Documents reveal Labor-Likud plans for West Bank

By Akiva Eldar
Haaretz
08/MAR/2006

Highly confidential documents from the Ministry of Justice dating from the early 1990s, copies of which were sent to the ministers of defense, justice and housing as well as the attorney general, confirm the existence of a vast network of ties between Likud and Labor governments, and land dealers and settlers' associations, for the purpose of acquiring land in the West Bank.

The documents were presented to the High Court of Justice during the hearings for petitions submitted by residents of Bilin and the Peace Now organization against the construction of hundreds of apartments on village lands and against the route of the fence that bisects them.

In a highly confidential letter sent in November 1990 to the coordinator of activities in the territories, Plia Albeck, who was in charge of the civil department of the State Attorney's office, wrote that "because this area was apparently purchased by the Hakeren company, and it therefore hold the rights to this area and because it asked from the supervisor of government property to manage it, then this area is apparently government property," even though the senior representative of the Ministry of Justice is not convinced that Hakeren indeed purchased this land legally, and as proof thereof she inserts the word "apparently" twice, she permits the area to be declared "government property."

Albeck asks to maintain complete confidentiality claiming that the revelation of the deals may endanger the sellers' lives. It should be noted that one of the parties to this deal was land dealer Shmuel Einav, who's name was linked during Aryeh Deri's trial to a big land deal in the Har Shmuel neighborhood adjacent to Jerusalem, where Palestinian lands were obtained with the aid of falsified documents.

US Army in Jeopardy in Iraq

by Gary Hart
Boston Globe
Saturday, March 11, 2006

In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia and, after success at the battle of Borodino, marched on and occupied Moscow. Napoleon and his generals took over the palaces of the court princes and great houses of the mighty boyars.

Sadly for Napoleon, the Russians had different plans for their nation. Within days after abandoning their city to the French army, they torched their own palaces, homes, enterprises, and cathedrals. They burned Moscow down around Napoleon. Denied his last great triumph, the disappointed emperor abandoned Moscow and started home. Along the way, he lost the world's most powerful army.

Recently one of Islamic Shi'ites' most revered sites, the golden mosque in Baghdad, was destroyed by sectarian enemies. By this act and the reprisals that followed, Iraq moved a substantial step closer to civil war. Though a remote, but real, possibility, an Iraqi civil war could cost the United States its army.

Hopefully, leaders are planning for this possibility. If sectarian violence escalates further, US troops must be withdrawn from patrol and confined to their barracks and garrisons. Mass transport must be mustered for rapid withdrawal of those troops from volatile cities in the explosive central region of Iraq. Intensive diplomatic efforts must be focused on preventing an Iraqi civil war from spreading to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria. Such a potential could make the greater Middle East a tinder box for years, if not decades, to come.

But the first concern must be the safety of US forces. It is strange to contemplate the possibility that the greatest army in world history could be slaughtered in a Middle East conflagration. But prudent commanders have no choice but to plan for this danger.

In greatest danger are the units in the Sunni central region cities. They are in real jeopardy if tens of thousands of angry Sunni and Shi'ite citizens, supported by their sectarian militias, surround and then overrun those units before they can be withdrawn.

The United States lost one war not too long ago in Vietnam. Conditions are taking shape that could result in the same outcome in Iraq. Not to plan now for this apocalyptic possibility would be tantamount to criminal neglect on the part of our political and military leadership.

A major part of the dilemma we have created is the result of failure to know the history and complex culture of Iraq. As we refused to learn from the French experience in Indochina, we also failed to learn from the British experience in Iraq. We are on the cusp of religion and antique hatred overtaking whatever latent instincts toward democracy we may have relied on or tried to instill. We face the reemergence of 11th-century Assassins and 17th-century ethnic fundamentalism arising to replace a century of ideology -- imperialism, fascism, and communism.

The character of warfare and violence is being transformed. The warfare of the future is not World War II, or even Korea or Vietnam. It is Mogadishu and Fallujah -- low-intensity conflict among tribes, clans, and gangs. We are not prepared for that kind of warfare.

The United States is in danger of finding combat forces trapped in a civil war that they cannot prevent, control, or win.

America's army is in danger, and that danger is possibly just around the corner.

Gary Hart, a former US senator, lives in Kittredge, Colo.

Iraq Seen Likely To Still Seek WMDs

By Timothy M. Phelps, Washington Bureau Chief
Long Island Newsday
March 10, 2006

WASHINGTON - A former top CIA official said yesterday that despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is likely to be looking for weapons of mass destruction within the next five to 10 years.

Paul Pillar, who until last year was in charge of intelligence assessments for the Middle East, said the CIA warned the Bush administration before the Iraq invasion in 2003 that a change of regimes would not necessarily solve any WMD problem.

In a speech at the Middle East Institute here, Pillar said Iraqis live in "a dangerous neighborhood," with rival countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction. So the CIA had warned that a future Iraqi government would be likely to want the very weapons Hussein was (wrongly) suspected of hiding, including nuclear weapons, he said.

"Iraq may turn once again to ... a WMD program," Pillar, who is retired from the CIA, said yesterday. "And wouldn't that be ironic?"

Pillar recently published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that for the first time fully laid out the CIA's side of the battle with the Bush administration over Iraq intelligence.

Pillar charges that the administration never sought strategic assessments from the CIA about Iraq. He said in his article that the Bush administration made its decision to go to war and then "cherry-picked" items from intelligence assessments in an effort to justify the decision to the public.

The biggest discrepancy between the CIA's intelligence and the administration's line on Iraq was the claim by Bush that there was a relationship between Hussein and al-Qaida, Pillar wrote. There was no intelligence supporting that theory, Pillar said, but the administration wanted to capitalize on "the country's militant post-9/11 mood," he wrote.

Pillar wrote that the intelligence community, on its own initiative, warned the administration before the war that there was a significant chance of violent conflict in Iraq and that the war would probably boost radical Islam throughout the Middle East.

In his speech, Pillar said Iraq is serving the same purpose that Afghanistan once did, as an inspiration and a base for radical Islam.

Abu Ghraib Prison To Be Warehouse

Washington Times
March 11, 2006

BAGHDAD -- Abu Ghraib prison, a symbol of terror for Iraqis under Saddam Hussein that later became notorious for the abuse of prisoners by U.S. guards, is to be turned into a warehouse, Iraq's justice minister said yesterday.

The U.S. military said Thursday it planned to end its operations at the prison in three months. Some U.S. officials suggested Iraqi authorities might continue to use it as a jail. But Justice Minister Abd al-Hussein Shandel told Reuters news agency it will just be used as "a storage facility for the Justice Ministry."

Total Toll Of Iraqi Dead Unknown

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since the U.S. invasion in 2003, but an exact figure on the deaths is elusive.
By Jim Krane
Associated Press
March 11, 2006

BAGHDAD - Three years into the Iraq war, one grim measure of its impact on Iraqis can be seen at Baghdad's morgue: There, the staff has photographed and cataloged more than 24,000 bodies from the Baghdad area alone since 2003, almost all killed in violence.

Despite such snapshots, the overall number of Iraqi civilians and soldiers killed since the U.S.-led invasion in spring 2003 remains murky. Bloodshed has worsened each year, pushing the Iraqi death toll into the tens of thousands. But no one knows the exact toll.

President Bush has said he thinks violence claimed at least 30,000 Iraqi dead as of December, while some researchers have cited numbers of 50,000, 75,000 or beyond.

The Pentagon has carefully counted the number of American military dead -- now more than 2,300 -- but declines to release its tally of Iraqi civilian or insurgent deaths.

The health ministry estimates 1,093 civilians died in the first two months of this year, nearly a quarter of the deaths government ministries reported in all of 2005.

The Iraqi government, however, has swung wildly in its casualty estimates, leading many to view its figures with skepticism.

At the Baghdad morgue, more than 10,000 corpses were delivered in 2005, up from more than 8,000 in 2004 and about 6,000 in 2003, said the morgue's director, Dr. Faik Baker. All were corpses from either suspicious deaths or violent or war-related deaths.

Conflicting numbers

By contrast, the morgue recorded fewer than 3,000 violent or suspicious deaths in 2002, before the war, Baker said. The tally at the Baghdad morgue alone -- one of several mortuaries in Iraq -- exceeds figures from Iraqi government ministries that say 7,429 Iraqis were killed across all of Iraq in 2005.

''The violence keeps getting worse,'' the morgue director said Feb. 28 by phone from Jordan, where he said he had fled recently for his own safety after he said he was under pressure to not report deaths. Freezers built to hold six bodies are sometimes crammed with 20 unclaimed corpses. ''You can imagine what a mess it is,'' he said.

Baghdad, which is home to a fifth of Iraq's 25 million inhabitants, has been a main center of the violence, with insurgent attacks and sectarian tensions both high here.

Regardless of the lack of a precise figure on deaths, virtually all studies agree that among Iraqi government security forces, the police are at greater risk than the army. But it is Iraqi civilians who bear the brunt of the deaths.

According to the government's own count, twice as many Iraqi civilians -- 4,024 -- died last year in insurgency-related violence than police and soldiers.

Urban battlefield

Part of the reason for the high civilian death toll is that insurgents prefer to strike in the cities, especially Baghdad.

There is no way to verify the Iraqi government death figures independently, as is the case with most statistics in Iraq. Journalists and academics rely on figures provided by police, hospitals, the U.S. military and the Interior Ministry.

Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution who has followed the war's casualties, estimates 45,000 to 75,000 Iraqis have been killed, including insurgents and Iraqi soldiers.

O'Hanlon, who teaches a Columbia University course on estimating war casualties, called Bush's figure of 30,000 ``on the lower end of the plausible range.''

Iraq Body Count, a British antiwar group, put its tally of war dead at between 28,864 and 32,506 as of Feb. 26, but that doesn't include Iraqi soldiers or insurgents. It compiles its estimate of civilian deaths from news stories, corroborating each death through at least two reports.

Casios Cited As Evidence At Guantanamo

Use of watches in plots documented
By Ben Fox,
Associated Press
March 10, 2006

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Are they bomb timers or just timepieces? Casio watches, some worth less than $30, have become part of the often ambiguous web of evidence against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S. military cites the digital watches worn by prisoners when they were captured as possible evidence of terrorist ties. Casios have been used in bombs, including one used by the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

Wearing a Casio is cited among unclassified evidence against at least eight of the prisoners whose transcripts were released by the Pentagon after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The prisoners, who stand accused of links to Al Qaeda or to the Taliban in Afghanistan, say they've been shocked that wearing a cheap watch sold worldwide could be used against them.

"Millions and millions of people have these types of Casio watches," Mazin Salih Musaid, a Saudi, told his military tribunal.

Even guards at Guantanamo wear Casios, noted Usama Hassan Ahmend Abu Kabir, a Jordanian accused of belonging to a group linked to Al Qaeda.

"I like my watch because it is durable," the 34-year-old told a tribunal. "It had a calculator and was waterproof, and before prayers we have to wash up all the way to my elbows."

U.S. tribunals note watches

Like owning an automatic weapon or wearing olive drab clothing -- both common in Afghanistan -- the Casios have become further pieces of evidence that the U.S. tribunals are weighing in these so-called enemy combatant hearings.

The sessions are held partly to determine whether those held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba pose a threat to the United States.

"The problem for military intelligence in a war like this is determining who is the enemy," said Mark Ensalaco, an international terrorism expert at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

But for prisoners, citing ownership of a Casio watch as evidence amounts to profiling, sweeping up the innocent.

"This watch is not from Al Qaeda; it's not used for a bomb," protested Abdul Matin, a prisoner from Afghanistan. "This is just a regular watch. All older, younger men and women use this watch everywhere."

However, authorities have documented the use of the watches in terrorist acts.

In the 1996 trial of Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the first attack on the World Trade Center, a prosecutor described how a Casio attached to a timing device using 9-volt batteries became the "calling card" of Yousef's Philippines-based terror cell.

Yousef tested the method with a bomb under a seat on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing one passenger.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian convicted in 2001 of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, bought two Casio watches at a Canadian electronics store to use as timers, according to court records.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security advised airport screeners and law enforcement in January 2005 to be aware that some altimeter-equipped Casios could be used in explosives, as could another unspecified brand of watch that doubled as a butane lighter.

Casios have popular features

The advisory singled out Casio because it's inexpensive, widely used and easy to find, Homeland Security spokeswoman Michelle Petrovich said.

But many household items with timing functions can be modified to set off bombs, said David Williams, a retired FBI agent who worked on the first World Trade Center bombing investigation.

Yousef's terror cell used Casios that were easy to buy and reconfigure into bomb parts, Williams said. The cell also prized the watches for their accuracy and long-lasting batteries, he said.

"You can have a time delay for up to three years that's accurate to the second, as long as the battery lasts in the watch," said Williams, who now runs a counterterrorism consulting business.

Even if Casios were pulled off the market worldwide, terrorists could easily switch to other common products to make timers for bombs, he said. "You give me a half-hour in a supermarket, and I can blow up your garage."

Al-Qa'eda Steps Up Propaganda War With Bloodthirsty DVDs

By Isambard Wilkinson and Imtiaz Ali
London Daily Telegraph
March 11, 2006

Al-Qa'eda is flooding the unruly border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan with propaganda DVDs, in a media campaign designed to win recruits and sympathy.

The films, sold for 40p each in local markets and distributed throughout Pakistan and across the Afghan frontier, depict Taliban forces attacking American, Pakistani and Afghan soldiers. Punishment killings and damage inflicted by American and Pakistani forces on both Islamic fighters and local civilians are also portrayed.

To the alarm of the Pakistani authorities, the blood-soaked movies sell well in the hard-bitten North West Frontier Province, despite a police crackdown on their production and sale.

"We have moved against any form of production that is against Pakistan or our allies," said a spokesman for the government of the semi-autonomous, and largely lawless, Tribal Areas.

"Not only have we confiscated illegal films, but we have countered them with leaflets and messages broadcast through our three radio stations in the Tribal Areas".

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the region has become a refuge for local and foreign radical militants, believed to include Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Last week the Pakistani army temporarily lost control of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, to forces loyal to the Taliban and al-Qa'eda.

It was the heaviest fighting witnessed since an operation in 2003 when the army entered the Tribal Areas at the behest of America. During the operation to re-establish control over Miran Shah, the army claimed it killed more than 100 militants, while civilian casualties are unknown.

Despite the presence of 70,000 of its troops, the army has only managed to exert minimal control over the porous border region. The Miran Shah incident underlined fears that weak central government presence has enabled the free movement of militants, money, weapons and now propaganda in the region.

Qari Amanullah, a DVD shopkeeper in the town, said: "These jihadi DVDs have made our businesses flourish. There is a great demand for such films because they are popular with all age groups.

"Young boys used to watch movies, particularly Indian blockbusters, but now these DVDs have replaced movies and even young boys are going to be addicts.

"The DVD showing the recent killing of bandits by the Taliban and then hanging their dead bodies from electricity pylons is the current top of the chart."

He said that a DVD about Taliban fighters, The Young Eagles of High Mountains, is another hit with about 20,000 copies already sold.

The films, mostly scripted in Urdu, Pashto and Arabic, are produced by two "production companies", Ummat Studios and Jundullah CD Centre. The films do not mention their contact details, but the Shawal and Mir Ali areas of Northern Waziristan - the latest battlefield for Pakistani troops - are believed to be the centre of production.

Naeem Noor Khan, an al-Qa'eda computer expert, is said to have visited South Waziristan before his arrest in Lahore last July.

From Baghdad

An Iraqi woman sits on the ground begging for money before the start of Friday prayers outside the Shi'ite's Kazemiyah shrine in Baghdad March 10, 2006. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen



Huge flames come out of a U.S. army Abrams battle tank east of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 10, 2006, after a large explosion set fire to it. The U.S. military had no immediate information on the incident and on casualties. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Israelis Want Aipac-Backed Bill Softened

By Ori Nir
The Forward
March 10, 2006

WASHINGTON — Israeli interests in the West Bank and Gaza could be hurt by a bill being pressed by the pro-Israel lobby that would restrict American assistance to the Palestinians, several Israeli officials and representatives of international aid organizations told the Forward.

In an attempt to isolate any Palestinian government led by the terrorist organization Hamas, pro-Israel activists are backing a bill — the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 — that bans all non-humanitarian American assistance to the Palestinian Authority and prohibits official American contacts with the P.A. unless Hamas recognizes Israel and renounces terrorism. Thousands of lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee flooded Capitol Hill Tuesday, holding almost 500 meetings with legislators and their staff, in which they urged members of Congress to endorse the bill.

But Israeli officials told the Forward that it could be a serious mistake to pass the bill before a Palestinian government has been formed and before the March 28 Israeli elections. They argued that at this point the bill could end up limiting the diplomatic flexibility of the new Israeli government in dealings with the new P.A. regime. In addition, Israeli officials said, the bill may place the onus of providing for the wellbeing of the Palestinian population on Israel, the occupying power in the territories. The bill could also result in the cancellation of several internationally funded aid programs in which Israel has a vital interest, in fields such as public health, water and sewage.

"Israel has not decided what to do yet. An elected government will have to do that," said an Israel official who attended Aipac's annual policy conference this week, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's really too early to make such decisions," the official said. "Israel, the U.S., the international community all need to wait and see what Hamas does and how things play out, and then decide if to engage with the Palestinian government and on what level."

Rather than openly oppose the efforts of their allies in Washington, however, Israeli officials are operating under the assumption that the Bush administration, along with some lawmakers, will work to scale back some of the proposed restrictions.

In the first sign of such softening, the Senate version of the bill, introduced Tuesday by Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell and Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden, makes a distinction between Hamas and the P.A., allowing interaction with non-Hamas members of the Palestinian government. It also makes some of the sanctions on the P.A. discretionary rather than mandatory.

Gidi Greenstein, director of the Israeli think tank Reut and a former adviser to Labor prime minister Ehud Barak, was more outspoken. "We are at a moment of tremendous change," Greenstein told a crowd at the Aipac conference, in response to a question on whether the legislation serves Israel's interests. "Things change from one minute to another, which is why every side needs to maintain maximum flexibility. Of all the tools that a government has, legislation is the most rigid, and there needs to be a way for a government to respond to a constantly changing reality."

The bill, introduced in the House of Representatives last month and in the Senate on Tuesday, sets tougher benchmarks for engaging with a Hamas-led Palestinian government than the ones set by Israel's transitional government.

It calls for the president to certify that a set of conditions are met before federal money can be appropriated to the P.A. Those include institutional changes such as the promotion of peaceful coexistence in Palestinian media and textbooks. Another condition for engaging with a Hamas-led government is that the Palestinian government recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, a demand never posed by Israel or the international community to the Palestine Liberation Organization, Egypt or Jordan when they signed peace agreements with Israel.

