Desert Rats Leave The Sinking Ship

Why Rumsfeld Should Not Resign
The Guardian - Comment
April 14, 2006
By Greg Palast

Well, here they come: the wannabe Rommels, the gaggle of generals, safely retired, to lay siege to Donald Rumsfeld. This week, six of them have called for the Secretary of Defense's resignation.

Well, according to my watch, they're about four years too late -- and they still don't get it.

I know that most of my readers will be tickled pink that the bemedalled boys in crew cuts are finally ready to kick Rummy in the rump, in public. But to me, it just shows me that these boys still can't shoot straight.

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who stood up in front of the UN and identified two mobile latrines as biological weapons labs, was it, General Powell?

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who told us our next warning from Saddam could be a mushroom cloud, was it Condoleezza?

It wasn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who declared that Al Qaeda and Saddam were going steady, was it, Mr. Cheney?

Yes, Rumsfeld is a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon -- but he didn't appoint himself Secretary of Defense.

Let me tell you a story about the Secretary of Defense you didn't read in the New York Times, related to me by General Jay Garner, the man our president placed in Baghdad as the US' first post-invasion viceroy.

Garner arrived in Kuwait City in March 2003 working under the mistaken notion that when George Bush called for democracy in Iraq, the President meant the Iraqis could choose their own government. Misunderstanding the President's true mission, General Garner called for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to quickly pull troops out of the cities to a desert base. "It's their country," the General told me of the Iraqis. "And," he added, most ominously, "their oil."

Let's not forget: it's all about the oil. I showed Garner a 101-page plan for Iraq's economy drafted secretly by neo-cons at the State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon, calling for "privatization" (i.e. the sale) of "all state assets ... especially in the oil and oil-supporting industries." The General knew of the plans and he intended to shove it where the Iraqi sun don't shine. Garner planned what he called a "Big Tent" meeting of Iraqi tribal leaders to plan elections. By helping Iraqis establish their own multi-ethnic government -- and this was back when Sunnis, Shias and Kurds were on talking terms -- knew he could get the nation on its feet peacefully before a welcomed "liberation" turned into a hated "occupation."

But, Garner knew, a freely chosen coalition government would mean the death-knell for the neo-con oil-and-assets privatization grab.

On April 21, 2003, three years ago this month, the very night General Garner arrived in Baghdad, he got a call from Washington. It was Rumsfeld on the line. He told Garner, in so many words, "Don't unpack, Jack, you're fired."

Rummy replaced Garner, a man with years of on-the-ground experience in Iraq, with green-boots Paul Bremer, the Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. Bremer cancelled the Big Tent meeting of Iraqis and postponed elections for a year; then he issued 100 orders, like some tin-pot pasha, selling off Iraq's economy to U.S. and foreign operators, just as Rumsfeld's neo-con clique had desired.

Reading this, it sounds like I should applaud the six generals' call for Rumfeld's ouster. Forget it.

For a bunch of military hotshots, they sure can't shoot straight. They're wasting all their bullets on the decoy. They've gunned down the puppet instead of the puppeteers.

There's no way that Rumsfeld could have yanked General Garner from Baghdad without the word from The Bunker. Nothing moves or breathes or spits in the Bush Administration without Darth Cheney's growl of approval. And ultimately, it's the Commander-in-Chief who's chiefly in command.

Even the generals' complaint -- that Rumsfeld didn't give them enough troops -- was ultimately a decision of the cowboy from Crawford. (And by the way, the problem was not that we lacked troops -- the problem was that we lacked moral authority to occupy this nation. A million troops would not be enough -- the insurgents would just have more targets.)

President Bush is one lucky fella. I can imagine him today on the intercom with Cheney: "Well, pardner, looks like the game's up." And Cheney replies, "Hey, just hang the Rumsfeld dummy out the window until he's taken all their ammo."

When Bush and Cheney read about the call for Rumsfeld's resignation today, I can just hear George saying to Dick, "Mission Accomplished."

Generals, let me give you a bit of advice about choosing a target: It's the President, stupid.

U.S. Prepares To Overhaul Arsenal Of Nuclear Warheads

By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post
April 15, 2006

By the end of the year, the government plans to select the design of a new generation of nuclear warheads that would be more dependable and possibly able to be disarmed in the event they fell into terrorist hands, according to the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The new warheads would be based on nuclear technology that has already been tested, which means they could be produced more than a decade from now to gradually replace at lower numbers the existing U.S. stockpile of about 6,000 warheads without additional underground testing, said Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the NNSA, which oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, and other government officials.

