Today's Washington Post A-Section Photo

Riot police blocked supporters of a candidate from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood from polls in Mansoura in the prior round of elections on Dec. 1.

UK 'covered up' Israeli nuke deal

The government has been accused of covering up the sale of 20 tonnes of heavy water to Israel for its nuclear programme in the early 1950s.
BBC NEWS
2005/12/10

The BBC's Newsnight says fresh evidence shows the UK knew the ingredient it sold to Norway would be subsequently sold on to Israel for nuclear weapons.

Government officials insist they knew nothing of Israel's nuclear ambitions or Norway's intentions.

The Foreign Office has declined to comment, amid calls for an inquiry.

'Cover-up'

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell is asking Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for clarification.

He said: "The trouble with this cover-up is that this is not a cover-up, it simply flies in the face of the known facts, now that we have access to previously classified documents."

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn wants the Commons' foreign affairs select committee to investigate.

He said: "Right back to the late 1950s we were a party to the transfer of nuclear technology to Israel.

"We were party to the development of a nuclear facility in Israel that could and has been used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Norway was always a smokescreen."

New claims

In August, Newsnight uncovered papers which revealed details of the deal.

But Foreign Office minister Kim Howells insisted Britain had simply negotiated the sale of surplus heavy water to Norway.

He said the UK knew nothing of Norway's intentions or Israel's desire to start a nuclear weapons programme.

But Newsnight says it has new evidence that casts doubt on these claims.

It says the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) had written to Foreign Office official Donald Cape, who approved the sale.

In the letter, the energy authority said too much heavy water had been bought from a Norwegian firm and another company from the country wanted to buy it back and sell it on to Israel.

'Sham' denied

Newsnight also has a copy of the company's contract with Israel, which stated it would provide heavy water from the UKAE.

Mr Cape denied the sale back to Norway was a "sham".

But Newsnight says confidential letters he wrote suggest the Foreign Office knew Israel had been trying to buy uranium from South Africa.

One letter quotes CIA reports from 1957 and 1958 that say Israel will try and establish a nuclear programme when it has the means.

Other secret government documents apparently say: "It has been, and remains our opinion, that Israel wanted an independent supply of plutonium so as to be in a position to make a nuclear weapon if she wished."

Mr Cape told Newsnight: "We had no idea at that stage, nobody suspected - not only in Britain but in the US - that the Israelis hoped to manufacture nuclear weapons."

Saving Egypt from Mubarak

By Saad Eddin Ibrahim
SAAD EDDIN IBRAHIM is a professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo and founder and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Democratic Studies. He was imprisoned three times.
Los Angeles Times
December 10, 2005

THE NEWS from Egypt this week was more of the same: On Wednesday, the final, chaotic day of nationwide parliamentary elections, police shot rubber bullets and tear gas at crowds of voters around the country, blocking citizens from reaching polling stations. In areas known for opposition to President Hosni Mubarak, riot police clashed with angry voters. Eight people were killed on Wednesday alone.

The election had initially reignited hope that genuine democratic governance was possible after five decades of autocracy. It had come on the heels of the first contested presidential election since the monarchy was overthrown in 1952. But hope was dashed as Mubarak's heavy-handed regime made a travesty of the proceedings. The election was marred by widespread violations, fraud and the arrest and detention of hundreds of opposition supporters as it became clear over the last four weeks that Islamist candidates from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Party were likely to score a significant electoral victory.

The first person to reveal the fraud in the first round of the three-stage balloting was a brave female judge, Dr. Noha Al-Zainy, in an electoral district where a top aide to Mubarak was running as a candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party against a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (running, as they generally do, as an independent). The latter had been winning by more than 18,000 votes, but to Al-Zainy's surprise, the next morning the Election Commission declared the NDP's candidate the winner.

In the following five days, more than 150 other judges filed similar complaints. More than 50 suits have been filed to nullify election results in districts rife with irregularities, and more will surely follow.

The regime resisted allowing election monitoring by international observers, on the pretext that it infringed on the country's sovereignty. Then, when the election was held, members of the Muslim Brotherhood were often blocked from reaching the polls. A Dec. 2 front-page story in the International Herald Tribune documented several veiled women using ladders to climb over walls and fences and through windows to get into a polling station — a telling portrait of Egypt's crippled steps toward democracy. Because of widespread intimidation, voter turnout was barely 20%, one of the lowest rates in Egyptian history.

Other major irregularities included inaccurate voter lists, the lack of curtains to ensure private voting and the failure to ensure the safety of presiding judges and voters and the protection of ballot boxes.

Most embarrassing for Mubarak, however, is the upsurge in popularity of his archenemy, the Muslim Brotherhood. Though it has been banned for many years, the Brotherhood has been a pervasive presence throughout Egypt, enduring despite attacks from the state-controlled media, periodic arrests and protracted detentions of its members. In the 2000 parliamentary election, Brotherhood candidates running as independents won 17 of the 444 elected seats in the People's Assembly. This year, Mubarak's NDP "won" 205 of the 444 seats so far, while candidates affiliated with the Brotherhood won 76 seats and were vying for another 35 in Wednesday's vote.

These results rang alarm bells in the Mubarak camp. Faced with an imminent threat to its usual 90% majority in parliament, the NDP decided to drop its democratic window dressing and return to fraud and intimidation as usual.

Underlying the impressive performance of the Muslim Brotherhood are several factors, including mounting socioeconomic problems. More than 20% of Egyptians are unemployed, and 33% are living below the poverty line. Meanwhile, the gap between the super-rich, living in gated communities, and the abject poor in urban slums has become glaringly visible in the age of satellite TV. Egypt's class gap is explained not by the hard work and high achievement of the well-to-do but by outright corruption of the few at the top and increasing exploitation of the many at the bottom. This bleak reality has undermined any popularity the Mubarak regime once had, and voters have begun to hold the president, his family, cronies and the NDP responsible.

Egyptians might have looked for alternatives, but there were virtually none besides the Brotherhood. Mubarak's police state has made it nearly impossible for liberal and secular opposition parties to grow. An emergency law that has been in place since 1981 bans any large gatherings, marches or demonstrations. But the Muslim Brotherhood has weekly access to millions of Egyptians in the country's more than 100,000 mosques, as well as through the clinics and hospitals where it provides desperately needed social services.

The United States is a credible player in the Arab world's most pivotal country, and it must quickly develop a clear and consistent policy to deal with the Brotherhood. I have been arguing for active engagement with moderate Islamists, but Washington seems to fear offending Mubarak, a long-standing strategic ally. U.S. officials also seem to fear that Islamists would take Egypt in a Iranian direction, something I believe is highly unlikely if the political process is opened to their most moderate leaders.

It is now clear that Mubarak's scare tactics, oppressive policies and corruption have boosted the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. has done more than enough to aid Mubarak. It is about time to support the Egyptian people directly by starting to talk to all its citizens, including Muslim democrats.

Egypt's Ugly Election

The Washington Post
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A20

THE LAST DAYS of Egypt's month-long parliamentary election were shameful. Government security forces and gangs of thugs from the ruling National Democratic Party blockaded access to dozens of polling sites where opposition candidates were strong. In several cases they opened fire on citizens who tried to vote; 10 people were reported killed. Inside the election stations, government appointees blatantly stuffed ballot boxes in full view of judicial monitors. In some districts, they ignored court orders seeking to prevent them from buying votes or busing in nonresidents to defeat opposition candidates.

President Hosni Mubarak, who received a new six-year mandate in another unfair election in September, used such fraud last month to take away the parliamentary seat of Egypt's foremost liberal democrat, Ayman Nour, who was the runner-up in the presidential election. This week a Cairo judge known for his closeness to Mr. Mubarak ordered Mr. Nour jailed before a session today of his trial on bogus charges of forgery. Several months ago Mr. Nour's principal accuser recanted in court, saying he had been forced by state security police to fabricate his allegations. Yet there appears to be a good chance that Mr. Nour will be declared guilty -- moving the leader of Mr. Mubarak's secular democratic opposition from parliament to prison.

But these are not the only results of an Egyptian election that may well be remembered as a watershed. In the early part of the campaign, Mr. Mubarak conspicuously relaxed police pressure on the banned Muslim Brotherhood, allowing some 140 of its candidates to campaign openly under the slogan "Islam Is the Solution," even as liberal democrats such as Mr. Nour were ruthlessly bullied. The result was an electoral result that shocked and panicked the government: The Islamists captured up to 40 percent of the votes cast and elected 60 percent of their candidates. Despite the widespread fraud and brutality in the final days of voting, the Muslim Brotherhood was left with 20 percent of the seats in parliament, a fivefold increase.

Egypt's rapidly growing independent civil society, meanwhile, rose up to denounce Mr. Mubarak's betrayal of his promise of free and fair elections. A coalition of monitoring groups issued detailed reports about the voting irregularities and violence, and the association of judges that was charged with supervising the vote called for the interior minister's resignation. Forty-four prominent citizens, including leading journalists and intellectuals, issued a statement declaring that "the fraud may lead to a collapse in the legitimacy of the state and the current regime."