The bill is not the only area where Aipac seems to be taking a harder line than Israel on future relations with the Palestinians. At Aipac's conference this week, the organization's director for legislative strategy and policy, Ester Kurz, participated in a panel discussion on the question of whether to dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the U.N. body that provides services to Palestinian refugees.

Panel participants, including Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, accused Unrwa of being bloated, corrupt, anachronistic and acquiescing to anti-Israeli violence. Despite such criticisms, Israel opposes dismantling the U.N. agency — a point acknowledged by Kurz during the session. She said that Israel does not want to see the U.N. agency dissolved out of fear that Jerusalem would end up inheriting the responsibility for the welfare of about 1.5 million refugees in the West Bank and Gaza.

Aipac leaders say that no daylight exists between the organization and Israel on the strategy toward the P.A. Asked by the Forward if Aipac was lobbying for an agenda that does not reflect Israel's interests, a former president and board member, Melvin Dow, said: "I don't think there is any incompatibility between the interests of the United States and the interests of Israel.... I think we all share common interests."

Israeli officials said that Israel has coordinated its positions on Hamas and the P.A. with Aipac, but could not say whether Israel had consulted regarding specific provisions of the bill. The measure, according to several congressional staffers who followed its development, was drafted with the active involvement of Aipac's staff. Israeli officials would not say whether they suggested to Aipac that the bill be softened.

Regardless of the bill, most projects funded by the American government in the West Bank and Gaza have already been frozen. According to executives with non-governmental organizations that are contracted by the American government to carry out projects in the West Bank and Gaza, all initiatives that require interaction with representatives of the Palestinian government have been put on hold. The executives said that the United States Agency for International Development is conducting a thorough reassessment of its programs in the territories and wants all potentially problematic ones frozen during the review. Also, in anticipation of the formation of a Hamas-led Palestinian government, the American agency does not want to put NGO workers in a legally problematic position of dealing with members of a terrorist organization and does not want to be seen as assisting or cooperating with one.

Conversations with several officials with American NGOs indicate that the distinction made by the proposed Aipac-backed legislation between humanitarian aid that is permitted and assistance for economic development or infrastructure that is forbidden is not always clear. "NGOs are very much in the dark as to what will and what will not be funded," said Theodore Kattouf, president of America Mideast Educational and Training Services, an organization that is mainly involved in education and training.

America's aid money to the territories is funneled through the USAid, a federal body responsible for the disbursement of most non-military foreign aid worldwide. The agency's budget for the West Bank and Gaza for 2006 is $150 million. More than half of that amount is slated for economic growth projects, which the administration has signaled will be suspended once a Hamas government takes office.

The administration's position and the proposed congressional legislation both allow for humanitarian aid to continue, as long as the assistance does not go through a Hamas-led government. The problem is, according to officials familiar with the delivery of such aid, that almost any aid project requires dealing with Palestinian government officials, on one level or another, and almost any project relies on Palestinian government institutions to deliver the aid. As it turns out, a good deal of the billions in foreign-aid dollars sent to the territories from the international community, including the United States, have been invested in recent years in enhancing these P.A. institutions.

For the most part, USAid contracts charitable and other non-governmental organizations, which typically interact with Palestinian organizations or sub-contractors, and with the Palestinian government. USAid has frozen all projects that involve contact with the P.A., which account for about 80% of all the projects in the territories funded by the agency, according to officials with the NGOs in question.

One example, according to Peter Gubser, president of the American Near East Refugee Aid, is a USAid-funded program to rebuild, train and improve well-baby care clinics in the territories. "We were told [by USAid] to drop the government clinics and move to NGO and Unrwa clinics," Gubser said.

Most clinics in rural Palestinian communities are P.A.-run, which means that the majority of Palestinian newborns and their mothers in more than 500 villages in the West Bank won't have easy access to such clinics.

Another example is a new USAid-funded project to prevent avian flu, which involves cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli scientists. "We have been working on doing some prevention and detection. That is also now on hold," said Liz Sime, West Bank and Gaza director at Care, a charitable organization fighting poverty worldwide that has signed a two-year contract with USAid to deliver services in the territories costing $10 million.

The anti-flu project cannot proceed because it necessitates contacts with Palestinian health ministry officials, Sime said in a phone interview from her office in East Jerusalem. "You can't do proper surveillance without working through an official national body," Sime said, adding that Israeli public health officials "have communicated their concern" to Care over the freezing of this project.

Representatives of NGOs that contract with USAid have recently met at least twice with senior State Department officials to discuss ways to continue their projects, the Forward has learned. In both meetings, NGO representatives told administration officials that almost any type of assistance project to the Palestinian population — whether humanitarian or not — involves interacting on some level with Palestinian government officials.

Sources familiar with the meetings said that while the administration promised that the American government would not go after NGO staffers who deal with P.A. officials affiliated with Hamas in the course of delivering humanitarian aid, administration officials pointed out that "third parties" might try to take legal action against them.

NGO representatives will ask the administration, the Forward has learned, to issue a legal opinion making a distinction between P.A. politicians affiliated with Hamas and P.A. workers, or "civil servants," with whom working-level contacts could be permissible. But legal advisers have warned NGO executives that this approach could not be legally sustained if the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 is passed.

Aipac spokesmen say that passing the legislation sooner rather than later is important in order to send a strong message to Hamas and to the international community. They also argue that it is important to set clear markers for America's policy before the resolve in Washington to isolate Hamas erodes. Larry Garber, the former USAid mission director in the West Bank and Gaza and current executive director of the New Israel Fund, said that Aipac's push for the legislation could in practice preempt not only the administration but the Israeli government as well.

"It's not smart to push in an unequivocal way yet," he said. "It really would be useful to ask Aipac: 'Do you really want people to be going up to the Hill [urging members of Congress] to support that legislation when the administration has not yet come up with a policy and the Israelis have not come up with a policy yet?'"

Daniel Pipes Finds Comfort in Muslims Killing Muslims

Neocon Advocates Civil War in Iraq as "Strategic" Policy
By JOHN WALSH
CounterPunch
March 9, 2006

One of the abiding myths about the War on Iraq is that the neocons were too stupid to realize that they would confront an unrelenting, indigenous resistance to their occupation of Iraq. Unwittingly, the story line goes, they led the U.S. into a conflict which has now produced a civil war. But this simply does not fit the facts. The neocons clearly anticipated such an outcome before they launched their war as Stephen Zunes documents in Antiwar.com:

"Top analysts in the CIA and State Department, as well as large numbers of Middle East experts, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could result in a violent ethnic and sectarian conflict. Even some of the war's intellectual architects acknowledged as much: In a 1997 paper, prior to becoming major figures in the Bush foreign policy team, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith predicted that a post-Saddam Iraq would likely be "ripped apart" by sectarianism and other cleavages but called on the United States to "expedite" such a collapse anyway."

Yet the line persists that the neocons had no idea what they were getting into. This cannot be correct as they think a lot about what they do and they plan carefully. Not only is that charge absurd on the face of it, but it is arrogant on the part of those who level it. And it is the worst political mistake possible ­ underestimating your adversary.

Now the neocons are beginning to advocate for civil war in Iraq quite openly. The clearest statement of this strategy as yet comes from pre-eminent neocon and ardent Zionist Daniel Pipes. In a recent piece in the Jerusalem Post, Pipes spills the beans. He writes:

"The bombing on February 22 of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Iraq, was a tragedy, but it was not an American or a coalition tragedy. Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden. When Sunni terrorists target Shi'ites and vice versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one."

As ever Pipes's anti-Arab racism is simply too rabid to be hidden. If Muslims are busy killing other Muslims, then "non-Muslims" are less likely to be hurt!! What does that say about Muslim lives? And of course both Sunnis and Shia must be labeled "terrorists." Pipes is doing nothing more endorsing than the oldest of colonial strategies: Divide et impera.

Pipes envisions other "benefits" to the civil war "strategy," such as inhibiting the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Pipes again:
"Civil war will "terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push toward elections. This would have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago."

And finally Pipes declares that a civil war "would likely invite Syrian and Iranian participation hastening the possibility of confrontation with these two states, with which tensions are already high." It is no secret that the neocons have been aching for the U.S. to strike at Iran and Syria, so here too the civil war strategy of the neocons makes good sense to them. Of course the added death and destruction is not their problem since the victims will be Muslims and some unwitting American soldiers.

There seems to be only one fly in this neocon ointment. That is, will it be possible to control the flow of oil in the midst of turmoil in Iraq. Here I suspect the neocons who put Israel first might have their differences with the oil barons, presently their allies. But the neocons have certainly given a lot of thought to that, and it probably explains why the location of the large and permanent U.S. bases in Iraq is not known. It would seem, however, that there are great uncertainties in this and it may cause some trouble among the neocons and their allies over the longer term.

The only real question is whether the civil war emerged spontaneously as Wurmser, Perle and Feith predicted or whether the Iraqis had to be goaded into it by the U.S. Given all the intrigues and mysteries in Iraq, including the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra and the shadowy death squads and torture chambers which the U.S. claims to know nothing about, the latter seems more likely as of now. It certainly fits the civil war strategy, and it is quite reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq war in which the U.S. and Israel fanned the flames that consumed over 1 million Muslim lives

The fact is that the neocons who control U.S. strategy have no interest in preventing a civil war but only in inciting one. Sectarian tensions were virtually unknown in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. And in fact the Iraqi Shia fought loyally as Iraqis against Iranian Shia in the disastrous Iran-Iraq war. So to avoid an Iraqi civil war, the most important step is to get all the U.S. troops home and thus to terminate U.S. provocations. For it is now crystal clear that the neocon strategy is one of civil war to divide and destroy Iraq; and such a strategy amounts to a crime against humanity.