The warhead redesign is part of a larger, multibillion-dollar program to refurbish the nation's nuclear-weapons stockpile and to consolidate nuclear plants and facilities in nearly a dozen states, including California, Florida, Texas, Tennessee and New Mexico. The next-generation warheads will be larger and more stable than the existing ones but slightly less powerful, according to government officials. They might contain "use controls" that would enable the military to disable the weapons by remote control if they are stolen by terrorists.

Brooks said in an interview Thursday that, by November, his agency will choose between two competing designs submitted by teams at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. Brooks said the November timetable for the submission of the design plans would give his agency time to develop preliminary cost estimates that could be included in the administration's fiscal 2008 budget, to be submitted to Congress early next year.

The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program, as it is called, was first proposed two years ago by Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio). It has been adopted as part of a major restructuring of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex being proposed by the Bush administration in light of the findings of its 2002 Nuclear Posture Review.

The new warheads envisioned as part of the RRW are expected to be larger and heavier than those now deployed and in reserve, which originated from the Cold War years, when they needed to be light but still carry the maximum explosive yield for knocking out reinforced Soviet missile silos, submarine pens and underground command posts.

But this is just the beginning of a decades-long process of replacing the stockpile with smaller warheads. Even if the government meets its year-end deadline for choosing a feasible design for engineering development and production, Congress will still have to debate and approve the choice. After that, it would probably take almost 10 more years before the first new warheads appeared.

Though most U.S. nuclear weapons contain permissive action links, or "PALS," which need to be activated before they can be used, Brooks said that technological advances might provide security measures that are far superior.

"We want them to take advantage of 'use control' and are looking forward to get those designs," Brooks said. But he declined to discuss details.

Last week, Thomas P. D'Agostino, the NNSA's new deputy administrator for defense programs, told a House Armed Services subcommittee that the government has already added a number of safety features that would disarm a missile warhead in the event of a theft.

"If somebody should happen to lose control of a weapon itself, it would essentially not be a weapon because of the types of technology features we've inserted," D'Agostino said.

Officials say that plans for consolidating and downsizing nuclear weapons plants throughout the country are long overdue. Many of the buildings used for developing and assembling the weapons are almost 50 years old.

At the same time, there are plans to reduce the nuclear stockpile by as much as half -- to 3,000 or 4,000 warheads -- by 2012.

The competition between Los Alamos and Livermore replicates what happened beginning in the 1950s as each laboratory developed different nuclear warheads for the Air Force, the Navy and the Army. "The process is providing a unique opportunity to train the next generation of nuclear weapons designers and engineers," D'Agostino said last week.

During the Cold War years, from the 1960s through the 1980s, the U.S. nuclear weapons complex constantly designed, developed, produced and tested different warheads depending on military needs, D'Agostino said. Beginning in the 1990s, as the Cold War ended and a test ban pact between the United States and the Soviet Union was reached, a decision was made to halt U.S. development of new warheads and, instead, to shift to supervising the already enormous stockpile, to make sure that those deployed were still reliable and to begin dismantling those that were no longer needed.

The notion at that time, during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, was that the stockpile would go through a life-extension process every 20 to 30 years. The current Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review changed that. Instead of just extending the life of older warheads with new but similar parts, the aim now is to make totally new components that are more robust, easier to manufacture, safer and more secure, while at the same time not requiring new underground testing.

By constantly upgrading the parts, D'Agostino said, a second goal will be accomplished. By 2030, he said, the "weapons design community that was revitalized by the RRW program will be able to adapt an existing weapon within 18 months, and design, develop and begin production of a new design within four years of a decision to enter engineering development."

No friends in Iraq

Whose Side Are We On?
By Graham E. Fuller
International Herald Tribune
April 15, 2006

WASHINGTON--The United States is reaching a breaking point with the Shiites in Iraq. The quiescence to date of this dominant and relatively united sectarian force has been the key factor in America's ability to keep the lid on in Iraq so far.

That is now changing.

The Shiites have never had any particular love for the United States. They are bitter about what they saw as their betrayal by the United States after the first Gulf war, when the elder President George Bush called for uprisings against Saddam Hussein and then stood by while Saddam's forces brutally put the insurrection down, with huge Shiite losses.

As for the United States, after the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the crisis of American diplomats held hostage in Tehran, a mantra developed in Washington: "Shiite bad, Sunni good." The Shiites were the anti-American revolutionaries in the region.

But after the emergence of Al Qaeda, 9/11, the outbreak of the Sunni insurrection against the U.S. occupation in Iraq and Iraqi Shiite quiescence, Washington's working mantra was reversed: it became "Shiite good, Sunni bad." Today it is hard to tell who the good guys are.

