question is, what then?" NEWSWEEK has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, "The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating."
Instead, administration hawks are pinning their hopes on regime change in Tehran—by covert means, preferably, but by force of arms if necessary. Papers on the idea have circulated inside the administration, mostly labeled "draft" or "working draft" to evade congressional subpoena powers and the Freedom of Information Act. Informed sources say the memos echo the administration's abortive Iraq strategy: oust the existing regime, swiftly install a pro-U.S. government in its place (extracting the new regime's promise to renounce any nuclear ambitions) and get out. This daredevil scheme horrifies U.S. military leaders, and there's no evidence that it has won any backers at the cabinet level.
The NPT has never banned uranium enrichment. That didn't stop the United States, France, Germany and Britain from offering a draft resolution at last week's IAEA Governing Council meeting, demanding that Iran immediately cease such activity. Other council members quickly challenged the provision's legality. Some members of President George W. Bush's own party are throwing up their hands at such clumsy doings. "This administration's nonproliferation strategy consists of flailing around with a two-by-four," says one disgusted Republican elder statesman. And even the administration must realize that its Iran options are limited now by the chaos already overtaking Iraq.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6039135/site/newsweek/
September 20, 2004 at 11:46 AM in Iran | Permalink | TrackBack (34) | Top of page | Blog Home
Administration Officials Are Now Pinning Hopes on Regime Change By Covert Means, or Armed Force, If Necessary
NEW YORK, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- As the threat from Iran and its nuclear capabilities becomes more real, Newsweek has learned that the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, "The war-games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating."
Instead, administration hawks are pinning their hopes on regime change in Tehran-by covert means, preferably, but by force of arms if necessary, report National Security Correspondent John Barry and Special Correspondent Dan Ephron in the September 27 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 20).
Papers on the idea have circulated inside the administration, mostly labeled "draft" or "working draft" to evade congressional subpoena powers and the Freedom of Information Act. Informed sources say the memos echo the administration's abortive Iraq strategy: oust the existing regime, swiftly install a pro-U.S. government in its place (extracting the new regime's promise to renounce any nuclear ambitions) and get out. This daredevil scheme horrifies U.S. military leaders, and there's no evidence that it has won any backers at the cabinet level, Newsweek reports.
September 20, 2004 at 11:45 AM in Iran | Permalink | TrackBack (52) | Top of page | Blog Home
Telegraph | News | Far Right surges as Schröder feels fury of the east
By Kate Connolly in Berlin
(Filed: 20/09/2004)
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's ruling Social Democrats were dealt a heavy blow yesterday by voters in two east German states where anger at high unemployment and economic reforms prompted a surge in support for the far Right and post-communists.
Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, television exit polls in the states of Saxony and Brandenburg reflected dissatisfaction at the lack of progress in raising living standards in the east to those of western Germany.
In Brandenburg, a huge state which encircles Berlin, the Social Democrats remained the strongest party but lost seven per cent from the 1999 result. In Saxony, to the south, the party secured a record low of 9.5 per cent, only half a percentage point ahead of the far-Right National Democratic Party (NPD).
Riding on the wave of disgruntlement, the NPD scored its best result in years in Saxony, where it easily cleared the five per cent barrier required to enter the state parliament. The result, a dramatic improvement on the 1.4 per cent it gained in 1999, gives it a seat for the first time in 35 years. In Brandenburg, the far-Right German People's Union received six per cent of the vote.
The former communists, the Democratic Socialists, an anti-establishment grouping that is increasingly seen to represent "misunderstood" east Germans, took 28.5 per cent of the vote in in Brandenburg. The party made slight gains in Saxony, with around 23 per cent.
Last night hundreds of demonstrators protested against the far Right outside the state assembly building in the Saxon city of Dresden.
Jewish groups said they were concerned at the rise in support for the far Right, which the government unsuccessfully tried to ban. Paul Spiegel, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he was reminded of the period leading up to Hitler's rise to power amid high unemployment and popular discontent. "Memories of the end of the Weimar Republic are awakened," he said.
Local businessmen gave warning that the rise of the Right - in part put down to the low turnout of 59 per cent, not unusual in eastern Germany - was likely to dissuade foreign investors from coming to the region, which is in desperate need of jobs. Unemployment in both states is around 20 per cent - about twice the figure in the west.
The results amounted to yet another trouncing for the Social Democrats following a seemingly endless stream of electoral failures since they were re-elected to government in 2002.
The main focus of voters' wrath has been the economic reforms Mr Schroder has introduced, designed to cut unemployment and breathe new life into a chronically ailing economy. East Germans fear they will be hit hardest by cuts to benefits and increases in means testing.
Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in cities throughout the east in the past two months for so-called Monday Demonstrations to vent their frustration.
The Conservative opposition Christian Democrats failed to gain from the dissatisfaction towards the government, largely because they have supported the reform programme and repeatedly called for it to be made even tougher.
The party kept control of Saxony with around 44 per cent, although it lost its absolute majority. It secured 19.5 per cent in Brandenburg.
The uphill struggle Mr Schroder faces with east Germany was illustrated in a poll published today in Spiegel magazine, in which nearly a third of east Germans said they considered themselves to be underprivileged.
But at the same time frustration in west Germany towards what has been dubbed the "whining east" is growing, thanks to the huge amount of money that has been pumped into the region since 1990.
Yesterday the government disclosed it was higher than previously thought, at more than £1,000 billion.
Mr Schroder has stood fast in the face of protests, insisting that he will not be turned from his path of reform. On Friday, he called for Germans to stop expecting so much from the state, accusing many of milking it for support which they did not need.
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September 19, 2004 at 09:25 PM in Europe | Permalink | TrackBack (460) | Top of page | Blog Home
BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Leaders vow to defeat Iraq 'evil'
Iraq has become the "crucible of global terrorism", but insurgents will be defeated, Tony Blair has pledged.
Speaking after talks at Downing Street with Iraq's interim prime minister, he vowed to see the "struggle" through and deliver a "huge defeat" for terrorists.
Iyad Allawi called on the UN to provide whatever help was needed to make next January's planned elections a success.
He said he was adamant democracy would prevail against the "forces of evil" operating in his country.
"We definitely are going to stick to the timetable of elections in January next year," he told reporters on Sunday.
"We are succeeding in Iraq. We are succeeding against the forces of evil."
This is the crucible in which the future of this global terrorism will be determined
Tony Blair
The UK prime minister said: "Now is not the time for the international community to divide or disagree but to come together.
"Whatever the disagreements about the first conflict in Iraq to remove Saddam, in this conflict now taking place in Iraq, this is the crucible in which the future of this global terrorism will be determined.
"And either it will succeed and this terrorism will grow, or we will succeed, the Iraqi people will succeed, and this global terrorism will be delivered a huge defeat."
The Iraqi people's "struggle... is actually our struggle too, which is why we will see it through until it finishes - not in the victory of America, Britain or the West but the victory of the Iraqi people", Mr Blair added.
He praised Mr Allawi's courage and said they wanted to see a free Iraq committed to stability, democracy, human rights and equality.
We are trying our best working on the issue of hostages, and hopefully we will achieve some good results
Iraq's interim prime minister Iyad Allawi
"The people who are trying to stop that Iraq coming about, who are engaged in killing, maiming and acts of terrorism, are people who are opposed not just to the new Iraq that can take shape, but are opposed to every single one of the values that we in countries like this hold dear.
"The terrorists who are conducting this killing in Iraq, they know what is at stake. And we should know what is at stake as well."
Mr Allawi is visiting the UK as part of a tour which will also take him to New York and Washington.
The talks come as UK and US officials are working to secure the release of Briton Kenneth Bigley and Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, who were seized on Thursday from a house in Baghdad's Mansour neighbourhood.
They are being held by captors reportedly allied to al-Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Working closely
Mr Blair said he and Mr Allawi had discussed Mr Bigley's situation.
"Our governments are working closely on it," he said.
"I don't think there's anything more I can or should say at this stage."
Mr Allawi added: "We are trying our best working on the issue of hostages, and hopefully we will achieve some good results."
Intense violence
Earlier, Iraq's foreign minister told BBC One's Breakfast with Frost his government would not bow to the demands of the kidnappers.
Hoshyar Zebari, in London with Mr Allawi for the talks, said that would set "a very bad precedent".
It has been a week of intense violence in Iraq, with 23 killed in a bomb in Kirkuk on Saturday and 47 killed in a Baghdad blast earlier in the week.
Sunday is the first opportunity the UK prime minister has had to meet Mr Allawi since he was appointed in May.
September 19, 2004 at 08:55 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (23) | Top of page | Blog Home
The New York Times > Washington > Former Powell Aide Denies Spy Charge, Associates Say
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JOEL BRINKLEY
ASHINGTON, Sept. 17 - A former senior State Department official at the center of accusations over possible Taiwanese espionage has told associates that he never passed any classified information to contacts from Taiwan, the associates said Friday.