Bush Admin. Postpones Free Trade Talks With UAE

The Associated Press
March 10, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - Free trade talks between the United States and the United Arab Emirates were postponed Friday, a day after a Dubai company succumbed to pressure and backed out of a deal to take over operations at six major American ports.

The talks, which were supposed to begin Monday, were postponed because both sides need more time to prepare, according to an announcement from the office of U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman.

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"In order to get an agreement that both sides can successfully implement, we need additional time to prepare for the next round of negotiations," USTR spokeswoman Neena Moorjani said in a statement.

She refused to say whether the postponement was related to the controversy over port security that engulfed the Bush administration after approval was given for a state-owned UAE company to run some port operations in the United States.

The company, DP World, said Thursday that it would transfer operation of the six ports to a U.S. entity. The move came amid a storm of protest in the Republican-controlled Congress.

President Bush said Friday that he was concerned that the protest would send the wrong message to U.S. allies in the Middle East.

"In order to win the war on terror we have got to strengthen our friendships and relationships with moderate Arab countries in the Middle East," he said.

Moorjani said that the postponement of the latest round of talks, which had been scheduled to take place in the United Arab Emirates, was not unusual.

She noted that in just the past few months, free trade talks with Ecuador had been postponed three different times, talks with Panama had been postponed twice and a round of scheduled negotiations with Colombia had also been postponed.

Moorjani said that both the United States and the UAE remain "strongly committed" to making progress in the negotiations on a free trade agreement. Those talks were launched in late 2004.

Clearing the Path For Scion of Egypt

Hosni Mubarak's Son Climbs Party Ranks As Country's Leaders Undercut His Rivals
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 10, 2006

CAIRO -- The son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and a group of close associates have moved into key political positions that put the younger man in line to succeed his aging father at a time when the government has taken steps to block opposition rivals from challenging the heir apparent.

Last month, Gamal Mubarak rose in the hierarchy of the governing National Democratic Party, whose grass-roots organization underpins his father's rule. He was named one of three NDP deputy secretaries general, and 20 of his associates took other high-ranking posts in the party. Mubarak had served as head of the party's policies committee, which helped fashion economic reforms.

Mubarak and his backers displaced some, but not all, of the veteran NDP activists known collectively as the old guard. Political observers saw in the move a gradual shift toward putting the NDP at the service of the president's son.

"Who can deny this is anything but a vehicle for succession?" said Hala Mustafa, an analyst at the government-financed al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

With the opposition on the defensive, there seems to be nothing blocking Mubarak's path to the presidency. "I don't see anyone who can stop him," said Joshua Stracher, a researcher at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who studies the Arab Middle East.

Egypt has been singled out by President Bush as ripe for democratic reform. On a recent visit, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed general criticism of the pace of change in the country, saying there had been "disappointments and setbacks" last year. She said she discussed these with Egyptian officials "as a friend, not as a judge."

A few days later, President Mubarak told an Egyptian newspaper that Rice was "convinced by the way political reform" was proceeding in Egypt and that during her visit, she "didn't bring up difficult issues or ask to change anything."

During a quarter-century in power, Mubarak, now 77, never named a vice president, unlike his two predecessors, Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser. In the event he dies in office or resigns, elections would take place within two months. Theoretically, under rules decreed by Mubarak last year, multiple candidates could run to succeed him. However, the chances are shrinking that anyone but Gamal Mubarak will be able to launch an effective campaign, observers say.

Following weak showings in last fall's parliamentary elections, legal opposition parties, long hobbled by laws restricting assembly and speech, are in disarray. Only the Muslim Brotherhood emerged in a strong position, winning a fifth of the legislative seats despite violent efforts by police to block voters from reaching the polls. As a religious-based party, the Brotherhood was formally banned from participating but fielded candidates as independents.

The government recently undercut the Brotherhood by postponing municipal elections scheduled for this year. The two-year delay denied the well-organized group a chance to make yet another electoral splash. Moreover, for the Brotherhood to eventually sponsor an independent presidential candidate, the nominee would need approval from municipal councils, all of which currently are dominated by officials who support President Mubarak, and elements of parliament.

The election delay was announced only a few weeks after Gamal Mubarak publicly supported the ban on political activity by the Brotherhood.

"The question of how we should deal at the political and legal levels with attempts to circumvent the national consensus that bans religious parties is on the table," he told the state-run Roz al-Yusef newspaper. The Brotherhood, he said, "has no legal existence, so from the legal point of view we must deal with it on that basis."

The government also cracked down on democracy advocates. Last month, three magistrates who had complained of fraud during the parliamentary elections were questioned by police because they publicized alleged wrongdoing at the polls. Under 25-year-old emergency laws, it is a crime to besmirch Egypt's image.

Meanwhile, the second-place finisher in last year's presidential election, Ayman Nour, is serving a five-year prison sentence on charges of forging documents. Human rights groups say the charges are trumped up, and a chief witness in the case told the court that police forced him to testify against Nour.

Nour is also being investigated for other alleged crimes, including assaulting an NDP member and setting up a statue in a public square, which, under Egyptian law, can qualify as an offense against Islam. Last month, police questioned his wife, Gamila Ismael, for allegedly assaulting policemen.

Nour won only about 7 percent of the presidential vote. Since then, his Tomorrow Party has fallen apart. Observers say that by daring to run for president, he offended Hosni Mubarak. "Mubarak has it in for Ayman Nour," said Hisham Kassem, editor of the independent Masri al-Yom newspaper.

Gamal Mubarak's political and personal moves are now observed with intense curiosity by the press and the public. When word spread of his engagement to the daughter of a tourism and construction magnate, "the way the state press celebrated the news, it looks like they are crowning him, like a royal wedding," Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a human rights activist, told reporters.

Mubarak, 42, is surrounded by a group of devoted supporters who have taken to what Egyptian analysts call "managed reform." Some call the group a shilla , Arabic for gang. The group includes businessmen, academics and Egyptians with political pedigrees in their families. Most are in their late thirties or early forties; many were educated and worked in the West. English is their second language.

Among the most prominent are Ahmed Ezz, a steel and ceramics magnate who is newly in charge of overseeing membership in the NDP; Rachid Mohamed Rachid, a former chief executive of Unilever Egypt who is now minister of trade and foreign investment; Mahmoud Mohieedin, a former finance professor who heads the NDP economic policy committee and is also investments minister; Finance Minister Yousef Boutros-Ghali, nephew of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former U.N. secretary general; and Mohammed Kamal, a Cairo University political scientist who heads efforts to re-indoctrinate NDP members in a bid to modernize the party.

Kamal, the unofficial spokesman, said the group defined itself as an outward-looking alternative to political Islam. "We don't want to be associated automatically with the West, but we think it is okay to look outside of Egypt for solutions," he said. "New blood means people with fresh ideas as well as the political experience."

An unknown factor in Gamal Mubarak's apparent drive for power is the attitude of the military and security services. The military has supplied Egypt's last three presidents, including the elder Mubarak, and it is not clear whether it would accept a monarchical-style succession.

"I don't think Gamal can make it," said Kassem, the newspaper editor. "His group calls itself reformist, but it is based on simple nepotism, with Gamal at the center. When the father goes, this group could quickly lose altitude. Everyone will be yelling, 'Mayday, Mayday.' Not a happy situation."

Aznar: Make Israel a NATO member

Spain’s former prime minister said Israel should become a member of NATO as a warning to Iran.

If Israel becomes part of the Western alliance, Iran “will behave differently,” Jose Maria Aznar said at a conference organized Thursday by Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, one of NATO’s two main military commands. Aznar is now a security analyst.

In recent months, the president of Iran has alluded repeatedly to a desire to destroy Israel. NATO officials have said that the issue of Israel joining the alliance is not being considered right now.

Ranking of World's Billionaires by Forbes

The Associated Press
Mar 09 2006

The ranking of the world's richest people as estimated by Forbes magazine. Listings include rank, name, home country or state, age where known, wealth in billions of dollars and source of the money.