One thing was clear on the eve of the war in Iraq: The Shiites would favor the overthrow of Saddam and a brief U.S. occupation only if Washington promised to deliver power into the hands of the Shiite majority via the ballot box.

This has now come to pass. As far as most Shiites are concerned, the United States has basically fulfilled its mission and should go home.

The Shiites, however, are tactically divided as to when the United States should go home. Some still want America to stay on a bit longer to help put down the insurgency and stabilize the country, thus making the Shiites' rule more secure. Others - now maybe a majority - fear that their dependence upon the U.S. sword is damaging to the very legitimacy of Shiite governance. Under these conditions, the Sunni minority can claim the mantle of "the one force that stood up to American occupation."

Thus for most Shiites the quickest way to gain national legitimacy and acquire nationalist credentials may be to join the call for an end to the U.S. occupation.

The Shiite firebrand Moktada al-Sadr grasped this a long time ago and is, in fact, trying to forge a Shiite- Sunni coalition based on the common interest of ending the occupation now.

Now that Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, has delivered President George W. Bush's jarring message that the current Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al- Jaafari, is not acceptable to Washington and should not seek a second term, the Shiite break with Washington may be nearing.

By no means do all Shiites want Jaafari as prime minister. But the United States in their view has delivered a fairly naked diktat by telling the Shiites who should or should not run their ostensibly sovereign government. U.S. pressure on the Shiites to give up control of such vital power ministries as Intelligence and Interior are certain non- starters; the Shiites have not waited for half a century to get power only to yield these vital security functions to their erstwhile oppressors and current rivals. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani will work mightily to ensure the Shiites do not break ranks on these issues.

It may be that the Shiite alliance will switch candidates for prime minister, if only in the name of preserving unity. But any new candidate, in an agreement likely to be forged by Sistani, must also placate the many Shiite elements cool or hostile to the United States - including Jaafari, Sadr and the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

It may make some sense for the United States to help overcome Sunni fears and grievances by siding with their calls for more Sunni power. But the current Shiite political dominance is quite legal, based on a constitution the United States helped draft. It reflects the absolute demographic majority of Shiites. And for the moment at least, sectarian loyalties are the coinage of daily politics and the primary source of security for each citizen. That leaves scant room for compromise.

Even if Washington at this point tilts toward the Sunnis, they would offer precious little consolation for Bush's woes.

The Sunnis are even more anti- U.S. and more pan-Arab than the Shiites. They are determined to end the occupation as soon as possible. The Sunni clerics are hard- line anti-U.S., and their only serious rivals are secular Baathists. Placating the Sunnis now will thus do little more than hasten a public Shiite break with Washington. It will not lessen insurgent actions to push the United States out.

However clever Ambassador Khalilzad's efforts at divide-and-rule may be, few of his options are good. The sad truth is that Sunnis and Shiites have come to vie with each other in pushing to get rid of the Americans. Neither variation of the "good-bad" mantras is reliable any more.

Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. His most recent book is "The Future of Political Islam."

Iran issues stark military warning to United States

AFP
Apr 15, 2006

Iran said it could defeat any American military action over its controversial nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime's boldest challenges yet to the United States.

"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime's most powerful figures.

"The Americans know better than anyone that their troops in the region and in Iraq are vulnerable. I would advise them not to commit such a strategic error," he told reporters on the sidelines of a pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran.

The United States accuses Iran of using an atomic energy drive as a mask for weapons development. Last weekend US news reports said President George W. Bush's administration was refining plans for preventive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one," General Safavi said with a grin.

"We have American forces in the region under total surveillance. For the past two years, we have been ready for any scenario, whether sanctions or an attack."

Iran announced this week it had successfully enriched uranium to make nuclear fuel, despite a UN Security Council demand for the sensitive work to be halted by April 28.

The Islamic regime says it only wants to generate atomic energy, but enrichment can be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear warhead -- something the United States is convinced that "axis of evil" member Iran wants to acquire.

At a Friday prayer sermon in Tehran, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Janati simply branded the US as a "decaying power" lacking the "stamina" to block Iran's ambitions.

And hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told AFP that a US push for tough United Nations sanctions was of "no importance."

"She is free to say whatever she wants," the president replied when asked to respond to comments by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlighting part of the UN charter that provides for sanctions backed up by the threat of military action.

"We give no importance to her comments," he said with a broad smile.

On Thursday, Rice said that faced with Iran's intransigence, the United States "will look at the full range of options available to the United Nations."

"There is no doubt that Iran continues to defy the will of the international community," Rice said, after Iran also dismissed a personal appeal from the UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief must give a report at the end of April on Iranian compliance with the Security Council demand. In Tehran he said that after three years of investigations Iran's activities were "still hazy and not very clear."