Eager to believe Mr. Mubarak's promises that he will lead a gradual democratization of Egypt, the Bush administration has been slow to react to these remarkable events. Last week the State Department issued a foolish statement saying that there was no "indication that the Egyptian government isn't interested in having peaceful, free and fair elections." This week it corrected itself, saying there were "serious concerns about the path of political reform in Egypt." But the administration's next steps will be crucial: Will it support the legalization of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has renounced violence and endorsed democracy -- and which has proven it has the support of millions of Egyptians? Will it demand freedom for Ayman Nour and support the independent civic movement that has demanded genuine political reform? Will Mr. Mubarak's behavior be linked to the $1.8 billion in annual U.S. aid Egypt receives? Egyptians will now see if Mr. Bush is serious about defending the cause of freedom in the center of the Middle East.

Banned Islamic Movement Now the Main Opposition in Egypt

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A13

CAIRO, Dec. 9 -- On traffic-jammed Talat Harb Square, forlorn supporters of jailed politician Ayman Nour walked in little circles, chanted for his freedom and bemoaned the failure of his Tomorrow Party in Egypt's just-concluded parliamentary elections.

A few blocks away at a television studio, Essam Erian, a top official of the Muslim Brotherhood who himself has been imprisoned several times, smiled broadly as he held a series of interviews about the electoral success of his movement.

The contrast underscored a stunning shift in Egyptian politics. The Tomorrow Party and other legal, secular opposition groups were all but wiped out in the election -- together, they won no more than 10 seats. Candidates running as independents but representing the Muslim Brotherhood, which is formally banned from politics, won 88 seats and became the leading voice of dissent against President Hosni Mubarak's quarter-century rule.

Still-partial results show that Mubarak's National Democratic Party scooped up 314 seats in the 454-seat assembly, 90 fewer than in elections five years ago but still more than the two-thirds majority needed to pass constitutional changes.

Throughout the three rounds of the election, police and mobs organized by the ruling party tried to scare voters away from the polls and human rights groups complained of vote-buying and ballot box-stuffing. Then, on Wednesday, the final day of voting, eight people were killed by police, bringing the death toll of the month-long voting period to 10. For all that, analysts and politicians say, the vote exposed the weakness of secular parties that had hoped to benefit from the limited opening of Egypt's politics during the past year.

"Most of the most democratic forces lost with only a handful of votes. They became yesterday's people. They fought to open the system, but it was the Muslim Brotherhood that benefited," said Mohammed Sayed Said, an analyst at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

"The old, official party system is dead," Erian said.

The failure of secular parties and the success of the Brotherhood present a dilemma for the Bush administration, which has pressed Mubarak to grant rights of free speech and association and to stop arresting opposition activists.

The secular opposition's political stands covered a spectrum from rabidly anti-American Trotskyites to free-market liberals like Nour, but all favored reforms in keeping with Washington's desire for Western-style democracy to take hold in Egypt. Democracy activists in a group called Kifaya, which means "enough" in Arabic, campaigned for free speech in the streets of Cairo. In the end, the benefits were harvested by the well-organized Brotherhood, which has long espoused the preeminence of Islamic law in public life and whose history is linked with violent movements across the Middle East.

"In the end, only the Brotherhood had national reach. Only it could cash in on the new openness," Said commented.

The case of Nour reveals the obstacles that opposition parties faced on the road to the ballot box. His Tomorrow Party was legalized only 14 months ago, and Nour soared to prominence during the summer's presidential elections when he won about 7 percent of the vote in the midst of Mubarak's landslide victory. But in the first round of the parliamentary elections, Nour lost his seat.

Through his presidential and parliamentary campaigns, Nour operated under the cloud of government prosecution for alleged fraud in gathering petitions to legalize his party. Although a main prosecution witness in the case said police coerced him to testify, the case has gone ahead. Last week, a judge ordered Nour's arrest. A verdict is scheduled to be delivered Saturday.

"Ayman Nour's trial, like the violence against voters in the parliamentary elections, is a terrible advertisement for President Mubarak's supposed reform agenda, and for Egypt's judiciary," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division. "In the courtroom as at the voting booths, there is little tolerance for challenges to the ruling party's hegemony."

On Thursday night, demonstrators holding candles, orange balloons and banners gathered to protest Nour's detention. They were hemmed in by police and prohibited from leaving a sidewalk at Talat Harb Square. "The government wants to eliminate people like Ayman so they can offer Egyptians only two choices: the NDP or the Brotherhood," said Gamila Ismael, Nour's wife. "It is the choice of extremes."

Nour faces a new charge in court: insulting Mubarak during an interview on al-Jazeera television.

One Tomorrow Party member won a parliamentary seat. Nour has said the victor was supported by the ruling party to unseat him as party leader.

Other parties fared equally badly. The Wafd party, an 80-year-old group, won six seats; the leftist Tagammu ended with two; and the Nasserites, named after Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's leader of the 1950s and '60s, secured none.

Kifaya, which ran no candidates, is rethinking its tactics. The movement succeeded in challenging bans on public demonstrations and broke taboos against criticizing Mubarak. But some supporters say the protests have reached a dead end. "We became addicted to demonstrations," said Wael Khalil, a Kifaya activist. "We have to organize to make ourself relevant across the country. We simply don't have deep roots in Egypt."

The Muslim Brotherhood faced obstacles as well. The organization was forced to run its candidates as independents because of its outlawed status, and police rounded up 1,300 members and sympathizers during the election, Erian said.

Brotherhood leaders were quick to calm fears that the group would run roughshod over the secular opposition. The Brotherhood ran in only 150 districts to assure Egyptians it was not trying to seize power immediately, Erian said. If legalized, he said, the Brotherhood would become a political party. In parliament, it will launch an anti-corruption campaign, he added.

Erian attributed the Brotherhood's electoral success to fieldwork and social activism. Members provide social services and medical care in several areas throughout Egypt. "We are visible in ways other parties are not," Erian said. "This is a moment of truth. Egyptians will see whether we are a genuine reform movement or not."

As for the United States, Erian said it should avoid trying to mold Egyptian democracy in its own image. 'They should learn they are not in charge of the world," he said.

Members of the ruling party put a positive spin on the outcome. Mohammed Kamal, a reformer in the party, said the Brotherhood must now show its true face. "They are integrated into the system, and this is a positive step in dealing with political Islam," he said. "Is it scary? We will see."

Egypt Islamists ready to talk with Washington

Agence France Presse
Fri Dec 9,2005

Egypt's Muslim Brothers, who control one in five parliamentary seats after spectacular gains in recent polls, say they are ready to break a long-standing taboo and engage in contacts with Washington.

The Islamist movement's spokesman Issam al-Aryan welcomed the comments of a senior US state department official who said Washington was likely to seek contacts with the Brotherhood.

"We, as representatives of the Egyptian nation, will not refrain from making contacts if they are in the interest of Egypt," he told AFP, two days after his movement secured one fifth of parliament.

Twenty percent of the next parliament will be members of the Muslim Brotherhood, making the Islamist organisation the most substantial opposition the pro-US regime of President Hosni Mubarak will have faced in 24 years.

The US administration has gone to great lengths to not even mention the name of the Islamist movement -- still officially banned in Egypt -- and only acknowledged the victory of an unprecedented number of "independents".

But a senior state department official said Thursday on condition of anonymity: "I would expect us to meet with the independent candidates."

Speaking on the record, spokesman Adam Ereli said Washington welcomed the results of Egypt's month-long parliamentary polls and the broadening of opposition and independent representation.

Issam al-Aryan's reaction to the US overture nevertheless was short of enthusiastic and the Islamist official described it simply as Washington's "acknowledgement of the reality on the ground."

He also expressed his movement's widely shared frustration with US President George W. Bush's regional policies.

"We have condemned US policy in this region since the end of the second world war, especially policies related to the Zionist entity, control of oil resources and the occupation of Iraq," Aryan said.

But he seemed determined to sidestep the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, which some observers say has played on western fears of Islamism to obtain Washington's renewed confidence despite a poor human rights record.

"We do not accept that dictatorial Arab regimes use Islamists as a means of scaring away or blackmailing in order to hamper democratisation," Aryan said.

The current US administration has been divided on what stance to adopt towards the Muslim Brotherhood, which has benefited from the US push for democratisation in the Middle East.

"It's a mistake to believe that the US administration or even the neo-cons have a united position on this issue," said Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.

Successive US ambassadors in Cairo have differed, with Bob Pelletreau and David Welch in principle favouring contacts with the brotherhood and Ed Walker less inclined to dialogue.

Liz Cheney, the US vice president's daughter and the overseer of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, has also been reluctant to talk to the Brotherhood which she argues cannot be considered as a democratic force.

A US diplomatic source in Cairo admitted that official contacts with the Brotherhood had been systematically ruled out until now, while European embassies have maintained a channel of contacts.