1. William Gates III, Washington, 50, $50, Microsoft

2. Warren Buffett, Nebraska, 75, $42, Berkshire Hathaway

3. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexico, 66, $30, telecom

4. Ingvar Kamprad, Sweden, 79, $28, Ikea

5. Lakshmi Mittal, India, 55, $23.5, steel

6. Paul Allen, Washington, 53, $22, Microsoft, investments

7. Bernard Arnault, France, 57, $21.5, LVMH

8. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, Saudi Arabia, 49, $20, investments

9. Kenneth Thomson and family, Canada, 82, $19.6, publishing

10. Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong, 77, $18.8, diversified

**********************************

24 Arab Billionaires (out of 793 World Total):

8. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, Saudi Arabia, 49, $20, investments

29. Nasser Al-Kharafi and family, Kuwait, 62, $12.4, construction

37. Sulaiman Bin Abdul Al Rajhi, Saudi Arabia, 86, $11, banking

77. Mohammed Al Amoudi, Saudi Arabia, 60, $6.9, oil

77. Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair and family, United Arab Emirates, 52, $6.9, banking

84. Saleh Bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi, Saudi Arabia, 94, $6.5, banking

114. Saleh Kamel, Saudi Arabia, 64, $5, diversified

129. Onsi Sawiris, Egypt, 76, $4.8, Orascom Telecom

158. Bahaa Hariri, Switzerland, 39, $4.1, inheritance

158. Saad Hariri, Saudi Arabia, 35, $4.1, construction, investments

174. Abdullah Al Rajhi, Saudi Arabia, $3.8, banking

214. Khalid Bin Mahfouz and family, Saudi Arabia, 59, $3.2, banking

258. Ayman Hariri, Saudi Arabia, 27, $2.7, inheritance

258. Fahd Hariri, Lebanon, 25, $2.7, inheritance

278. Naguib Sawiris, Egypt, $2.6, Orascom Telecom

335. Khalaf Al Habtoor, United Arab Emirates, $2.3, construction

335. Mohammed Al Issa, Saudi Arabia, $2.3, food

365. Mohammed Al Rajhi, Saudi Arabia, $2.1, banking

451. Nazek Hariri, Lebanon, $1.7, inheritance

562. Abdulla Al Futtaim, United Arab Emirates, NA, $1.4

562. Bassam Alghanim, Kuwait, NA, $1.4

562. Kutayba Alghanim, Kuwait, 49, $1.4

562. Hind Hariri, Lebanon, 22, $1.4

746. Majid Al Futtaim, United Arab Emirates, NA $1.0

Army Is Asked To Delay Retirement Of General Who Oversaw Detention Operations

By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast Stars and Stripes
March 10, 2006

ARLINGTON, Va. — Two key senators have asked the Army to postpone the retirement of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who oversaw detention operations at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison, according to a letter obtained by Stars and Stripes.

Miller’s decision not to testify in the courts-martial of two dog handlers accused of detainee abuse raises questions about his testimony before a Senate committee looking into detainee operations, according to a letter signed by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich.

“Major General Miller’s decision to exercise his right to remain silent raises potential issues regarding his candor and the completeness of his testimony before the Committee,” the letter states.

Warner is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin is the ranking Democrat.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce gave a brief comment on the matter Wednesday, saying, “We cannot discuss any specific correspondence between the legislative and executive branch, but we are always quick to reply to any concerns by members of Congress.”

Web news outlet Salon.com first reported Tuesday that Warner and Levin had asked Army Secretary Francis Harvey to postpone Miller’s retirement pending the completion of the courts-martial of two dog handlers accused of detainee abuse.

Miller has said he will invoke his right to remain silent during the courts-martial of the dog handlers. Since the letter was written, Army Capt. Mary McCarthy, the attorney for dog handler Army Sgt. Michael Smith, has rescinded her request for Miller to testify.

In the letter, Warner and Levin ask that Miller not be allowed to retire until the committee has had a chance to review Miller’s testimony and determine if he should testify again.

A spokesman for Levin’s office deferred comment on the letter to Warner because the letter originated from Warner’s office.

A representative from Warner’s office could not be reached for comment Wednesday and Thursday.

In November 2002, Miller took command of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Miller later took charge of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq after allegations emerged of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

Miller’s retirement date has not been set, a Defense Department official said.

Britain's dirty secret

Cover story: The New Statesman
by: Meirion Jones
Monday 13th March 2006

Exculsive - Secret papers show how Britain helped Israel make the A-bomb in the 1960s, supplying tons of vital chemicals including plutonium and uranium. And it looks as though Harold Wilson and his ministers knew nothing about it. By Meirion Jones

Mirage jets swoop from the sky to destroy the Egyptian air force before breakfast; tanks race across the desert to the Suez Canal; Moshe Dayan, the defence minister, poses with eyepatch after the Jerusalem brigade has fought its way into the Old City. These are the heroic images of the Six Day War and they defined Israeli daring: here was a people who, it seemed, risked everything on a throw of the dice. Years later the world discovered that there was an insurance policy.

They had a secret weapon - two, to be precise. In the weeks before Israel took on the Arab world in June 1967 it put together a pair of crude nuclear bombs, just in case things didn't go as planned. Making them required not only Israeli ingenuity but also plenty of help from abroad. It has been known for some time that the French helped build Israel's reactor and reprocessing plant at Dimona, but over the past year our research team at BBC Newsnight has unearthed something no less astonishing and much closer to home - top-secret files which show how Britain helped Israel get the atomic bomb.

We can reveal that while Harold Wilson was prime minister the UK supplied Israel with small quantities of plutonium despite a warning from British intelligence that it might "make a material contribution to an Israeli weapons programme". This, by enabling Israel to study the properties of plutonium before its own supplies came on line, could have taken months off the time it needed to make a weapon. Britain also sold Israel a whole range of other exotic chemicals, including uranium-235, beryllium and lithium-6, which are used in atom bombs and even hydrogen bombs. And in Harold Macmillan's time we supplied the heavy water that allowed Israel to start up its own plutonium production facility at Dimona - heavy water that British intelligence estimated would enable Israel to make "six nuclear weapons a year".

After we exposed the sale of the heavy water on Newsnight last August, the government assured the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that all Britain did was sell some heavy water back to Norway. Using the Freedom of Information Act, we have now obtained previously top-secret papers which show not only that Norway was a mere cover for the Israel deal, but that Britain made hundreds of other secret shipments of nuclear materials to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s.

Tony Benn became technology minister in 1966, while the plutonium deal was going through. Though the nuclear industry was part of his brief, nobody told him we were exporting atomic energy materials to Israel. "I'm not only surprised," he says, "I'm shocked." Neither he nor his predecessor Frank Cousins agreed to the sales, he insists, and though he always suspected civil servants of doing deals behind his back, "it never occurred to me they would authorise something so totally against the policy of the government".

The documentary evidence is backed by eyewitness testimony. Back in August 1960, when covert photographs of a mysterious site at Dimona in Israel arrived at Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) in Whitehall, a brilliant analyst called Peter Kelly saw immediately that they showed a secret nuclear reactor. Today Kelly, physically frail but mentally acute, lives in retirement on the south coast, and as he leafs through the "UK Eyes Only" reports he wrote about Israel for MI5 and MI6, he smiles. "I was quite perceptive," he says. Kelly recognised that the Dimona reactor was a French design, and he very soon discovered where the heavy water needed to operate it had come from. When we explain that the government has told the IAEA that Britain thought it was selling the heavy water to Norway he laughs heartily.

What really happened was this: Britain had bought the heavy water from Norsk Hydro in Norway for its nuclear weapons programme, but found it was surplus to requirements and decided to sell. An arrangement was indeed made with a Norwegian company, Noratom, but crucially the papers show that Noratom was not the true buyer: the firm agreed to broker a deal with Israel in return for a 2 per cent commission. Israel paid the top price - £1m - to avoid having to give guarantees that the material would not be used to make nuclear weapons, but the papers leave no doubt that Britain knew all along that Israel wanted the heavy water "to produce plutonium". Kelly discovered that a charade was played out, with British and Israeli delegations sitting in adjacent rooms while Noratom ferried contracts between them to maintain the fiction that Britain had not done the deal with Israel.

The transaction was signed off for the Foreign Office by Donald Cape, whose job it was to make sure we didn't export materials that would help other countries get the atom bomb. He felt it would be "overzealous" to demand safeguards to prevent Israel using the chemical in weapons production. Cape is 82 now, tall, clear-headed and living in Surrey. He told us the deal was done because "nobody suspected the Israelis hoped to manufacture nuclear weapons", but his own declassified letters from March 1959 suggest otherwise. They show, for example, that the Foreign Office knew Israel had pulled out of a deal to buy uranium from South Africa when Pretoria asked for safeguards to prevent it being used for making nuclear weapons. It also knew the CIA was warning that "the Israelis must be expected to try and establish a nuclear weapons programme". Just weeks later, however, Britain started shipping heavy water direct to Israel: the first shipment left in June 1959 and the second in June 1960.

There was another problem: the Americans. There was no US-Israeli alliance in those days and Washington was determined to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. If Britain told the Americans about the Israeli deal they would stop it. Donald Cape decided on discretion: "I would rather not tell the Americans." When Newsnight told Robert McNamara - John F Ken-nedy's defence secretary - about this he was amazed. "The fact Israel was trying to develop a nuclear bomb should not have come as a surprise, but that Britain should have supplied it with heavy water was indeed a surprise to me," he said.

Kelly's reports for the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) on "secret atomic activities in Israel" show that Britain's defence and espionage establishment had no doubt about what was going on in Israel. Kelly wrote of underground galleries at the Dimona complex; there were such galleries. He correctly described the French role in the project. He identified the importance of the heavy water: with 20 tons of this material, he estimated, Israel could have a reactor capable of producing "significant quantities of plutonium". British intelligence also knew about the reprocessing facility at Dimona and stated: "The separation of plutonium can only mean that Israel intends to produce nuclear weapons." Kelly even discovered that an Israeli observer had been allowed to watch one of the first French nuclear tests in Algeria.

Kelly and his colleagues, however, found their views were being challenged. Chief of the challengers was Michael Israel Michaels (such was his middle name, literally), who was a senior official at the science ministry under Lord Hailsham during the Macmillan government, and went on to serve at the technology ministry under Benn. He was also Britain's representative at the IAEA.