The former official, Donald W. Keyser, has also denied that he received any financial compensation for passing any information to the Taiwanese, but he has acknowledged that he may have been sloppy in his reporting of foreign contacts, the associates said.
The former official, Donald W. Keyser, has also denied that he received any financial compensation for passing any information to the Taiwanese, but he has acknowledged that he may have been sloppy in his reporting of foreign contacts, the associates said.
Mr. Keyser, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Chinese issues, was charged Wednesday with not reporting a secret side trip he made to Taiwan last year during an official government trip to Japan, and officials say they suspect that he passed delicate information to Taiwanese contacts in Washington.
Neither he nor his lawyer has made any public comments since his arrest, and Mr. Keyser's private comments to associates offer the first hint of a possible defense.
In an affidavit in the case, the F.B.I. said agents who had Mr. Keyser under surveillance saw him giving and showing documents to two Taiwanese government contacts at meetings in the Washington area in July and August, just after he had resigned the State Department. One such document was marked "Discussion Topics," the F.B.I. said.
The affidavit said Mr. Keyser had told the F.B.I. that he would often prepared written "talking points" for his two Taiwanese contacts. Mr. Keyser went further in his assertions this week to associates, saying he never shared any classified information with the Taiwanese.
The associates who have had contact with him since his arrest worked with him in government and were generally admiring of his work but did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the case.
While the longtime Foreign Service officer has been charged only with making false statements to the government by concealing his trip to Taiwan in 2003, investigators are continuing to pursue broader espionage accusations as well, officials said.
Mr. Keyser also faced accusations of a security breach in 1999, when he and five other State Department employees were disciplined over a missing laptop computer that contained secret information.
Still, his arrest this week has shocked many former colleagues at the State Department, who described him as a committed public servant.
Mr. Keyser, 61, was first commissioned as a Foreign Service officer at the State Department in 1972 and, over the years, held senior government positions in Washington as well as in American embassies in Japan and China.
He held top-secret security clearance and was promoted in January to principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs before stepping down in July.
During his years in the State Department, Mr. Keyser never showed any favoritism or bias toward Taiwan in its continuing diplomatic tension with China, associates and former colleagues said. If he had, they added, he would have stood out among others in the foreign service.
"I don't know of any senior officials who are pro-Taiwan," one former senior State Department official said.
He and others said Foreign Service officers largely viewed some Taiwanese officials' struggle to stay separate from China as a distraction, when the truly important relationship for the United States is China.
Carl W. Ford Jr., an assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research until he retired last year, worked directly with Mr. Keyser. He agreed that few if any State Department officials were openly pro-Taiwan.
He added that a handful of them "are at least neutral.''
"And Don was very much down the middle. That did set him apart from the others."
Mr. Ford, like others interviewed, said he was "more than surprised" to learn of Mr. Keyser's arrest. "I found it incredible. I never saw him as disloyal."
Ted Gallen Carpenter, an East Asia expert at the Cato Institute in Washington, said he encountered Mr. Keyser often at conferences and other events.
He said, "He always struck me as balanced and prudent in his approach."
September 19, 2004 at 11:03 AM in China | Permalink | TrackBack (16) | Top of page | Blog Home
Mystery Taiwan woman in US spy storm named - SEPT 19, 2004
By Lawrence Chung
A MYSTERIOUS Taiwan woman intelligence officer who accompanied a former senior US diplomat on an unauthorised trip to Taiwan has been identified by the island's media.
Ms Chen Nien-tzu, 34, a Taiwan National Security Bureau agent based in Washington, has been known only as Foreign Person One by US intelligence officials.
The former US official was Donald Keyser, a top adviser to US Secretary of State Colin Powell on China issues. He has been charged with concealing the trip in September last year.
According to an affidavit presented to the court by the FBI, Keyser had frequent contacts with Foreign Person One, despite the sharp differences in ranking and age between the two.
He is almost 30 years her senior.
While Keyser was an assistant secretary of state before he retired in July, Ms Chen was a low-level agent, whose name was not even listed by the Taiwanese mission in the United States.
The affidavit said on Sept 3, 2003, that Keyser flew to Taiwan from Japan for a three-day sightseeing trip. Washington-based Foreign Person One flew all the way back to Taiwan to accompany him.
On May 29 this year, Keyser took a long weekend trip to New York by train with Foreign Person One, the affidavit said, but made no suggestion about the status of their relationship.
The 1.65-m-tall Ms Chen, who just celebrated her 34th birthday, had graduated from the political science institute of National Taiwan University.
She later worked at the National Security Bureau, and was posted to Britain, before being sent to the US, cable channel TVBS said.