"We have meetings with them but in the professional unions they control, never at the headquarters of their movement, which remains banned under Egyptian law," a European diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Since they are just as pragmatic as the United States are, it would be natural for them to start talking," the diplomat added.

But both the Cairo regime and Washington have so far been categorically opposed to the legalisation of the Brotherhood as a political party, one of the Islamist movement's main demands.

Hugh Roberts, North Africa Project Director for the International Crisis Group think tank, even argued that the spectacular electoral gains of the Muslim Brothers could "pour cold water on Washington's enthusiasm for democratisation".

Iraq: The War To Start All Wars

In December 6, 2005 Wall Street Journal, deputy editor George Melloan advanced startling rationale for the Iraq war. In Melloan’s view, the invasion was about creating a home base from which the United States can launch future wars against Iran and Syria:

The invasion of Iraq was not only about weapons of mass destruction…It was also about establishing a U.S. war-fighting beachhead in the heart of the Middle East, the principal breeding ground of terrorists. The invasion took out one terrorism sponsor, Saddam Hussein, and gave the U.S. a presence for intimidating two others, Iran and Syria.

According to Melloan, we need to finish the job in Iraq quickly – not so we can send the troops home – but so we can get ready to fight Iran:

Nowhere is the antipathy toward America and the West more clearly manifested than in Iran…Getting Iraq under control is urgent because of what may be the next threat in the Middle East.

Don’t expect the string of wars to end anytime soon. Melloan concludes that the fight could last “30 years in the view of some analysts.”

Israel expands war arsenal to deal with Iranian nuclear threat

By Steven Gutkin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 8, 2005

JERUSALEM – Israel is expanding its military arsenal to deal with what it views as the greatest threat to its existence: a nuclear attack by Iran.
It has acquired dozens of warplanes with long-range fuel tanks to allow them to reach Iran and signed a deal with Germany for two submarines reportedly capable of firing nuclear missiles.

Though Israeli security officials say a strike against Iran is not on the horizon, senior Israeli politicians have begun openly discussing the possibility of a military option – either alone or with other countries.

Such a mission would be far more complicated than the 1981 Israeli raid that destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor. It would require heavy precision bombs that can blast through underground bunkers, manned aircraft to bombard multiple targets and possibly ground commandos to make sure weapons materials are destroyed, experts say.

"It's not a target that you can find on the map, send two F15s and solve it," said Itamar Yaar, deputy head of Israel's National Security Council.

Both the United States and Israel refuse to say whether a strike plan is in the works.

Hard feelings between Israel and Iran date to just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution when the Israelis joined the United States in siding with the Shah before he was deposed.

Partly because of that, the founder of the Islamic revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, called Israel the "Little Satan," saving the term "Great Satan" for the U.S., Israel's patron.

The Iranian brand of Islam allows no place for a Jewish state in the Middle East, and Israel points out often that Iran is the only member of the United Nations that publicly calls for destruction of another member. Israel's animosity toward Iran stems not only from the Iranian leadership's anti-Israel statements, but also its support of armed groups like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Tensions between the countries have mounted recently amid growing concern about Iran's atomic program.

Tehran says its nuclear program is to generate electricity, not make bombs. But plans announced this week to build more nuclear power plants and to purchase 30 Tor-M1 surface-to-air missiles from Russia have raised fears.

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" in October also set off alarms. On Thursday, the Iranian leader said the Jewish state should be moved to Europe and questioned whether the Holocaust took place.

Both Israel and the U.S. say diplomatic options should be exhausted before any military action is contemplated.

But this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the ability to take out Iran's nuclear program by force "of course exists." His hard-line political rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, went further, saying he would support a pre-emptive raid.

Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said Sunday he did not believe diplomatic pressure will be enough to keep Tehran from developing the bomb and a military solution may be necessary.

"Who is the one to implement it? That is another question that I'm not going to answer. 'When?' is another question that I'm not going to answer. But there are options worldwide," he said.

U.S. officials have refrained from calling for military action, favoring diplomacy, inspections and trade sanctions. Still, President Bush has said the U.S. will not let Iran get the bomb.

Some experts argue a military strike would not be feasible because of a lack of good intelligence on targets, the existence of multiple atomic installations scattered throughout Iran, some underground or bored into mountains, and the country's increasingly sophisticated defense systems.

But others say the capability is there, a combination of precision missiles, bunker-buster bombs, airpower and elite ground forces to penetrate the most difficult sites.

The U.S. – with cruise missiles that can deliver high-explosive bombs to precise locations and B-2 bombers capable of dropping 85 500-pound bombs in a single run – could take on the task, several experts said.

Whether Israel could is an unanswered question. However, the country already has received about half the 102 American-built F-16I warplanes it ordered, with extra fuel tanks to let them reach Iran.

Israel signed a deal with Germany to build two more Dolphin submarines capable of firing atomic missiles at Iran. Israel already has three Dolphins, a key deterrent to any future nuclear confrontation.

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it refuses to confirm or deny it.

Last week, Israel successfully tested its Arrow missile defense system against a missile similar to Iran's Shahab-3, which can be equipped with a nuclear warhead to reach Israel or several U.S. military installations in the Middle East.

Experts say possible targets in Iran include the Bushehr nuclear facility and a uranium conversion center at Esfahan.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said any strike would be fraught with pitfalls. But a successful one would have to be a "bolt out of the blue" to prevent Iran from moving its uranium centrifuges, a key component for enriching uranium used to make nuclear bombs.

He also said ground commando raids would likely be necessary to ensure hidden tools used for atomic purposes are destroyed.

Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg said it wouldn't be necessary to get "100 percent of the targets" to set back Iran's nuclear program. A limited operation to disrupt power supplies, block access to sites or remove key components could be enough.

He noted Iran has learned lessons from Israel's 1981 strike against the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, dispersing nuclear sites, putting facilities underground and improving defense.

"But 25 years have passed since then and the offensive capabilities of the armies involved have also advanced," he added.

Albright warned any strike, especially one that leaves some nuclear capabilities intact, would likely strengthen Iran's resolve to aggressively pursue atomic weapons.

He said Iran would most likely retaliate by making "life miserable for the United States in Iraq" and launch attacks against Israel through proxies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.

Israeli Aides Warn U.S. Not To Drop Ball on Iran

Chaos Feared if Syrian Regime Is Toppled
By ORI NIR
The Forward
December 9, 2005

WASHINGTON — As Israeli-Iranian tensions mount, Jerusalem is increasingly concerned that the Bush administration is not doing enough to block Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The American-Israeli disagreement over Iran policy is just one of several that has emerged in recent weeks, the Forward has learned.

The tensions were visible last week in Washington, during the semi-annual "strategic dialogue" between Israeli and American security officials. Although the talks were generally harmonious, they also exposed some stark disagreements, sources said.

During their meetings in Washington, Israeli officials voiced concern over signs that the Bush administration is considering a policy of regime change in Syria — a development which Israel fears could unleash chaos and a more dangerous situation than the status quo. Some officials in Israel reportedly are still taken aback by what they depict as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's heavy-handed brokering of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement over the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt (for story, please see Page 9).

But for Israel and American Jewish groups, the biggest concern is what they describe as the Bush administration's failure to assume a leadership role on Iran, even after it became clear the European-led negotiations with Tehran were failing to produce an agreement.

"What we have seen is that for more than two years... the U.S. contracted this issue to the Europeans — and the only result is that Iranians have gained two years to get closer to the completion of their nuclear cycle, which by many estimates is only months away," said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "It is a message to every rogue state that you can diddle around with the Europeans and the United States, and in the meanwhile create a new reality."

The Europeans, he said, still approach the Iran question with "appeasement and weakness," while having "no game plan" for decisive action.

At the strategic talks in Washington, Israel complained that American officials agreed to delay referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council for sanctions regarding Tehran's nuclear program.

Later in the week, on November 30, the country's most influential pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, took the highly unusual step of issuing a statement criticizing the Bush administration. Aipac typically avoids public criticism of the administration, particularly when it comes to this White House, which Jewish groups feel is bent on punishing critics by denying them access to policymakers.

In its November 28 statement, Aipac condemned the administration for agreeing to give Russia a chance to negotiate a plan under which Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium under international supervision to make sure that its nuclear material is not used for military purposes. Aipac expressed concern that giving Iran more time to negotiate rather than immediately referring the country to the U.N. Security Council may "facilitate Iran's quest for nuclear weapons." The statement warned that giving Iran yet another chance to manipulate the international community "poses a severe danger to the United States and our allies, and puts America and our interests at risk."

An Aipac spokesman denied that the statement was coordinated with the Israeli government. A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington said that the statement did not necessarily reflect Israel's position.

Israel is not looking for the United States to topple the regime in Tehran or launch a military attack against Iran, Israeli officials and American experts say. Instead, what Israeli officials say they have wanted for years is for the United States to lead an international campaign to isolate the Islamic republic and slap it with sanctions. Israeli officials say that the international community has a variety of options short of military action at its disposal.