Although the United States has been prodding the council to take a tough stand against the Islamic republic, including possible sanctions, it has run into opposition from veto-wielding members Russia and China.

Representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany are to meet in Moscow Tuesday to discuss the crisis.

In seeking to deter international action, Iran has been playing up its oil wealth, its military might in strategic Gulf waters and its influence across the region -- such as in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

At the Tehran conference, Iran continued to thumb its nose at the United States and Israel.

"The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat," Ahmadinejad told the gathering of regime officials, visiting Palestinian militant leaders and foreign sympathizers.

"Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is on the road to being eliminated," said Ahmadinejad, whose regime does not recognise Israel and who drew international condemnation last year when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

Unfazed by his critics, the hardliner went on to repeat his controversial stance on the Holocaust.

"If there is serious doubt over the Holocaust, there is no doubt over the catastrophe and Holocaust being faced by the Palestinians," said the president, who had previously dismissed as a "myth" the killing of an estimated six million Jews by the Nazis and their allies during World War II.

"I tell the governments who support Zionism to ... let the migrants (Jews) return to their countries of origin. If you think you owe them something, give them some of your land," he said.

Iran's turbaned supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also accused the United States of seeking to place the entire region under Israeli control.

"The plots by the American government against Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon aimed at governing the Middle East with the control of the Zionist regime will not succeed," Khamenei said.

There was no immediate reaction from Washington, but French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy severely condemned Ahmadinejad for his latest remarks on Israel.

"As I have had occasion to do before, when the Iranian president made similar statements, I condemn these inacceptable remarks in the strongest possible terms," Douste-Blazy said in a statement.

"Israel's right to exist and the reality of the Holocaust should not be disputed," he added.

Hu welcome dinner at Gates house, not White House

Fri Apr 14, 2006

SEATTLE (Reuters) - The first lavish dinner of China President Hu Jintao's historic visit to the United States next week will be in a big, secure house in Washington where the host is one of the world's most powerful men.

The White House? No.

It won't be in Washington D.C., but Seattle, Washington, and the April 18 dinner will be held at the $100 million lakeside mansion of Microsoft Corp. founder and the world's richest man, Bill Gates.

The approximately 100-person guest list is a who's who of the U.S. Pacific Northwest power elite, including Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz and Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire, said event organizers.

The guests will undergo strict security checks before entering Gates' lodge-style, 66,000 square-foot (6,130 sq meter) home overlooking Lake Washington with a reported seven bedrooms, six kitchens, 24 bathrooms, a domed library, a reception hall and an artificial estuary stocked with salmon and trout.

Gates and Gregoire are expected to introduce and welcome Hu, who will then offer a toast in front of the gathering.

The guests will be served a three-course dinner, starting with a smoked guinea fowl salad, a choice of either beef filet with Walla Walla onions or Alaskan halibut and spot prawns before a dessert of rhubarb brown butter almond cake, the event organizers said.

Like any good dinner guest, President Hu will not come empty handed. The Chinese government issued a decree two weeks ago that all PCs will need to have a licensed operating system software installed before leaving the factory gates in an effort to crack down on piracy.

As a result, three Chinese PC manufacturers announced plans to buy a total of over $400 million worth of Microsoft Windows operating system software over the next three years and Lenovo Group Ltd., China's largest PC maker, is expected to announce a similar deal on Monday, organizers said.

President Comes to Defense of Rumsfeld

In an unusual personal declaration, Bush suggests that generals might be angry about military changes the secretary has imposed.
By Peter Spiegel
Los Angeles Times
April 15, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush gave his forceful and unequivocal backing Friday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, issuing a rare personal statement to express "my full support and deepest appreciation" for his work in the war on terrorism.

Moving to head off a potential political crisis, Bush directly addressed recent criticism of Rumsfeld by retired senior generals, saying he had personally witnessed — and endorsed — the way the Defense secretary interacted with uniformed personnel.

"I have seen firsthand how Don relies upon our military commanders in the field and at the Pentagon to make decisions about how best to complete these missions," Bush said. "Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period."

Bush issued the statement after speaking with Rumsfeld on Friday about military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and personally voicing his support. Bush said Rumsfeld had been given the difficult job of modernizing the military, suggesting that the process of "transformation" may have drawn the ire of officers.

The presidential statement came at the end of a week in which two retired Army generals who commanded divisions in Iraq, Maj. Gen. John Batiste and Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., called for Rumsfeld's resignation, accusing him of arrogance and of mismanaging the war.