In 1961 Michaels was invited to Israel by the Israeli nuclear chief Ernst David Bergmann, and while there was given VIP treatment. He met not only Bergmann but Shimon Peres, the deputy defence minister, and David Ben-Gurion, the prime minister - the three fathers of the Israeli atomic bomb. Peter Kelly had warned his superiors that Israel might use the Michaels trip as part of a disinformation campaign to show "everything is above board", and this is what appears to have happened. Michaels's report gave Israel the all-clear, and he handed it to Hailsham at an important moment, two days before Ben-Gurion met Macmillan at Downing Street. Kelly later took the report apart line by line and concluded by offering his own prediction that Israel might have a "deliverable warhead" by 1967.

In 1962 the Dimona reactor started operating (thanks to the heavy water Britain had delivered), yet Michaels continued to protest Israel's innocence. The Israelis, meanwhile, were allowing the US to make inspection visits to Dimona once a year to demonstrate that it was not being used for military purposes, but Kelly saw that this, too, was a con. The tours were "heavily stage managed", he wrote in 1963, and "important developments were concealed". He was right: we now know that false walls screened parts of the plant from the inspectors.

Three years later, at the beginning of 1966, something extraordinary happened. The UK Atomic Energy Authority made what it called a "pretty harmless request" to the government: it wanted to export ten milligrams of plutonium to Israel. The Ministry of Defence strongly objected, with Defence Intelligence (Kelly's department) arguing that the sale might have "significant military value". The Foreign Office duly blocked it, ruling: "It is HMG's policy not to do anything which would assist Israel in the production of nuclear weapons."

Michaels was furious. He wrote "to protest strongly" against the decision, saying that small quantities of plutonium were not important and anyhow if we didn't sell it to the Israelis someone else would. Michaels could be a bulldozer - he was short and bald, described as pugnacious and hard-headed by colleagues - and he won his battle. Eventually the Foreign Office caved in and the sale went ahead.

What is most surprising about the position adopted by Michaels is that, as the new documents show, a few years earlier he had taken the direct opposite view of the value of small quantities of plutonium. In 1961 he received a JIC report suggesting that Israel would take at least three years to make enough plutonium and then another six months to work out how to make a bomb. In the margin beside the claim about the six months he wrote: "This surely is an understatement if the Israelis have no plutonium on which to experiment in advance." Then it occurred to him that a friendly power might give Israel a sample of plutonium to speed up the process: "Perhaps the French have supplied a small quantity for experimental purposes as we did to the French in like circumstances some years ago" (see panel, above). What this shows is that Michaels, in the full knowledge of how useful it could be for weapons development, went on to persuade the British government to sell Israel a sample of plutonium.

Today, Tony Benn can hardly believe that Michaels never referred the nuclear sales to him. Going through his diaries, Benn finds dozens of references to meetings with Michaels which show that he didn't trust him even then. "Michaels lied to me. I learned by bitter experience that the nuclear industry lied to me again and again." Kelly believes that Michaels knew all along what Israel was doing, but since he died in 1992 we can't ask him. According to his son Chris, after Michaels retired from the IAEA in 1971 the Israelis found him a job in London for a couple of years.

The atomic files give details of hundreds more nuclear deals with Israel. Many are small orders for compounds of uranium, beryllium and tritium, as well as other materials that can be used for both innocent and military purposes. In November 1959 someone at the Foreign Office allowed through the export of a small quantity of uranium-235 to Israel, apparently without realising that it was a core nuclear explosive material just like plutonium.

Some materials may have been for advanced bombs. In 1966 UKAEA supplied Israel with 1.25 grams of almost pure lithium-6. When combined with deuterium, this material provides the fusion fuel for hydrogen bombs. Britain also supplied two tons of unenriched lithium, from which lithium-6 is extracted - enough for several hydrogen bombs. Deuterium, incidentally, is normally extracted from heavy water, which, of course, Britain had already shipped to Israel.

Throughout this period, Defence Intelligence repeatedly complained that Israel was the only country getting nuclear export licences "on the basis of the meaningless phrase 'scientific and research purposes'". The Department of Trade tried to exempt Israeli deals completely on the grounds that these were government-to-government transactions, but DIS was outraged, saying such deals were meant only for "people like most of our Nato partners who can be trusted . . . Israel however is a very different kettle of fish." In August 1966 the Israeli armed forces ordered advanced radiation dosimeters. The Foreign Office said yes and overruled the strong objections of the British MoD that they were obviously for use by troops. DIS wanted to know why Israel was always given special treatment, adding: "We feel quite strongly about all this."

Tony Benn wonders whether these deals could have gone ahead without the knowledge of the British prime ministers of the time, Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Wilson. The evidence is unclear. The newly declassified papers show that in 1958 a member of the board of UKAEA said he was going to refer the heavy-water deal to the authority's executive, which reported directly to Macmillan, but there is no record that this happened. We know that Lord Hailsham learned about the heavy-water deal after it had gone through and concluded that Israel was "preparing for a weapons programme".

Benn's initial reaction to whether Wilson knew about the atomic exports to Israel was that it was "inconceivable". Then he hesitated, observing, "Harold was sympathetic to Israel," but concluded that no, he probably did not know. Benn believes that the exports were probably pushed through by civil servants working with the nuclear industry.

There was no plausible civilian use for heavy water, plutonium, U235, highly enriched lithium and many of the other materials shipped to Israel. The heavy water allowed Israel to fire up Dimona and produce the plutonium that still sits in Israel's missile warheads today. The small sample of plutonium could have shaved months off the development time of the Israeli atomic bomb in the run-up to the Six Day War.

In a letter this year to Sir Menzies Campbell, the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has quietly conceded Britain knew the heavy water was going to Israel. He has yet to find time to tell the IAEA that, or indeed to tell it about the plutonium or the uranium-235 or the enriched lithium. Howells and his boss, Jack Straw, are too busy telling the IAEA about the dangers of nuclear proliferation in another corner of the Middle East.

Meirion Jones produced Michael Crick's report for Newsnight (BBC2) on the Israeli nuclear sales, which is broadcast on 9 March

How we helped the French

In May 1954 the French were fighting and losing their colonial war against Ho Chi Minh's armies in Vietnam. At home they were slowly establishing a nuclear infrastructure, but the setbacks in Indochina convinced some that they needed the atomic bomb and they needed it quickly.

On 6 May, therefore, as the final battle at Dien Bien Phu neared its climax, France's nuclear bosses sent a request to the chairman of the British Atomic Energy Authority. It was a shopping list of items that would help them build nuclear weapons, including a sample quantity of plutonium "so we can take the steps preparatory to the utilisation of our own plutonium". Britain knew about these things: it had exploded its own bomb less than two years earlier.

Before the letter even arrived the French had lost the battle and the war. Later that year the French prime minister, Pierre Mendes France, made the formal decision to build the atomic bomb. It took another year to negotiate the deal, but in the end Britain agreed to supply nuclear materials, including enriched uranium. Among the most important parts of the agreement was an arrangement for the British to check the blueprints and construction of French plutonium production reactors.

According to one source, this not only helped the French get their military plutonium reactor at Marcoule into operation quickly but it also averted a disaster, for the British found defects which could have caused a catastrophic explosion at the Rhone Valley site. The same source says that when Charles de Gaulle came to power in 1958 he personally thanked Harold Macmillan for the team's work.

There remained France's request for plutonium. In 1955 Britain agreed to export ten grams but "we would not tell the US that we were going to give the French plutonium nor about any similar cases". France exploded its first atomic bomb in 1960.

Academics become casualties of Iraq War

Reuters
March 09, 2006

BAGHDAD - Gunmen have killed some 182 Iraqi university professors and academics since the U.S. invasion in early 2003 and a group representing Iraqi academia said on Thursday the killings constituted a war crime.

Another 85 senior academics have been kidnapped or survived assassination attempts, according to the Association of University Lecturers in Iraq.

The attacks have led to an exodus of Iraqi academics who are vital to educating and rebuilding the war-damaged country.

"What is going on in Iraq against these professors is a real war crime," said Dr Isam Kadhem Al-Rawi, head of the association and Professor in Earth Sciences at the University of Baghdad.

In the chaos of Baghdad, it was not always easy to establish whether the killings were politically or criminally motivated.

Rawi said the campaign against Iraq's leading intellectuals was being orchestrated by parties inside and outside the country and motivated by perceived allegiance of an individual to one particular religious or secular party.

Addressing a news conference at the association's headquarters in western Baghdad, Rawi appealed to all groups to protect the country's academics.

In recent incidents Ali Hussein al-Khafaj, dean of the college of engineering at Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad was kidnapped as he left for work on Tuesday.

Gunmen shot dead prominent Iraqi academic and political analyst Abdul Razak al-Na'as in his car in January as he left his office at Baghdad University's College of Information, in the center of the capital.

In several kidnap cases, families have paid ransoms only to receive the bodies of the victims, Rawi said.

Rawi said if the situation did not improve university lecturers would strike or organize other traditional protests such as sit-ins.

Bigotry toward Muslims and Anti-Arab Racism Grow in US

Dubai and the Quran
Juan Cole
Professor of History at the University of Michigan
Thursday, March 09, 2006

The constant drumbeat of hatred toward Muslims and Arabs on the American Right, on television and radio and in the press, has gradually had its effect. This according to a Washington Post poll. Even in the year after September 11, a majority of Americans respected Islam and Muslims, but powerful forces in US society are determined to change that, and are gradually succeeding. As they win, Bin Laden also wins, since his whole enterprise was to "sharpen the contradictions" and provoke a clash of civilizations.