Israeli officials, sources said, were surprised by reports that rather than take the lead in pressuring Iran, the Bush administration instructed its ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khaklilzad, to open a dialogue with Iran's ambassador there. In addition, Israeli officials were also upset by Washington's restrained reaction to the deal that Russia is finalizing to sell Tehran more than $1 billion worth of anti-aircraft missiles, which could be used to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities against a possible air strike.

Recent public comments by several senior Israeli officials — including the Israeli military's chief of staff and the head of military intelligence — fueled speculation of a connection between Aipac's statement and Israel's growing anxiety over what it views as Iran's methodical push for nuclear weapons.

During a press briefing Sunday, the Israeli military's chief of staff, Dan Halutz, said that letting the Iranians escape international pressure "encourages them to continue their nuclear project." He added that, "the political means that are used by the Europeans and the U.S. to convince the Iranians to stop the project will not succeed."

Israel's military intelligence chief, Major General Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, warned last week that time is running out and said that the international community's diplomatic efforts to reverse Iran's project will become futile by March 2006. Several Knesset members, who were briefed by Ze'evi-Farkash, told Israeli reporters that they interpreted his comments as cautioning that after that point, only military power could block Iran's nuclear pursuit.

The possibility of military action against Iran has already become fodder in Israel's heated election campaign. Earlier this week former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — widely expected to emerge as Likud's candidate for prime minister — argued that "everything" must be done to block Iran and said that "this is the Israeli government's primary obligation."

"If it is not done by the current government," Netanyahu said, "I plan to lead the next government to stop the Iranians." His comments were widely interpreted as a swipe at Prime Minister Sharon, who had urged the West to step forward on Iran, saying that Israel "will not lead" the efforts to block Tehran's nuclear quest.

The escalating Israeli rhetoric elicited an immediate reply from the spokesman of Iran's foreign ministry, who threatened a "devastating" reaction to an Israeli military strike.

Some pro-Israel activists who are unhappy with the administration's approach attribute it largely to the American presence in Iraq. "The administration doesn't have any answers of its own on Iran," said Morris Amitay, a former executive director of Aipac who now heads the Washington Political Action Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group. "With its hands full in Iraq, it let some of the other countries take the lead in trying to deal with the problem as a path of least resistance."

This view, according to a senior official with a major Jewish organization, is shared by many in the Jewish community. "Frankly, as I hear from many Israeli officials: America picked the wrong adversary to fight in the Gulf, and the war against Iraq is now restraining it from leading a diplomatic campaign — let alone a military one — on Iran," the Jewish communal official said.

A senior congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed the same frustration over the lack of American leadership last week. Paraphrasing an ancient teaching of Rabbi Hillel, the aide said: "If not America, then who? If not on Iran, then on what? And if not now, then when?"

In 'victory,' both power and peril

The word now peppers Bush's speeches on Iraq - by design.
By Peter Grier
The Christian Science Monitor
December 09, 2005

WASHINGTON - If there is one word the White House wants the American public to associate with the war in Iraq, it is probably "victory." President Bush said it 11 times Wednesday in his speech on rebuilding Iraq - following victory's 15 mentions in his address on the training of Iraqi forces last week.

From the administration's point of view, the benefits of this rhetorical approach are obvious. As a theme, victory is positive, even uplifting. It might serve to counter any public impression that the US is stuck in an Iraqi morass.

But the Bush team's definition of what would constitute victory in Iraq remains fuzzy, say critics. And in using such a powerful word - especially in phrases such as "complete victory" - US officials may have set themselves a dauntingly high goal. As the president himself has said, the nature of the Iraqi conflict means it won't end, as World War II did, with the finality of a signing ceremony on the deck of a US battleship.

"Ending any war is hard," says Lee Feinstein, executive director of the Task Force Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. "He'd have been better off to say, 'We'll leave Iraq better than we found it.' "

The sudden prominence of victory as a central part of the administration's discourse regarding Iraq probably isn't the result of a speech writer's whim. Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver has long insisted that the support of the American public for any war depends crucially on whether they think it will succeed - and Dr. Feaver recently joined the White House staff as a special adviser.

In fact, an electronic signature shows that Feaver created the computer file for "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," posted Nov. 30 on the White House website, according to The New York Times.

The core of the argument made by Feaver and his colleagues at Duke is that polling shows US voters aren't affected by rising war casualties if they expect the war in question to result in a US victory.

"When the public thinks victory is not likely, even small [casualty] costs will be highly corrosive," says a June 2005 paper by Feaver and fellow Duke political scientists Christopher Gelpi and Jason Reifler.

Not all polling experts accept this conclusion. Even if the thesis is correct, other critics say, the public needs more than rhetoric to believe in eventual triumph.

The problem with Iraq isn't that the administration hasn't been talking about victory enough, says Ivo Daalder, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. It's the continued strength of the insurgency.

"If rhetoric doesn't match what's happening on the ground, then the rhetoric will be discounted," says Mr. Daalder.

The emphasis on victory is more than a twist in their public diplomacy effort, administration officials insist. Bush's speeches - and the newly public "Strategy for Victory" document - undertake the important effort of defining what victory in Iraq will look like, they say.

On Wednesday, in his speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, the president said US victory will be achieved when terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when Iraqi security forces can protect their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the US.

"We will accept nothing less than complete victory," said Bush.

Given the stakes involved, and the effort already made, the administration has no choice but to nail its flag to the mast in this matter, say administration officials.

"For us, failure in Iraq is just not an option," said Eric Edelman, undersecretary of Defense for policy, at a Council on Foreign Relations seminar Dec. 1.

Yet for all its specificity, the administration's talk about victory may leave crucial terms undefined. Victory may come when the insurgency no longer threatens the Iraqi government - but what does "threaten" mean, in this sense? Will Bush's "complete victory" accept some vestigial insurgent activity? And how do US troop levels there connect to all of this? Might they decline before complete victory occurs?

After all, war termination is a messy and unpredictable business, say experts. That can be true even for uncontested victors. In the waning days of World War II, the US wrestled with whether to allow Japan's emperor to remain on his throne. In the end, he was permitted to stay, perhaps easing tensions at the beginning of the American occupation.

Nor are all victories complete. The end of the Korean conflict saw an independent South Korea preserved, but North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung remained in power. The country he left behind is today an unpredictable hermit nation with a rapidly developing nuclear weapons capability.

But by being so forceful about complete victory the administration may have raised public expectations for a crisp, clear ending to the US experience in Iraq - an ending that may not occur during Bush's presidency, if ever.

"The administration made a deliberate choice to use the word 'victory,' " says Mr. Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations. "They've created a serious problem for themselves."

Water Rights Activists Awarded Alternative Nobel Prize

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - December 9 - Today, the Swedish Parliament will award the Right Livelihood Award--better known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'--to Canadian social justice and water rights leaders Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow. Problems of water shortage and scarcity loom large on the horizon as corporations increasingly seek to control the world's water supplies. Clarke and Barlow have become world-renowned for their studies of global water shortage and scarcity, and for their work to protect this precious resource as a fundamental human right.

"We are proud to celebrate with Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow as they are recognized for their work toward justice," says Corporate Accountability International Executive Director Kathryn Mulvey. "Ensuring that access to clean, safe water is protected as a fundamental human right is one of the most pressing issues of our time."

The Right Livelihood Award honors people who offer "practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today." In 2002, Clarke and Barlow teamed up to write, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World's Water. Their book chronicles the corporate role in the impending water crisis and suggests important building blocks to safeguarding water as a common resource and human right.

Tony Clarke is the Director of the Polaris Institute and Maude Barlow is the National Chair of The Council of Canadians. Corporate Accountability International is currently working with the Polaris Institute, the Council of Canadians and other allies around the world to help secure the human right to water, and people's access to water.

Egyptians Rue Election Day Gone Awry

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
New York Times
December 9, 2005

EZBET AL SHAMS, Egypt, Dec. 8 - It seemed as though the whole village had turned out, hundreds of people packed into a narrow cemetery road to express their sorrow and rage at a funeral on Thursday for Moustafa Abdel Salam, a 60-year-old grandfather who took a bullet in the head and became a fatal footnote to Egypt's parliamentary elections.

The three rounds of voting ended Wednesday in the fertile farming region of the Nile Delta north of Cairo. But the day after was not a day to discuss politics. For the people of this village and others throughout the area it was a day to bury the dead, to pray for the wounded and to curse the government, which they universally held responsible.

Egypt's last round of parliamentary elections ended with eight people dead - including one young man with three bullets in his head, two other men with bullets in their heads - and dozens more with the blunt force injuries that come when rubber-coated bullets and buckshot slam into body parts.

Parents wandered the dark hospital halls in the nearby city of Zagazig on Thursday asking, "Where are the people who were shot?"

If parliamentary elections were supposed to be an exercise in democracy, as President Hosni Mubarak had promised, they instead served as a reminder to many here of the unyielding, unchecked power of the state.

After the banned Muslim Brotherhood began whittling away at the governing party's monopoly on power, police officers in riot gear and others in plainclothes and armed civilians working for the police began blocking polling stations, preventing supporters of the Brotherhood from casting their votes.