Two other retired generals involved in Iraq policy — Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who headed training of Iraqi forces in 2003 — also have called for Rumsfeld to step down, as has retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command.

The mounting criticism of Rumsfeld and recriminations over the war also come as Bush's approval ratings are falling and public support for the conflict is declining. Even among U.S. troops in Iraq, 72% favor withdrawal from Iraq within a year, and more than one in four favor an immediate pullout, according to a survey released in February by Zogby International and Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y.

An administration official said Friday that the White House was particularly concerned that the generals' remarks could gain momentum over a long holiday weekend in which Bush, vacationing with his family at Camp David, Md., would be out of the limelight.

When speculation surfaced recently about another long-rumored Cabinet departure, that of Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, Bush was able to go before television cameras immediately to deny it.

"The president wanted to do this today," the administration official said Friday, requesting anonymity while discussing internal White House deliberations.

Rumsfeld has been the subject of resignation speculation before. After revelations in 2004 of prisoner abuses by U.S. soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Rumsfeld twice offered Bush his resignation.

Democrats pointed out Friday that Bush also offered a staunch defense of Michael D. Brown last year, days before Brown resigned as Federal Emergency Management Agency director because of the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina.

Many active-duty generals privately agree with public criticism that Rumsfeld is disrespectful to military leaders, current and former senior officers said.

Nonetheless, the public statements by retired generals have unsettled some officers, who worry the comments could undermine the morale of troops in Iraq and appear to challenge civilian control of the military.

A number of retired senior officers who worked directly with Rumsfeld also said in interviews that they considered the criticism misguided. Although the Defense secretary's aggressive style has caused upheaval in the ranks — particularly in the Army — he has changed his views on several high-profile issues because of well-argued cases made by the uniformed leadership, the officers said.

"Rumsfeld's a tough guy, no doubt about it; he can be prickly," said Adm. Vern Clark, who spent five years working with Rumsfeld as chief of naval operations before retiring last year. "You have to gain his respect, but once you gain that, you can work with him. I was thankful I had a tough guy, because we were in tough times."

Several senior officers involved in Iraq war planning also said they considered "insulting" the criticism that they bowed to Rumsfeld's will in the run-up to the war. They said Army Gen. Tommy Franks, then head of U.S. Central Command, was the main architect of the invasion plans and that it was thoroughly debated by military leaders.

Retired Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff through the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, acknowledged that mistakes were made by failing to anticipate the insurgency. But he said all the military service chiefs — including Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, who had a public falling-out with Rumsfeld — were involved in the discussions and received detailed input from their subordinates.

"It was Gen. Franks' job to put together the war plan," Jumper said in a telephone interview. "Of course there wasn't universal agreement. We hashed things out for hours and hours in the Tank [the Pentagon's ornate meeting room]. There was a lot of opportunity to discuss and debate and digest."

By some accounts, disagreements over the war plans occasionally were more vehement within the officer ranks than between military leaders and Rumsfeld. In his memoir, Franks details several run-ins with service chiefs over war planning for both Afghanistan and Iraq, one of which included an expletive-laden tirade by Franks aimed at two members of the Joint Chiefs.

Some top officers involved in Iraq war planning were less conciliatory toward Rumsfeld for his handling of the postwar reconstruction period — particularly the administration's failure to get a civilian authority up and running quickly after Saddam Hussein fell.

But retired Gen. John Keane, who was Army vice chief of staff during the war and is still highly regarded by active-duty officers, said the uniformed leaders were equally to blame for not planning better for the stabilization period.

"That judgment was wrong," Keane said in an interview. "We did not consider [an insurgency] a viable option. I believe that's our fault. That's senior military leadership business."

Although Rumsfeld has been criticized for not sending more troops to Iraq once the regime collapsed, Keane said the calculation was made in close consultation with Gen. John P. Abizaid, Franks' successor as Central Command chief.

Keane said he had several conversations with Abizaid in the autumn of 2003 in which he asked whether more troops were needed. Abizaid repeatedly argued against an increase, saying it would only mean "more guys walking around the streets with rifles, not understanding the culture."

"I find it somewhat insulting for people to speculate that Rumsfeld is somehow browbeating the generals and they're intimidated into not telling him what they believe," Keane said. "The conventional wisdom is they didn't ask for more troops because he [Rumsfeld] wouldn't give it to them. That's insulting to the character of those officers."

The reasons behind the polarized view of Rumsfeld has become the topic of intense debate within the uniformed ranks in recent weeks. Most retired officers interviewed Friday declined to publicly speculate on why views were so divergent.

But one currently serving Army general who has discussed the relationship between Rumsfeld and the military leadership with several other senior officers said he believed certain generals were simply better suited to dealing with the secretary on an intellectual level.