Some 25% of Americans now say they personally are prejudiced against Muslims. And 33% think that Islam as a religion helps incite violence against non-Muslims, up from 14% after September 11.

The Bush administration policy is to continually insinuate that the Muslim world is the new Soviet Union and full of sinister forces that require the US to go to war against them. But at the same time, America has warm relations with Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, etc., etc. When Saudi Arabia's then crown prince (now king) Abdullah came to the US, Bush brought him to the Crawford ranch, held hands with him and kissed him on each cheek.

This two-faced policy and self-contradictory rhetoric has contributed to growing hatred and bigotry toward Muslims in the US, which is no less worrisome than the hatred Jews faced in Europe in the 1920s. It is dangerous because of what it can become.

The subtext of bigotry and racism is what has blindsided the Bush administration with regard to the port deal for a company based in Dubai. Dubai is like the Fifth Avenue of the Middle East-- the place with the pricey shopping and the tall skyscrapers and the extravagant fashions. Dubai businessmen are no more likely to take over US ports and allow them to come to harm than US businessmen are. They want the deal in order to make money. Bush knows this very well. But since he has spent so much time fulminating against shadowy and sinister forces over there somewhere, he has spooked the American public and members of his own party.

The Big Lie eventually catches up with you.

The hatemongers are well known. Rupert Murdoch's Fox Cable News, Rush Limbaugh's radio program and its many clones, telebimbos like Ann Coulter, Evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham, Congressmen like Tom Tancredo, and a slew of far rightwing Zionists who would vote for Netanyahu (or Kach) if they lived in Israel-- Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, David Horowitz, etc., etc. And finally, there are many Muslims who have an interest in whipping up anti-Islamic feeling. Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress helped maneuver the US into a war against Iraq with lies about a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection and illusory WMD. The dissident Islamic Marxist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is now placing equally false stories about Iran in the Western press and retailing them to Congress and the Pentagon.

The hatemongers think that the American public is sort of like a big stupid dog, and you can fairly easily "sic" it on whoever you like. Just tell them that X people are intrinsically evil and that the US needs to go to war to protect itself from them. Then they turn around and blame those of us who don't want our country reduced to footsoldiers in someone else's greedy crusade for being "unpatriotic."

All human beings are the same. They all have the same emotions. All laugh when happy and weep when sad. There are no broad civilizations that produce radically different behavior in human beings. All are capable of violence. (Christians killed tens of millions in the course of the 20th century, far, far more than did Muslims). Few commit much violence except in war. You can walk around any place in Cairo at 1 am perfectly safely, but cannot do that everywhere safely in many major US cities, including the nation's capital, Washington, DC. Even the idea of Islam as a cultural world or civilization opposed to the Christian West is a false construct. Eastern Mediterranean honor cultures (Greece, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Syria) have more in common with each other across the Christian-Muslim divide than either has in common with Britain or the US. And, Muslim states don't make their alliances by religion. Egypt was allied with the Soviet Union in the 1960s, then switched to the US in the 1970s and until the present. Four of the five non-NATO allies of the US are Muslim countries. Turkey is even a full NATO ally and fought along side the US in the Korean War.

Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians.

Quran 5:82 says (Arberry): "Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians, and those Sabeaans, whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works righteousness--their wage waits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow."

In other words, the Quran promises Christians and Jews along with Muslims that if they have faith and works, they need have no fear in the afterlife. It is not saying that non-Muslims go to hell-- quite the opposite.

When speaking of the 7th-century situation in the Muslim city-state of Medina, which was at war with pagan Mecca, the Quran notes that the polytheists and Arabian Jewish tribes were opposed to Islam, but then goes on to say:

5:82. " . . . and you will find the nearest in love to the believers (Muslims) those who say: 'We are Christians.' That is because amongst them are priests and monks, and they are not proud."

So the Quran not only does not urge Muslims to commit violence against Christians, it calls them "nearest in love" to the Muslims! The reason given is their piety, their ability to produce holy persons dedicated to God, and their lack of overweening pride.

The tendency when reading the Quran is to read a word like "kafir" (infidel) as referring to all non-Muslims. But it is clear from a close study of the way the Quran uses the word that it refers to those who actively oppose and persecute Muslims. The word literally meant "ingrate" in ancient Arabic. So the polytheists ("mushrikun") who tried to wipe out Islam were the main referents of the word "infidel." Christians, as we see above, were mostly in a completely different category. The Christian Ethiopian monarch gave refuge to the Muslims at one point when things got hot in Mecca. The Quran does at one point speak of the "infidels" among the Jews and Christians (2:105: "those who committed kufr/infidelity from among the people of the Book.") But this verse only proves that it did not think they were all infidels, and it is probably referring to specific Jewish and Christian groups who joined with the Meccans in trying to wipe out the early Muslim community. (The Quran calls Jews and Christians "people of the book" because they have a monotheistic scripture).

People often also ask me about this verse:

[5:51] O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as friends; these are friends of one another. Those among you who ally themselves with these belong with them.

This is actually not a good translation of the original, which has a very specific context. In the Arabia of Muhammad's time, it was possible for an individual to become an honorary member or "client" of a powerful tribe. But of course, if you did that you would be subordinating yourself politically to that tribe. The word used in Arabic here does not mean "friend." It means "political patron" (wali). What the Quran is trying to do is to discourage stray Muslims from subordinating themselves to Christian or Jewish tribes that might in turn ally with pagan Mecca, or in any case might have interests at odds with those of the general Muslim community.

So the verse actually says:

[5:51] O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as tribal patrons; these are tribal patrons of one another. Those among you who become clients of these belong with them.

Since the Quran considers Christians nearest in love to Muslims, it obviously does not have an objection to friendship between the two. But apparently now it is some Christians who have that hateful attitude, of no friendship with "infidels."

Colonization of Palestine Precludes Peace

by Jimmy Carter
Published by TomPaine.com
March 9, 2006

For more than a quarter century, Israeli policy has been in conflict with that of the United States and the international community. Israel’s occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalized government, one headed by Yasir Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet.

The unwavering U.S. position since Dwight Eisenhower’s administration has been that Israel’s borders coincide with those established in 1949, and, since 1967, the universally adopted U.N. Resolution 242 has mandated Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories. This policy was reconfirmed even by Israel in 1978 and 1993, and emphasized by all American presidents, including George W. Bush. As part of the Quartet, including Russia, the U.N. and the European Union, he has endorsed a “Road Map” for peace. But Israel has officially rejected its basic premises with patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites.

With Israel’s approval, The Carter Center has monitored all three Palestinian elections. Supervised by a blue-ribbon commission of college presidents and distinguished jurists, they have all been honest, fair and peaceful, with the results accepted by winners and losers.

Hamas will control the cabinet and prime minister’s office, but Mahmoud Abbas retains all authority and power exercised by Yasir Arafat. He still heads the PLO, the only Palestinian entity recognized by Israel, and could deal with Israeli leaders under this umbrella, independent of Hamas control. He has unequivocally endorsed the Quartet’s Road Map. Post-election polls show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel and nearly 70 percent support Abbas as president.

Israel has announced a policy of isolating and destabilizing the new government (perhaps joined by the United States). The elected officials will be denied travel permits, workers from isolated Gaza barred from entering Israel and every effort is being made to block funds to Palestinians. The Quartet’s special envoy, James Wolfensohn, has proposed that donors assist the Palestinian people without violating anti-terrorism laws that prohibit funds from being sent directly to Hamas.

In the short run, the best approach is to follow Wolfensohn’s advice, give the dust a chance to settle in Palestine and await the outcome of Israel’s election later this month. Hamas wishes now to consolidate its political gains, maintain domestic order and stability and refrain from any contacts with Israel. It will be a tragedy—especially for the Palestinians—if they promote or condone terrorism.

The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine. There were just a few hundred settlers in the West Bank and Gaza when I became president, but the Likud government expanded settlement activity after I left office. President Ronald Reagan condemned this policy, and reaffirmed that Resolution 242 remained “the foundation stone of America’s Middle East peace effort.” President George H.W. Bush even threatened to reduce American aid to Israel.

Although President Bill Clinton made strong efforts to promote peace, a massive increase of settlers occurred during his administration, to 225,000, mostly while Ehud Barak was prime minister. Their best official offer to the Palestinians was to withdraw 20 percent of them, leaving 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about five percent of the occupied land.

The five percent figure is grossly misleading, with surrounding areas taken or earmarked for expansion, roadways joining settlements with each other and to Jerusalem and wide arterial swaths providing water, sewage, electricity and communications. This intricate honeycomb divides the entire West Bank into multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable.

Recently, Israeli leaders have decided on unilateral actions without involving either the United States or the Palestinians, with withdrawal from Gaza as the first step. As presently circumscribed and isolated, without access to the air, sea or the West Bank, Gaza is a nonviable economic and political entity.

The future of the West Bank is equally dismal. Especially troublesome is Israel’s construction of huge concrete dividing walls in populated areas and high fences in rural areas—located entirely on Palestinian territory and often with deep intrusions to encompass more land and settlements. The wall is designed to surround a truncated Palestine completely, and a network of exclusive highways will cut across what is left of Palestine to connect Israel with the Jordan River Valley.