Results of the election showed that the Muslim group had increased its representation in Parliament to 88 members from 15, while the governing National Democratic Party retained the vast majority of the 454 seats.

Officials were counting the bodies, too. By day's end, the tally of those killed during the parliamentary elections had risen as other patients died of their injuries.

"There is nothing for us to do," said Hosni Abdel Salam, 55, who said it did not even occur to him to ask the government to investigate the death of his brother Moustafa.

He said he was standing beside Moustafa on Wednesday evening when he said he saw the police fire from a moving police car, killing his brother and injuring eight others on the last day of elections.

Egyptian authorities insist they did not shoot with live ammunition and say security forces were out only to safeguard polling stations.

"There are people who were shot by live ammunition," said a high-ranking Interior Ministry official who asked not to be identified, because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "This is not the security forces that shot them because the Interior Ministry security forces can use tear gas, water pressure and at most rubber bullets if they have to. They do not have live ammunition."

But there are many witnesses, including Western diplomats, rights organizations, doctors, the wounded themselves and people who live here, who say otherwise. They said they had seen police officers open fire on men, women and children with live ammunition, in addition to tear gas and rubber-coated bullets, and held up spent cartridges as proof.

"We know that it is the government who hit him," said Muhammad Saad Muhammad Mehdi, 19, as he stood over the lifeless body of his cousin Muhammad Ahmed Muhammad and a respirator clicked away in Zagazig University Hospital.

A doctor lifted up an X-ray that showed three bullets lodged in back of Mr. Muhammad's brain. The doctor said an ambulance had carried Mr. Muhammad to the hospital after he was caught in gunfire that the police had aimed at crowds they were trying to keep away from the polling booths.

Mr. Muhammad had been on his way home from work as a laborer, his cousin said.

At Zagazig University Hospital, a huge, sprawling complex that serves the entire region, most patients lie on thin mattresses in their street clothes. Muhammad al-Sayed al-Hady, 16, sat facing his grandmother on a hospital bed with meat and cheese spread out on plastic bags between them. He had a large bandage over his left eye where, he said, the police had shot him with a rubber bullet. He said he was trying to get home when he ran into a small army of police officers trying to block people from getting to a polling site.

"The police opened fire on the people," he said in a whisper.

His father, Abu Hamid, said he was furious but was resigned to having no recourse. "The election ended and everyone went back to his business," he said. "Will the police come and apologize? People died."

In another building of the hospital, Abdel Moneim Helal, 32, lay in his street clothes, both eyes swollen shut and the splatter of rubber-coated buckshot on his forehead. He had been trying to vote, he said, when the police opened fire into the crowd.

"When you fire tear gas and bullets into a crowd, and they see children and old people, they don't care," Mr. Helal said.

Dr. Atef Radwan, 53, a professor at the university hospital and a Brotherhood supporter, said he spent three hours trying to vote on Wednesday. He said the police would not let him through.

Finally, he said, men waving machetes chased him, and as he fled uniformed police officers pulled him inside the cordon of officers, where he was beaten by plainclothes policemen. His bloodied and ripped clothing hung from a chair beside his hospital bed. His left leg had been broken in the attack.

"They want to beat the people to not think about democracy anymore," he said.

Stop Racist Billboard Campaign

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
ADC Action Alert
Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Washington, DC, December 7, 2005--The Coalition for a Secure Driver's License is launching a new billboard campaign in New Mexico and North Carolina, which contains extremely negative and racist images of Arabs and Arab cultural symbols.

The billboards unfairly conflate the question of immigration and national security, and further enflame fears about Arabs and Arab Americans. In doing so, the Coalition for a Secure Driver's license misleadingly utilizes false stereotypes and racist rhetoric to push an anti-immigration agenda.

The ad depicts an individual whose face is covered by a Kufiya (the traditional male headdress in some Arab countries,) carrying a hand-gernade with what appears to be a blood smear and a driver's license. The billboard also features nonsensical Arabic letters that were simply lined up without forming any words. Additionally, there are two figures in the background wearing military fatigues, black masks, and green bandanas on their heads with what appear to be Arabic words. Superimposed on the images is a caption that reads "Don't License Terrorists, North Carolina!" To view the billboard visit

The fear is that the imagery, which very blatantly depicts a stereotypical Arab man as a threat to national security, will insight further mistrust towards Arab Americans and Arabs. While the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) values fair and honest political debate, this billboard unfairly portrays Arabs and Arab cultural symbols as dangerous. The advertisement transgresses the boundaries of political discussion and instead relies on stereotypes and hatemongering to support its views.

ADC understands that billboard companies do not want to infringe on the first amendment rights of its advertisers. However, hate speech and images that perpetuate racism and false stereotypes are unlawful and should not be tolerated. Billboard companies also have a responsibility to their costumers not to display ads that are racially offensive, and which contribute to the worsening problem of racism and prejudice towards any ethnic group or minority, including Arabs, Muslims, South Asians, and those perceived to be.

It is worth nothing that the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License has a history of negative ad campaigns and racial profiling. In the past, ADC has objected to a television ad, which seemingly depicted a stereotypical Middle Eastern man as a threat to national security. To view the ADC Action Alert for this ad click here.

ACTION REQUESTED:

ADC urges you to contact the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License, North Carolina Governor Michael F. Easley, and New Mexico Governors Bill Richardson to express your dismay at the contents of the billboard, as well as past ad campaigns. For your convenience, ADC has prepared a letter that you may choose to send by clicking here.

AJC Launches Counterterrorism Watch

AJC Launches Counterterrorism Watch
American Jewish Committee

December 8, 2005 – New York – Counterterrorism Watch, an online initiative, has been launched by the American Jewish Committee’s Division on Middle East and International Terrorism.

“We created Counterterrorism Watch to help inform and educate about the relentless threat of terrorism, and what is being done to confront it,” said Yehudit Barsky, director of the AJC Division on Middle East and International Terrorism. The division, established in 1999, focuses on gathering, interpreting, and disseminating open source intelligence. It is the only department of its kind within the Jewish organizational world.

Counterterrorism Watch is a web-based resource – www.ajc.org/counterterrorism -- providing detailed analyses on current issues concerning international terrorism, as well as information on terrorist attacks, trials of terrorists, and actions taken against terrorists.

Barsky, who is the editor of Counterterrorism Watch, is fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, and is one of the top American experts on Middle East terrorist groups and radical Islam. She has written a number of AJC publications on Middle Eastern terrorist organizations.

“Counterterrorism Watch will be an address for anyone concerned about the threat which appears to be growing,” said Barsky. Current features articles, authored by noted experts, include “Domestic Intelligence Gathering and Civil Liberties,” and “European Attitudes toward Hamas and Hizballah.”

While the website will be updated regularly, Barsky said a quarterly printed newsletter, featuring material from Counterterrorism Watch, also will be published.

ZOA supports Egyptian Jewish family's lawsuit against Coca-Cola

The Zionist Organization of America filed an amicus brief supporting an Egyptian Jewish family’s lawsuit against Coca-Cola.

The Bigio family, which is trying to gain compensation from Coca-Cola for land and factories in Egypt, is appealing a court ruling that the case ought to be decided in an Egyptian court. The family owned factories in Egypt that produced bottle caps, trays and coolers. Their property was confiscated by the Egyptian government in 1962 because they were Jewish, the ZOA said, and Coca-Cola later purchased the factories from Egypt knowing they had belonged to the Bigios.

“The hatred of Jews is so embedded in Egyptian society that the Bigios could not realistically be expected to obtain a fair trial in an Egyptian court,” ZOA said in its brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Second Circuit in New York City.

Palestinians sue former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter in U.S. court

Two pro-Palestinian groups sued a former Israeli security chief who is in the United States on a fellowship.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights served papers Wednesday night in New York in a class-action lawsuit against Avi Dichter, former director of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, on behalf of the families of Palestinians killed or injured in a 2002 air strike in the Gaza Strip. The groups allege that Dichter provided the intelligence necessary to carry out the bombing, which killed Hamas kingpin Salah Shehadeh but also killed eight children and seven adults and injured 150 people, the groups said in a statement.

Dichter is a fellow at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution, in Washington. An Israeli government inquiry into the assassination said it had prevented multiple terrorist attacks that Shehadeh was planning, and that it was carried out correctly. However, it said intelligence prior to the operation had “shortcomings” and that “conclusions were drawn with important implications for future operations, to avoid a recurrence.”


Palestinians sue former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter in U.S. court
By Yuval Yoaz
Haaretz
Dec. 9, 2005

Palestinians filed a civil suit against former Shin Bet security service chief Avi Dichter in a U.S. federal court Thursday, seeking millions of dollars in damages.

The plaintiffs are relatives of the 14 civilians who were killed when Israel assassinated senior Hamas operative Salah Shehadeh in July 2002.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court - Southern District of New York.

While Palestinians have previously filed suit in the United States against other Israeli security officials, Dichter, unlike the defendants in those cases, is currently in the U.S. As a result, the plaintiffs have been able to serve him with the papers, thereby enabling the court to hear the case.