"I've heard of at least four very, very senior four-stars who say it's not the case" that Rumsfeld does not listen to them, the general said. "They say he's a wrestler from Princeton and goes for the throat, but if you have your stuff together and go toe-to-toe, you can win."

Despite that view, the outpouring of condemnation from the retired generals has underscored a long-brewing resentment on the part of many senior officers, one that several military watchers said began when Rumsfeld's team first arrived harboring widespread suspicion of generals appointed by President Clinton.

Many of those early tensions, which even Rumsfeld supporters acknowledge produced intense resentment, largely were set aside after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the current animosity has been rising since Pentagon civilians sidelined Shinseki after he publicly said several hundred thousand troops would be required to stabilize Iraq.

"There's been deep frustration with Rumsfeld from the day he took over," said Stephen Biddle, a defense policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank and a former professor at the Army War College. "This degree of civil-military tension is historically very uncommon; it's very uncommon for it to last this long."

Rumsfeld continued to dismiss the calls for his resignation, saying the retired generals who have made the public criticisms represent only a small portion of the senior officers who have served under him.

"I respect their views, but obviously, out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of Defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round around here," he said in an interview Thursday with the Arabic-language television station Al Arabiya.

Old Man Killed, 6 Hurt, in Coptic Church Attacks in Egypt

By ABEER ALLAM
The New York Times
April 14, 2006

CAIRO, April 14 — Men wielding machetes attacked worshippers in three Coptic churches in the port city of Alexandria this morning, killing an 80-year-old man and wounding at least 6, the police there said.

A fourth attack was foiled and three attackers were arrested, the police said.

Hours after the attack, the Egyptian government, which is sensitive to sectarian incidents, cast the attack as an aberration. The governor of Alexandria, Gen. Abdel Sallam Mahgoub, told the state-run television that a 25-year-old mentally unstable person carrying two knifes attacked all three churches, wounding two men before he was arrested. In Cairo, the Ministry of Interior issued a statement identifying that attacker as Mahmoud Abdel Raziq Hussien, 25.

Some Coptic Christians said the government was trying to minimize the danger.

"What is worrying me is not the attack itself, but the insistence of the Egyptian security to cloud the truth," said Youssef Saidhum, editor of Watani, a weekly Coptic newspaper. "It does not only upset Copts, but it sends a message to the attackers, regardless of their ideology, that the government is either afraid of them or supports them, so they get stronger and bolder.

"Blaming it on a mentally ill person is nonsense," Mr. Saidhum added.

The government has often blamed the mentally unstable for terror attacks and other violence. A few months ago, in the killing of an entire family in a village in the south, the blame was put on a mentally ill person. And in the early 1990's, someone described as unstable attacked a tourist bus and was put in a mental hospital, only to come back later and attack more tourists.

The church attacks comes one week before the Coptic calendar celebrates Good Friday. Coptic Christians represent up to 10 percent of Egypt's population that totals 71 million. Sectarian violence flares from time to time.

In October, Muslims attacked churches and shops in Alexandria over the distribution of a DVD that Muslims felt ridiculed their faith. Four Muslims were killed by the police in weeklong protests.

When there is violence between Muslims and Christians, the government tries to hide it, Mr. Saidhum, said. In that situation, the Christians do not feel they have real protection from the authorities, he added.

Confusion Remains Over Origins of Chad Rebels

By Joe Bavier, Abidjan
Voice of America
14 April 2006

Chad's president has claimed a victory over attacking rebels, after intense fighting that authorities say has left 350 people dead. But who are the insurgents, and what do they want? Joe Bavier looks into the question.

In the capital, N'Djamena, around 150 men were paraded before journalists in a public square Friday. Chad's government says they are rebel fighters, who were captured during Thursday's fighting in the capital.

Chadian officials said the men were mercenaries, allegedly hired by the country's eastern neighbor, Sudan. Chad's president, Idriss Deby, has repeatedly accused Khartoum of backing the rebels. And on Friday, Chad announced it was severing diplomatic ties with Sudan.

Sudan denies giving any support to the rebel group, United Front for Change, known by the French acronym FUC.

Experts say the group's origins are far from clear, but it is believed to include many former members of Chad's army.

Rebels began launching attacks late last year along the Sudanese border. In December, a movement, known as the Rally for Democracy and Liberty, attacked the town of Adre in open fighting with the Chad army.

Soon after that, the Rally for Democracy and Liberty announced the formation of the FUC, a grouping of nine armed movements with a shared goal: the overthrow of President Deby.

Chad has been wracked by civil war, coup attempts and insurgencies for more than three decades. Mr. Deby, himself, came to power in a 1990 coup.