This will never be acceptable either to Palestinians or to the international community, and will inevitably precipitate increased tension and violence within Palestine and stronger resentment and animosity from the Arab world against America, which will be held accountable for the plight of the Palestinians.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and others pointed out years ago that Israel’s permanent occupation will be increasingly difficult as the relative number of Jewish citizens decreases demographically both within Israel and in Palestine. This is obvious to most Israelis, who also view this dominant role as a distortion of their ancient moral and religious values. Over the years, opinion polls have consistently shown that about 60 percent of Israelis favor withdrawing from the West Bank in exchange for permanent peace. Similarly, an overwhelming number of both Israelis and Palestinians want a durable two-state solution.

Casualties have increased during the past few years as the occupying forces imposed tighter controls. From September 2000 until March 2006, 3982 Palestinians and 1084 Israelis were killed in the conflict, and this includes many children: 708 Palestinians and 123 Israelis.

There is little doubt that accommodation with Palestinians can bring full Arab recognition of Israel and its right to live in peace. Any rejectionist policies of Hamas or any terrorist group will be overcome by an overall Arab commitment to restrain further violence and to promote the well-being of the Palestinian people.

Down through the years, I have seen despair and frustration evolve into optimism and progress and, even now, we need not give up hope for permanent peace for Israelis and freedom and justice for Palestinians if three basic premises are honored:

1. Israel’s right to exist—and to live in peace—must be recognized and accepted by Palestinians and all other neighbors;

2. The killing of innocent people by suicide bombs or other acts of violence cannot be condoned; and

3. Palestinians must live in peace and dignity, and permanent Israeli settlements on their land are a major obstacle to this goal.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter led The Carter Center/National Democratic Institute observation of the Palestinian elections in January.

Rumsfeld pushes Gingrich Long War strategy

By Pamela Hess
United Press International
Mar 7, 2006

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is circulating a strategy paper by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, asking top deputies to take another look at the QDR with it in mind.

'What does he propose that we have overlooked?' wrote Rumsfeld in a Jan. 30 memo marked 'for official use only' to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, Vice Chairman Adm. Edmund Giambastiani and Eric Edelman, under secretary of defense for policy. 'Are there any adjustments to our (Quadrennial Defense Review) roadmaps that could benefit from his ideas?'

Former House Speaker Gingrich wrote the paper, 'Essential Strategic Changes in National Security 2005-2007,' in October. Responses to Rumsfeld`s questions were due back last week.

Gingrich posits the creating an 'Intelligent Effective Limited Government' which will use 'entrepreneurial public management and modern information systems to modernize the government into a system compatible with the speed, agility, flexibility and efficiency of modern global companies.'

Dismantling the government bureaucracy is a subject dear to Rumsfeld`s heart. The day before the Pentagon was attacked in 2001, Rumsfeld unveiled his plan for transforming the business side of the Defense Department. His plans have hit a rough patch: while he got a rewrite of the hiring, firing and promotion rules governing the military`s 700,000 civilian workers, a federal court essentially gutted the proposed system last week. Other components have made slow progress, in no small part due to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Gingrich goes much further, prescribing a societal transformation, including a new national 'theory and system' for dealing with 'the irreconcilable wing of Islam' and a national math, science and basic research initiative to ensure the United States is prepared to compete economically with China and India in years to come.

Gingrich proposes a seven-point plan.

The first is establishing a 'values and goals based' metrics for senior leadership, which would extend throughout the national security departments. He advocates the method used by then-May Rudolph Giuliani to reform the New York City Police Department, with daily reports to senior leadership on what has been achieved each day, combined with increased tactical authority for lower-level officials. He contrasts that with the 'cumbersome World War II-style' monthly progress reports conducted for the Iraq war.

The second would be a massive overhaul of the non-defense agencies and departments involved in national security along the lines of the 1980`s Goldwater-Nichols Act, which strengthened the Joint Staff and the combatant commanders, and created Special Operations Command. This new act would compel and ease interagency coordination across departments 'to bring to bear all aspects of national power to achieve national and homeland security.'

'None of the civilian systems have the habits, structures, training and career tracks needed to be complete participants in an effective system of national and homeland security,' Gingrich writes.

One of the changes he envisions would be integrating the Defense, State and intelligence budgets into a single integrated whole.

'Only by presenting the national security system as a single system can Congress begin to understand that an effective foreign service may be as important as an effective training program for the military,' he writes.

The third step is establishing a 'theory and system' for winning the Long War with the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam.' Gingrich suggests the war could last as long as 70 years, and complains that there is no central guidance for this new struggle on par with George Kennan`s 1949 'Long Telegram' and Paul Nitze`s 1950 NSC-68, both documents that described the problem of, and proposed a policy for, defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Gingrich says that theory must be developed, as well as a strategy for keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of dictators or rogue regimes that might give them to terrorists.

'Twenty-two years after the Marines were killed in Beirut and five years after the 9/11 attack on the American homeland, we still do not have a clear and compelling explanation of the Long War, the theory on how to win it, and the strategy and structures which that victory will require,' he writes.

Fourth, Gingrich calls for a theory and strategy for defeating terrorists -- terrorism being a method of fighting distinct from the philosophies of Islamic extremists. He says the United States must find a way to ensure peace and stability in places like Baghdad, Gaza and London with exponentially greater intelligence and urban warfare skills and capabilities now at hand.

The effort put into Japanese code breaking during World War II should be trained on penetrating al-Qaida, which communicates both actively and passively over the Internet, Gingrich states.

He also calls for dramatic increases in funding for urban warfare, putting it on par with conventional warfare systems which annually command tens of billions of dollars.

'We need to see dominating the urban battle space as comparable to dominating the air or dominating the sea,' he writes.

Fifth, Gingrich states the government must come to terms with the uniquely challenging nexus of three factors: the rapidly expanding base of scientific knowledge around the world; the growing economic power of China and India; and the 'continued evolution of a worldwide market in arms that will make very dangerous capabilities available to 'underdeveloped countries' that otherwise could not build them on their own.

'The United States must confront these three challenges by developing a national security strategic plan for both math and science learning and for basic research to enable the United States to remain the leading scientific and technological nation for the next half century,' Gingrich writes.

'This is literally the second greatest challenge facing American after the Long War ... and it should receive the attention and intensity of effort that position implies,' he writes.

Sixth, Gingrich wants to create a parallel, competing system for the development of defense doctrine, equipment and acquisition to compete with the entrenched methods of doing the same things 'to see if the explosion in scientific knowledge and entrepreneurial talent can provide dramatically more effective defense at the same or much lower cost.'

The 'Team B' would be advised by a panel of private industry CEOs and be started with a $5 billion budget, and challenged to devise systems that can defeat regular forces and regular systems in a head-to-head competition.

Gingrich would offer prizes as incentive for the private competitor, and look to see if the competition spurred the government bureaucracy on to more creative, efficient heights. He seems to have dim hopes for the latter.

'Truly revolutionary breakthroughs have to grow outside of the systems and cultures they challenge or they are smothered by their more powerful established elders,' he writes.

Finally, Gingrich says the seventh point is selling the above plan in 'simple, clear language' so the American public, Congress and the media 'to understand what they should insist on and how to measure progress and failure.'

'Once the American people understand these challenges they will support the resources necessary and endure the problems which may be unavoidable,' he writes. 'The question is not the courage of the American people. It is the courage, consistency and persistence of their leaders.'

Fear Flies High At New Iraq Air Force's First Base

By Nick Olivari
Reuters
March 8, 2006

BAGHDAD - There are no fighter jets and the officers are too frightened to reveal their identities, but Iraq's new air force finally has its own field.

Nestled deep inside the massive U.S. military complex which surrounds Baghdad International Airport, Muthana airfield comprises one runway, a giant hangar, some pilots, aircraft and ground crew from Iraq's fledgling air force.

But the air wing of a national armed force upon which the future stability of Iraq and the prospects for a possible U.S. troop pullout rests is small and has no fighting capability.

Information about it is specific and sparing.

The pilots of 23 Squadron based at Muthana will be available to fly any of Iraq's three C-130 planes or its 30 helicopters on transport or observation missions. Officers said the squadron is one of five air force units, but said the other four had not yet been designated bases.

Iraq's fighter planes have been missing since before the first Gulf War in 1991, when they were spirited away to Iran to avoid destruction by a U.S.-led coalition which kicked Saddam's invasion forces out of Kuwait. Tehran never sent them back.

Fear appeared to be the main theme on the minds of Muthana's officers and ground crew. They are frightened their national service will endanger their families in a country beset by a bloody insurgency and growing tit-for-tat violence between Iraq's two predominant Muslim sects that has killed hundreds.

"We are afraid for our families, there is no one to protect them," said 23 Squadron leader, calling himself only Col. Samir.

A flight instructor under his command who would only give his name as Lt. Col. Jaber agreed and wondered what protection junior officers could rely upon when assassins were able to shoot dead an Iraqi Army division commander on Monday.

"They kidnap our children, they are trying to kill us," Jaber said. "If you take our names or pictures, we have to leave Iraq or they will kill us."

The Muthana base used to be a preserve of the forces which protected Saddam's palaces in Baghdad. It was destroyed in the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam, but has been rebuilt over the last year.

Officers of 23 Squadron admit the available aircraft are a far cry from the 850 fighter craft, 50 fixed wing transport aircraft and more than 1,000 helicopters the Iraqi air force deployed at its peak under Saddam.

The few aircraft on the runway bring a smile to the officers and men at Muthana, many of whom served in the old days under Saddam. Iraq's armed forces were disbanded after the 2003 invasion and the pilots are keen to get back to flying.

But a nearby explosion shortly before Muthana's ribbon cutting ceremony reminds everyone of the enormous task ahead and conversations with journalists are suddenly cut short.