Taipei-based China Times described her as a very popular cheerleader in high school.
The paper said Ms Chen had served as an assistant of then legislator Chen Chien-jen of the opposition Kuomintang for three month after she graduated. The legislator later became Taiwan's representative to the US.
Ms Chen married her university sweetheart shortly after she graduated, but they divorced after she was posted to Britain.
News of Ms Chen's return to Taiwan yesterday sent the local media on a hunt for her. The National Security Bureau yesterday refused to disclose her whereabouts.
Foreign Ministry officials refuted reports which suggested any love relationship between Keyser and Ms Chen or that he was set up by Taiwan, who used her to seduce him.
Keyser had passed documents to Ms Chen and her boss, identified by as Lieutenant General Huang Kuang-hsun - the island's highest-ranking intelligence officer posted to the US.
September 19, 2004 at 10:59 AM in China | Permalink | TrackBack (135) | Top of page | Blog Home
Scotsman.com News - Opinion - Between Iraq and a hard place
CHRIS DEERIN
JACK STRAW did not mince his words. "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few. The risks are high, both for you and the government." The memo from Tony Blair’s cerebral, methodical Foreign Secretary landed in Downing Street on March 25, 2002, days before the Prime Minister was due to fly to George Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.
There was only one serious topic to be discussed between Prime Minister and president. By that stage it was clear that the Bush administration, pumped up after a triumphant military campaign in Afghanistan, was intent on regime change in Iraq, almost certainly through further military action. Two months before, in January, Bush had placed Iraq alongside North Korea and Iran in his famous "Axis of Evil" speech. In private, he had bluntly told Condoleezza "Condi" Rice, his national security adviser: "F*** Saddam. We’re taking him out."
For Blair, although the politics were complicated, the decision was relatively simple: it was in Britain’s interests to stand by its transatlantic cousin. Iraq would be invaded, and Saddam Hussein deposed; all that remained to be decided was how, and when.
But Straw was determined to set out the scale of the task ahead. "I judge that there is at present no majority inside the Parliamentary Labour Party for any military action against Iraq (alongside a greater readiness to surface their concerns)," read the memo.
"Colleagues know that Saddam and the Iraqi regime are bad. But we have a long way to go to convince them as to: the scale of the threat from Iraq and why this has got worse recently; what distinguishes the Iraqi threat from that of e.g. Iran and North Korea so as to justify military action; the justification for any military action in terms of international law; and whether the consequence of military action really would be a compliant, law-abiding replacement government."
The Foreign Secretary’s points were well made. In fact, they were to dominate not just the run-up to war, but the long, drawn-out aftermath too. Blair’s attempts to address them in order to sell the war to not just his party, but his country, would throw his government into a crisis of unprecedented proportions.
It was the last of Straw’s points which has returned to haunt Blair this weekend - the ability of a coalition force to install a "compliant, law-abiding replacement government". As a chaotic post-war Iraq flirts with outright civil war more than a year after the downfall of Saddam, as Iraqis and coalition troops are slaughtered daily, and as the prospect of a peaceful settlement recedes, it is here that the Foreign Secretary looks to have been most prescient.
The leak of a series of startling memos surrounding the run-up to war, to yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, has revealed that at the centre of government there were grave doubts about the efficacy of an invasion. There was particular concern about a lack of post-war planning, and what the consequences of toppling Saddam would be.
"What will this action achieve?" wrote Straw. "There seems to be a larger hole in this than anything. Most of the assessments from the US have assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq’s WMD threat.
"But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better. Iraq has no history of democracy so no one has this habit."
Blair was caught on the horns of a dilemma. The Bush administration had decided to go to war with or without the co-operation of its international allies. The Prime Minister was fearful of the consequences of allowing Bush to pursue a unilateralist course, of allowing America to develop a "go-it-alone" habit.
In any case, there was also the small matter of Blair, the moral interventionist, believing that the removal of Saddam was a justifiable step. It was "the right thing to do", he told his aides. Visitors to his Downing Street study would be given a lecture: "I can’t understand why people on the left oppose it. I know why the isolationists on the right are against it... but hasn’t the left always been committed to fighting injustice in the world?" In light of these facts, the best Blair could do - all he really wanted to do - was to delay US military action long enough to bring the international community on board.
The left weren’t convinced, however. In early March there was growing unrest on the backbenches over the path Blair seemed set upon. More than 60 MPs had signed an early day motion opposing war, a figure which was rising daily. There was also trouble in the cabinet, where both Robin Cook, leader of the Commons, and Clare Short, the international de