Many of those involved in the FUC have close ethnic ties with Mr. Deby, with some coming from his own ethnic group, the Zaghawa. But Chad expert Richard Barltrop says the motivators in the latest violence are more complex than ethnic rivalries.

"The explanation probably lies more on political and economic factors than tribal and clan," he said. "Certainly, it's true that the Zaghawa aren't monolithic, and, therefore, you should not expect uniform loyalty among the Zaghawa."

President Deby recently pushed through changes to the constitution that allow him to run for a third term in office. The move was criticized by opposition leaders, who have vowed to boycott the polls, scheduled for early May.

And, the FUC has vowed to topple Mr. Deby before the election.

Analyst Barltrop says it could be that the president has simply collected too many enemies during his long stint in power.

"Given that Deby has been in power for coming on 16 years now, he will have generated quite enough opponents for political and economic reasons [that have] to do with the share of power and economic positions," he added.

Chad recently became an oil exporting nation, a fact some experts say has raised the economics and political stakes.

Finally, Barltrop says, President Deby's claims that Sudan is backing the rebels should be taken seriously. The president, himself a former rebel leader, toppled his predecessor, Hissene Habre, in 1990, launching a rebellion from Sudan's western Darfur province that most analysts agree was likely supported by Khartoum.

"What's happening now has happened before in Chad," he explained. "It is quite similar to political reversals in the 1980's. The similarity to 1990 is uncanny."

Beginning Sunday, the rebels led an advance, traveling from strongholds in the east, to arrive to within striking distance of N'Djamena late Wednesday. Fighting in the Chadian capital began before dawn Thursday, and lasted several hours, before President Deby claimed a victory for government forces.

More Retired Generals Call For Rumsfeld's Resignation

By David S. Cloud and Eric Schmitt
New York Times
April 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 13 — The widening circle of retired generals who have stepped forward to call for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation is shaping up as an unusual outcry that could pose a significant challenge to Mr. Rumsfeld's leadership, current and former generals said on Thursday.

Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who led troops on the ground in Iraq as recently as 2004 as the commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, on Thursday became the fifth retired senior general in recent days to call publicly for Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster. Also Thursday, another retired Army general, Maj. Gen. John Riggs, joined in the fray.

"We need to continue to fight the global war on terror and keep it off our shores," General Swannack said in a telephone interview. "But I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq."

Another former Army commander in Iraq, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division, publicly broke ranks with Mr. Rumsfeld on Wednesday. Mr. Rumsfeld long ago became a magnet for political attacks. But the current uproar is significant because Mr. Rumsfeld's critics include generals who were involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq under the defense secretary's leadership.

There were indications on Thursday that the concern about Mr. Rumsfeld, rooted in years of pent-up anger about his handling of the war, was sweeping aside the reticence of retired generals who took part in the Iraq war to criticize an enterprise in which they participated. Current and former officers said they were unaware of any organized campaign to seek Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster, but they described a blizzard of telephone calls and e-mail messages as retired generals critical of Mr. Rumsfeld weighed the pros and cons of joining in the condemnation.

Even as some of their retired colleagues spoke out publicly about Mr. Rumsfeld, other senior officers, retired and active alike, had to be promised anonymity before they would discuss their own views of why the criticism of him was mounting. Some were concerned about what would happen to them if they spoke openly, others about damage to the military that might result from amplifying the debate, and some about talking outside of channels, which in military circles is often viewed as inappropriate.

The White House has dismissed the criticism, saying it merely reflects tensions over the war in Iraq. There was no indication that Mr. Rumsfeld was considering resigning.

"The president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period in our nation's history," the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters on Thursday.

Among the retired generals who have called for Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster, some have emphasized that they still believe it was right for the United States to invade Iraq. But a common thread in their complaints has been an assertion that Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides too often inserted themselves unnecessarily into military decisionmaking, often disregarding advice from military commanders.

The outcry also appears based in part on a coalescing of concern about the toll that the war is taking on American armed forces, with little sign, three years after the invasion, that United States troops will be able to withdraw in large numbers anytime soon.

Pentagon officials, while acknowledging that Mr. Rumsfeld's forceful style has sometimes ruffled his military subordinates, played down the idea that he was overriding the advice of his military commanders or ignoring their views.

His interaction with military commanders has "been frequent," said Lawrence Di Rita, a top aide to Mr. Rumsfeld.

"It's been intense," Mr. Di Rita said, "but always there's been ample opportunity for military judgment to be applied against the policies of the United States."

Some retired officers, however, said they believed the momentum was turning against Mr. Rumsfeld.