According to the suit, Dichter shares responsibility for the deaths both because of his role in the decision to drop a one-ton bomb on the building where Shehadeh was staying and because he supplied the intelligence on which that decision was based. The Israel Defense Forces said at the time that it decided to drop the bomb based on intelligence indicating that Shehadeh was alone in the building.

While the suit does not ask for a specific sum in damages - that would be decided by the jury - the total is expected to reach millions of dollars. The plaintiffs are seeking both compensation and punitive damages, arguing that the bombing constituted a war crime that should not go unpunished.

Dichter has not yet responded to the suit.


Israel slams lawsuit against Dichter
THE JERUSALEM POST
Dec. 9, 2005

Israel on Friday denounced a lawsuit filed by Palestinians against a former Israeli security chief as "cynical manipulation" by extremists.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in New York federal court, said former Shin Bet director Avi Dichter is responsible for a July 2002 airstrike that killed 15 people in the Gaza Strip and seeks unspecified damage. The suit also seeks class-action status for survivors of the bombing and relatives of those who were killed.

"We see this as a cynical manipulation of the courts by groups with extremist agendas," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

The airstrike dropped a one-ton bomb that killed Salah Shehadeh, a top Hamas operative wanted for masterminding suicide bombings, along with 14 other people, including nine children.

Regev said Israel has been in touch with other countries, including the US and Britain, that could face similar charges against soldiers fighting in Iraq or in the global war on terror.

In September, retired general Doron Almog stayed on board a plane at London's Heathrow airport and returned to Israel after being tipped off that he was about to be arrested in connection with the same airstrike.

British police later canceled the arrest warrant, which had been issued after the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights filed a complaint against the general.

Other IDF commanders who have been targeted by similar lawsuits include Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon. Others included on the list, though they cannot be prosecuted while holding senior government posts, include Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister.

A message from Congress to Abbas: It's time to dismantle Hamas

Shmuel Rosner, Chief U.S. Correspondent
Haaretz
December 9, 2005; 19:00 EST

The four members of the House of Representatives said they were sending a clear massage to Mahmoud Abbas (whom they all referred to as Abu Mazen). It took them a while before they mentioned the big M, but finally they did: If you don't do what you have to do, no more money for the Palestinian Authority.

House Resolution 575 will probably pass before the Christmas recess. It states that Hamas and other terrorist groups should not be allowed to participate in the upcoming elections in the Palestinian Authority. It's a lost cause, as the politicians all know. But their intention is to make sure that Abbas understands he has no room to maneuver after the election. Either he deals with Hamas or he faces the American legislature.

The resolution is also "a message to the State Department," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla). The congressmen supporting the resolution are not prepared to compromise on Abbas' obligation to dismantle the terror groups. It seems as though the legislators do not fully trust the Bush administration professionals who deal with the Palestinians to be sufficiently persistent in making sure Hamas is dismantled.

The four (out of 86) co-signers of the resolution who came to present it to the press on Capitol Hill today also expressed real disappointment with Abu Mazen. His strategy is "absolutely absurd," said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev). He is "less then convincing," said Rep. Eric Cantor, (R-Va), the chief deputy majority whip. "It is now a test" for him, said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas).

The four congressmen said Hamas and other terrorist groups should be banned from the upcoming Palestinian Authority elections and from any future government unless they recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, cease all forms of incitement and violence, condemn terrorism and dismantle their terrorist infrastructures.

The resolution also says Hamas' inclusion in the governing structure of the PA "will inevitably raise serious policy considerations for the United States" and could "undermine the continued ability of the United States to provide financial assistance and conduct normal relations with the Palestinian Authority."

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobby, supports the resolution.

Pentagon sticks with 2-war plan

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 9, 2005

The Pentagon, in a major four-year decision, has decided to stick with having the capability of being able to fight two major conflicts at once, The Washington Times has learned.
Two officials said that when the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is completed next month, it will retain the requirement that the Pentagon maintain active forces and reserves able to repel and occupy an enemy in one war and defeat a second enemy but not necessarily occupy the capital.
The decision is one of the most important that Pentagon leaders make every four years in the congressionally mandated QDR. From the two-war requirement, other major decisions flow, such as the number of active and reserve troops, fighter air wings and Navy carrier battle groups, and major weapons systems to be procured.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected to approve the new QDR next month and present it to Congress in February. A Pentagon spokesman said no public comment on the QDR decisions would be issued until then.
The 2005 QDR, two sources said, generally will endorse the current military strategy known as "1421."
The first number represents defending the home front. The "four" is the ability to deter hostilities in four global regions. The "two" is the overriding requirement to defeat two enemies nearly simultaneously. The final "one" is having the capability of decisively defeating one of those enemies and occupying the country if necessary.
Pentagon planning groups have been brainstorming over major QDR decisions for months and at one point considered reducing the military's two-war-plus requirement. But planners, using a tenet that came to be known as "operational availability," decided that a transformed force, even while being used in the global war on terror, still can meet its major war requirements.
Officials think that transforming the 10-division active Army into 70 mobile brigades allows the service to meet future challenges with fewer soldiers.
"The new brigades are so much more mobile and lethal than they used to be," said a senior defense official, citing better precision-guided weapons, improved intelligence links and shorter logistics tail. "They are easier to get to the fight. ... A new Army brigade has more firepower than an old Army division."
Likewise, Navy planners think the fleet today, with 11 carrier battle groups instead of 12, represents more firepower because of better weapons and intelligence links.
"We're able to be more lethal with lower numbers," said the source, who, like the other official, asked not to be named.
In a speech Monday, Mr. Rumsfeld revealed his thinking as the QDR deadline neared.
"I think if I had to pull out one lesson that we've learned over the past four or five years, it would be that in the 21st century we're going to have to stop thinking about things, numbers of things, and mass, and think also and maybe even first about speed and agility and precision," he said.
"The Navy, for the sake of argument, has been able to go from X number of ships down to a much lower number," but each carrier group's firepower is "vastly greater than it was five years ago."
The Pentagon is not likely to terminate any major weapons systems for the 2005 QDR, after killing the Army's next general scout-attack helicopter and self-propelled howitzer. Defense sources said planners may trim the Air Force's buy of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and order the Army to restructure its Future Combat System, a network of armored vehicles and aircraft.
Mr. Rumsfeld also shepherded the 2001 QDR, but it was being finalized on September 11, 2001, and planners did not have time to fully incorporate the war on terror into the document.
Besides the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the Pentagon has created Northern Command, with the principal task of defending the United States, and empowered Special Operations Command to head the global war on terror.

US terror watchlist 80,000 names long

Agence France Presse
Thu Dec 8,2005

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.

The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.

Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name.

The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks.

Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm's Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the "selectee" list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.

Iranian intentions

By Rachel Ehrenfeld and Paul E. Vallely
The Washington Times
Published December 9, 2005

One wonders what will it take for the international community to understand that Iran seriously intends to use its nuclear power to attack the "infidels."
Iran's latest move to ban international inspectors is just one more step that the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, has taken to herald the return of the 12th Imam al-Mahdi, who is believed to have been born 800 years ago and went missing in 941 and whom the Shi'ites and Mr. Ahmedinijad believe will return before judgment day "to lead an era of Islamic justice." According to the prophecies in the Muslim Hadith, (the traditions and sayings of the prophet Mohammed), the 12th Imam al-Mahdi will be resurrected only after "one-third of the world population will die by being killed and one-third will die as a result of epidemics." Indeed, last year's tsunami and this year's devastating hurricanes and earthquakes are being used as propaganda by the radical Shi'ite clerics, claiming that the recent calamities are part of these prophecies.
On Nov. 16, Mr. Ahmedinijad stated: "Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi." In all his public statements in Iran and abroad, Mr. Ahmedinijad's messages are on target: Iran under his leadership must rise as a global power to lead the world in the footsteps of the prophets. He clearly follows up with actions -- moving on to develop nuclear weapons.
Yet, despite the evidence, neither the international community, nor the United States seem to comprehend Mr. Ahmedinijad's serious commitment to advance the arrival of the 12th Imam. Indeed, by continuing discussions with Iran, they are playing along, giving it the time and latitude needed to achieve nuclear proliferation.
Mr. Ahmedinijad's agenda has wide public appeal in Iran, as demonstrated by his landslide victory in the June election. This contradicts what many in the West and the United States want to believe.
Consequently, Mr. Ahmedinijad's agenda, which is strongly supported by Iran's clerics, precludes the possibility that Iran will stop developing its nuclear weapons and therefore that there can be a peaceful resolution for this problem.
Iran claims that it deserves to be a nuclear power like the United States and Russia. However, unlike the United States and Russia, which developed nuclear arsenals as mechanisms of deterrence, Iran by all indications is developing a nuclear arsenal as a mechanism to set off a chain reaction of death resulting in the destruction of a third of the world's population in order to facilitate the arrival of the Mahdi.
Not surprisingly, Iran has just passed a new law to ban foreign inspections of its nuclear facilities, and at the same time announced its plan to build 20 more nuclear plants.
According to the Hadith, the Mahdi's arrival will be preceded by three major stages. First, territorial conquests marked by death, destruction and conversion to Islam. In the case of Iran, it presents a real possibility of religious war with worldwide ramifications. The second stage constitutes the subversion and taxation, or economic domination, of the newly controlled territories, which according to Shi'ite interpretation would be under its domination.
The significance of these prophecies of the Hadith and the Koran lies not in the truth or falsehood of the predictions. Rather, the significance of these prophecies is that the Muslim faith imposes its belief that Islamic prophecy is reality-based. The radical Shi'ites led by Mr. Ahmedinijad consider themselves the advance guard in the mission to bring back the 12th Imam. If left undisturbed, this 1,400-year-old religious dogma carries a lethal payload.
It would not be the first time that radical Muslims try to destroy civilizations. They were successful in the past, and those successes feed their current aspirations. To strengthen Mr. Ahmedinijad's message and to indicate that he is chosen by God to bring about the Imam's return, he and his entourage claim that a halo of light appeared around his head when he addressed the U.N. General Assembly in September.
We hear constantly about Iranians who long for democracy. If only the United States would help them, so we are told, they would overthrow this suppressive regime. How then can they explain Mr. Ahmedinijad's victory with 62 percent of Iran's vote.
The logical explanation is that the elections were rigged. Be that as it may, Mr. Ahmedinijad is the president of Iran and he sets the agenda. We are all his captive audience, but we don't have to be.
What we have to be is better informed. In order to win the war against radical Islam, it is important to understand who the enemy is, how they think and what their intentions are. There is mounting evidence that the Revolutionary Guard is following up on Iran's constitutional mandate to export terrorism and expand Iran's influence around the world.
It is vital to the national security of the United States and its interests to do all it takes to stop Iran's nuclear development and its support of international terrorism now.

Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the American Center for Democracy, author of "Funding Evil; How terrorism is Financed — and How to Stop It" and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Retired Maj. Gen. Paul E Vallely is a senior military analyst for Fox News Channel and co-author of "Endgame — Blueprint for Victory in War on Terror."

Should Israel give up its nukes?

By George Bisharat
Los Angeles Times
December 9, 2005

IN A SUDDEN ATTACK of common sense, a Pentagon-commissioned study released in mid-November suggests an approach to nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East that might actually be accepted by the people of the region. What is this breakthrough idea? That U.S. policies begin not with a country that currently lacks nuclear weapons — Iran — but rather with the one that by virtually all accounts already has them — Israel.

To avert Iran's apparent drive for nuclear weapons, concludes Henry Sokolski, a co-editor of "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," Israel should freeze and begin to dismantle its nuclear capability.

This and other recommendations emerged from two years of deliberations by experts on the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation.

Limiting the spread of nuclear weapons is a pivotal U.S. foreign policy objective. As the sole nation ever to have employed them, we bear a special responsibility to prevent their use in the future. With regard to the Middle East, we rightly worry not only about the potential use of the weapons themselves but about the political leverage bestowed on those who would possess them.

However, there is an Achilles heel in our nonproliferation policy: the double standard that U.S. administrations since the 1960s have applied with respect to Israel's weapons of mass destruction. Israel's suspected arsenal includes chemical, biological and about 100 to 200 nuclear warheads, and the capacity to deliver them.

Initially, the United States opposed Israel's nuclear weapons program. President Kennedy dispatched inspectors to the Dimona generating plant in Israel's south, and he cautioned Israel against developing atomic weapons. Anticipating the 1962 visit of American inspectors, Israel reportedly constructed a fake wall at Dimona to conceal its weapons production.

Since then, no U.S. administration has effectively pressured Israel to either halt its program or to submit to inspections under the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nor has Israel been required to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The apparent rationale: Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an ally are simply not an urgent concern.

Yet this rationale neglects a fundamental law of arms proliferation. Nations seek WMD when their rivals already possess them. Israel's nuclear capability has clearly fueled WMD ambitions within the Middle East. Saddam Hussein, for example, in an April 1990 speech to his military, threatened to retaliate against any Israeli nuclear attack with chemical weapons — the "poor man's atomic bomb."

WASHINGTON'S inconsistency on the nuclear issue in the Middle East has been terribly corrosive of American legitimacy throughout the world, and a reversal of our policy would be widely noted regionally.

Nor is our international legitimacy all that is at stake. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, a panicky Israel, facing early battlefield losses, threatened a nuclear strike. This evoked a massive arms shipment from the United States, eventually permitting Israel to turn the tide of the war — demonstrating the kinds of pressures that nuclear powers can apply, even on allies. Although many view Israel's victory with favor, it surely enabled subsequent decades of Israeli intransigence over the fate of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and has contributed to the impasse afflicting the region.

The study's authors include retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom and Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy — in short, no enemies of Israel. Their suggestion is comparatively mild: Israel should take small, reversible steps toward nuclear disarmament to encourage Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Nonetheless, Israeli leaders reportedly have already demurred.

One can anticipate the bipartisan stampede of U.S. lawmakers to denounce the recommendation should it win official U.S. backing. That would be a shame. Sooner or later, common sense must prevail in our Middle East policy. Otherwise, we will continue to run our global stature into the ground.

GEORGE BISHARAT is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.

Pursuing evil to the grave

By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Los Angeles Times
December 9, 2005

JOHN DEMJANJUK, the Nazi death camp guard who has lived in the United States since falsifying his entry papers in 1952, is again in the news, facing deportation to Germany or perhaps Ukraine, his country of origin.

Demjanjuk has been extradited once, to Israel, where the Supreme Court in 1993 overturned his conviction and death sentence, saying that he was not, in fact, Ivan the Terrible, an infamous guard at the Treblinka death camp. But today, the documentary evidence is clear that although he was not Ivan, he was a guard in several concentration camps, including Sobibor, in Poland, where the Germans exterminated an estimated 250,000 people in 1942 and 1943. Because of the persuasive evidence of Demjanjuk's service to Nazi mass murder, a federal judge stripped him of his U.S. citizenship in 2002, which set the stage for the current deportation proceedings.

The Holocaust ended 60 years ago. Many undoubtedly wonder why Demjanjuk, now 85, should not be left in peace. News reports described him at his most recent hearing, last week, as frail, moaning, hunched in a wheelchair and suffering from chronic back pain. His will certainly be one of the last legal proceedings against the Holocaust's perpetrators because both the perpetrators and the survivors of the Nazis' crimes are dying off. The trials (which the German public never supported anyway) have all but come to a halt in Germany.

So, should Demjanjuk at this late date be held accountable? Indeed, how should we assess the overall record of the last 60 years in bringing these mass murderers to justice? Now that the surviving victims of the Holocaust are becoming ever fewer, have we failed or succeeded in bringing their tormentors and the murderers of so many to justice?

No one should shed a tear for Demjanjuk and the other mass murderers, even if they are now elderly. They committed unsurpassable crimes, willfully torturing and slaughtering unthreatening, defenseless Jewish men, women and children by the tens of thousands. There is no statute of limitations for murder in this country, and, recognizing the historic nature of the Holocaust, the German Parliament repeatedly voted to extend the statute of limitations for murder there as well. Legally, the perpetrators' culpability for their willful crimes is beyond doubt. Is it any less clear morally?

That Demjanjuk and others escaped justice for decades, many rejoicing over their crimes, should not earn them a permanent "get out of jail" card. Eluding criminal punishment and living well after murdering so many, and while one's surviving victims bear their scars every day, is no argument for being allowed to continue to elude punishment. The notion — never baldly articulated — that if someone is arrested for his crime immediately or six months later, he should be punished, but that if he manages not to be punished for 10, 30 or 60 years, he merits permanent immunity, is illogical and strange.

If anything, the moral outrage should not be directed at those seeking justice but, in addition to the criminals themselves, at the political and legal authorities that have done so little over 60 years to punish these murderers.

Germany — not surprisingly, because most of the perpetrators were German — has done the most to prosecute these mass murderers. But from the perspective of justice, the record has been dismal, in two senses. Even though the Germans have convicted what seems like a large number of people for Nazi crimes — 6,500 — it is a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands who committed murder and other heinous crimes against Jews and non-Jews during the Nazi period. (In 1996, the German justice system's clearinghouse for prosecuting Nazi crimes had more than 333,000 names in its catalog listing members of killing institutions, of which there were more than 4,100).

And the sentences the killers received — typically a few years for the murder of hundreds, thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands; sometimes no more than minutes or hours in prison for the murder of each of their victims — were travesties, not instances of justice. (Josef Oberhauser, for instance, who was convicted in 1965 in Germany for his participation in the murder of 300,000 people in the Belzec camp, received a prison sentence of only 4½ years). So, contrary to what many say or imply — that enough is enough, that we should let these harmless old men alone, that we should not hound them endlessly — there is no good argument for letting them be. They have not been hounded; most (and especially non-German Nazi collaborators) have lived well, enjoying perfect immunity.

Still, the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators has been more successful than the prosecution of other genocide perpetrators. After most mass murders, those who committed the atrocities generally get off scot-free, with perhaps a few symbolic prosecutions of leaders or sacrificial underlings serving as a stand-in for actual justice. In Turkey, Indonesia, Cambodia, the countries of the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, murderers of thousands have enjoyed the sympathy and protection of the political authorities and populace alike.

This is all the more reason to redouble our efforts, to press forward prosecuting mass murderers from any genocide for as long as it takes, no matter how old they are. Until those tempted to slaughter others know that they will be pursued and punished, they will have little reason not to kill.

So, instead of worrying about this frail old man, shed a tear instead for Demjanjuk's victims — and the victims of future Demjanjuks. Demjanjuk, still living well near Cleveland, has not received a small portion of his deserved punishment — of the punishment he would have gotten had he murdered one non-Jewish German or one American in 1943, 1960, 1980 or 2000.

DANIEL JONAH GOLDHAGEN, author of "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" (Vintage, 1997), is completing a book on genocide in our time.

Message to Red Cross: About Time

Editorial
The New York Times
December 9, 2005

It really is too bad that Syria and a number of other Arab states are still fighting the same tired old battles they've waged since 1948 to keep Israel out of international organizations. Damascus, for example, still seems to think it's worth spending its rapidly dwindling diplomatic capital on trying to bar Israel's entry into the relief agency movement represented by the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols. We're just glad the rest of the world has finally come to its senses and approved a step that will allow Israel to become a member.

It is long overdue. For decades, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has had member organizations from almost every country but Israel, an exclusion that did much to diminish the organization's moral standing. The stated excuse was that the Israeli society, Magen David Adom, used the Red Shield of David as its emblem, but the currently used emblems approved by the Geneva Conventions are only the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.

Clearly, Israel wasn't going to adopt a cross or a crescent as an emblem, as they are often viewed as heavy with religious connotations. But this really should have been an easy problem to fix - it certainly was not beyond all those brains in Geneva to figure out how to add another emblem to the mix. After all, they managed to add the crescent to satisfy the Islamic states, which then blocked any attempt to add the shield, most recently in 2000.

Since then, the American Red Cross has been withholding about $5 million a year in dues to the movement. The Bush administration has also been pressing the case, including at this week's negotiations in Geneva.

The first step was to revise the Geneva Conventions to add a new symbol, a diamond-shaped object called the Red Crystal, to its list of recognized symbols for medical and relief workers. Individual nations could add a cross, a crescent or a six-pointed star within that shape. The Islamic states failed to block the change this time, thankfully. It is now up to the international federation's individual members to amend their own statutes accordingly. There is now no conceivable reason, other than intolerance, for them to fail to do that.

Iraqi Oil

The guided missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) patrols near the Iraqi Al Basra Oil Terminal (ABOT) in the Northern Arabian Gulf, in this Sept. 28, 2004 file photo. Despite President Bush's optimism on Iraq's reconstruction, Iraq appears set to pump less crude in 2005 than last year's disappointing showing and far less than under Saddam Hussein. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy,Samuel W. Shavers)

Boeing's look at the future of war

Unmanned combat aircraft as the next wave
By JAMES WALLACE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Wednesday, December 7, 2005


When the Boeing Co. lost the Joint Strike Fighter competition to Lockheed Martin in 2001, its days as a fighter-jet maker may have appeared over.

The Boeing F-15 and F-18 fighter programs were nearing the end, and the company was merely a supplier to Lockheed Martin's F/A-22 program.

But here comes Boeing's X-45C for the Air Force.

Just as the 787 is critical to Boeing's commercial jetliner future, the X-45C represents the company's future in fighters.

It will be nearly as big as an F-16, well-armed and able to fly at close to the speed of sound.

Only the X-45C won't have an onboard pilot. It will be unmanned.

The pilot, or "coach," could be thousands of miles away from the battlefield, giving commands to the stealth combat vehicle from a computer console in a portable trailer. But this pilot will not be moving a control stick to fly the vehicle. The X-45C will fly itself and make critical decisions on its own.

"It's fly-by-mouse," quipped David Koopersmith, Boeing's X-45 program manager.

He was in Seattle Tuesday with a full-scale mock-up of the X-45C to show the 300 or so Boeing engineers who are developing the complex software for the fighter and the ground-based computers that will direct it. The work is being done at Boeing's Developmental Center complex across from Boeing Field. The upper fuselage composite skin of the X-45 also is produced here.

The first of two X-45Cs are in development in St. Louis, where the program has its headquarters. A third eventually will be built.

"It is a hunter," said Boeing's Steve Teske, who will work with the pilots who are taught to operate the X-45C.

The first flight is scheduled for 2007. A four-year test-flight and demonstration program is scheduled to end in 2012.

Northrop Grumman is developing its own unmanned fighter, the X-47B, that can take off from and land on an aircraft carrier. The Pentagon eventually could pick either the X-45C or X-47B, or perhaps both, for production.

The X-45C represents a quantum leap in technology and capability over all other unmanned aircraft, such as the Predator, being used today for CIA and U.S. military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The slow-moving Predator can carry two Hellfire missiles. A missile from a Predator is believed to have killed a top alQaida leader in Pakistan last week.

But the Predator is essentially a surveillance drone.

The X-45C will be a true combat vehicle, designed to attack in swarms on the opening day of a war, taking out enemy missile batteries and anti-aircraft sensors -- the kind of high-risk missions that can cost fighter pilots their lives. The operators of Predators in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, are actually flying the drones from an Air Force base in the United States.

Koopersmith sees a potential market for "hundreds" of such unmanned combat vehicles for the U.S. military.

Boeing first built two smaller X-45As that recently competed more than 60 test flights at Edwards Air Force Base in California and laid the groundwork for development of the full-size fighter, the X-45C.

In their final test in August, the two X-45As used their onboard decision-making software to determine the best routes through a "battlefield" measuring about 30 by 60 miles. They then performed simulated attacks on ground-based radars and missile launchers.

The X-45 came out of Boeing's Phantom Works, under a $1.2 billion contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the agency that spurred development of the F-117 stealth fighter.

Management of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems project, or J-UCAS, recently changed hands from DARPA to a joint Air Force and Navy program office with headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

The program's "unique combat versatility will change our perspective of airpower projection in much the same way that stealth technology did when it was introduced 30 years ago," Tony Tather, director of DARPA, said in a statement last month.

The X-45A weighed only 8,000 pounds empty. The empty weight of the X-45C will be 18,000 pounds. It has a wingspan of 49 feet (about the same as the F-117) and is 36 feet long.

It will be powered by an F404-GE-102D engine, the same kind used on Boeing's two-engine F-18.

The X-45C will be able to fly at 40,000 feet and at Mach .85. It will carry two 2,000-pound precision-guided bombs or up to eight small-diameter bombs. Its operational combat radius will be 1,100 to 1,300 nautical miles.

That's far more range than manned fighters have without being refueled.

The third X-45C to be developed later will be able to be refueled in flight.

Koopersmith would not provide a price for the X-45C. But it will cost less per pound than a manned fighter, he said.

There are other savings, too, noted Bob Kornegay, Boeing's X-45C business development manager.

The X-45C will be capable of fully autonomous flight.

"Go out and do the job and report back later" is how Teske described it.

But that won't happen.

When it comes time for the X-45C to drop its bombs, Teske said, the pilot in charge on the ground will make that call, not the onboard computers.

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

By DOUGLAS JEHL
The New York Times
December 9, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.

A government official said that some intelligence provided by Mr. Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Mr. Libi's claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.

At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody.

Mr. Libi was indeed initially held by the United States military in Afghanistan, and was debriefed there by C.I.A. officers, according to the new account provided by the current and former government officials. But despite his high rank, he was transferred to Egypt for further interrogation in January 2002 because the White House had not yet provided detailed authorization for the C.I.A. to hold him.

While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.

Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.

The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week.

Mr. Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Mr. Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Mr. Libi's case remain classified.

During his time in Egyptian custody, Mr. Libi was among a group of what American officials have described as about 150 prisoners sent by the United States from one foreign country to another since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for the purposes of interrogation. American officials including Ms. Rice have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation. They have said that the United States carries out the renditions only after obtaining explicit assurances from the receiving countries that the prisoners will not be tortured.

Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had no specific knowledge of Mr. Libi's case. Mr. Fahmy acknowledged that some prisoners had been sent to Egypt by mutual agreement between the United States and Egypt. "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture," Mr. Fahmy said. "We're not in the business of torturing anyone."

In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Mr. Libi as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

The question of why the administration relied so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi has long been a subject of contention. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last month unclassified passages from the February 2002 document, which said it was probable that Mr. Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."

The document showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified Mr. Libi as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons.

Mr. Levin has since asked the agency to declassify four other intelligence reports, three of them from February 2002, to see if they also expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Levin said he could not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Libi's detention because the matter was classified.