"Are the floodgates opening?" asked one retired Army general, who drew a connection between the complaints and the fact that President Bush's second term ends in less than three years. "The tide is changing, and folks are seeing the end of this administration."

No active duty officers have joined the call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation. In interviews, some currently serving general officers expressed discomfort with the campaign against Mr. Rumsfeld, which has been spearheaded by, among others, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who headed the United States Central Command in the late 1990's before retiring from the Marine Corps. Some of the currently serving officers said they feared the debate risked politicizing the military and undercutting its professional ethos.

Some say privately they disagree with aspects of the Bush administration's handling of the war. But many currently serving officers, regardless of their views, say respect for civilian control of the military requires that they air differences of opinion in private and stay silent in public.

"I support my secretary of defense," Lt. General John Vines, who commands the Army's 18th Airborne Corps, said when questioned after a speech in Washington on Thursday about the calls for Mr. Rumsfeld to step down. "If I publicly disagree with my civilian leadership, I think I've got to resign. My advice should be private."

Some of the tensions between Mr. Rumsfeld and the uniformed military services date back to his arrival at the Pentagon in early 2001. Mr. Rumsfeld's assertion of greater civilian control over the military and his calls for a slimmer, faster force were viewed with mistrust by many senior officers, while his aggressive, sometimes abrasive style also earned him enmity.

Mr. Rumsfeld's critics often point to his treatment of Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, who told Congress a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that occupying the country could require "several hundred thousand troops," rather than the smaller force that was later provided. General Shinseki's estimate was publicly dismissed by Pentagon officials.

"Rumsfeld has been contemptuous of the views of senior military officers since the day he walked in as secretary of defense. It's about time they got sick and tired," Thomas E. White, the former Army secretary, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. Mr. White was forced out of his job by Mr. Rumsfeld in April of 2003.

Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold of the Marine Corps, who retired in late 2002, has said he regarded the American invasion of Iraq unnecessary. He issued his call for replacing Mr. Rumsfeld in an essay in the current edition of Time magazine. General Newbold said he regretted not opposing the invasion of Iraq more vigorously, and called the invasion peripheral to the job of defeating Al Qaeda.

General Swannack, by contrast, continues to support the invasion but said that Mr. Rumsfeld had micromanaged the war in Iraq, rather than leaving it to senior commanders there, including Gen. George W. Casey Jr. of the Army, the top American officer in Iraq, and Gen. John P. Abizaid of the Army, the top officer in the Middle East. "My belief is Rumsfeld does not really understand the dynamic of counterinsurgency warfare," General Swannack said.

The string of retired generals calling for Rumsfeld's removal has touched off a vigorous debate within the ranks of both active-duty and retired generals and admirals.

Some officers who have worked closely with Mr. Rumsfeld reject the idea that he is primarily to blame for the inability of American forces to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. One active-duty, four-star Army officer said he had not heard among his peers widespread criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld, and said he thought the criticism from his retired colleagues was off base. "They are entitled to their views, but I believe them to be wrong. And it is unfortunate they have allowed themselves to become in some respects, politicized."

Gen. Jack Keane, who was Army vice chief of staff in 2003 before retiring, said in the planning of the Iraq invasion, senior officers as much as the Pentagon's civilian leadership underestimated the threat of a long-term insurgency.

"There's shared responsibility here. I don't think you can blame the civilian leadership alone," he said.

Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army general, called for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation in March.

The criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld may spring from multiple motives. General Zinni, for example, is in the middle of a tour promoting a new book critical of the Bush administration.

General Riggs, who called for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation in an interview on Thursday with National Public Radio, left the Pentagon in 2004 after clashing with civilian leaders and then being investigated for potential misuse of contractor personnel.

But there were also signs that the spate of retired generals calling for Mr. Rumsfeld's departure was not finished. Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, who is retired from the Marine Corps, said in an interview Thursday he had received a telephone call from another retired general who was weighing whether to publicly join the calls for Mr. Rumsfeld's dismissal.

"He was conflicted, and when I hung up I didn't know which way he was going to go," General Van Riper said.

Hearing for Muslim Barred by U.S.

By JULIA PRESTON
The New York Times
April 14, 2006

Government lawyers clarified some mysteries yesterday and deepened others in the case of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar and leading European theologian of Islam who has been barred by the Bush administration from traveling to the United States since July 2004.

Papers the government presented at a hearing in federal court in New York revealed that, contrary to officials' statements, a clause in the USA Patriot Act that bans any foreigner who "endorses or espouses terrorist activity" was not the reason Mr. Ramadan's United States visa was revoked. The government also said it did not intend to bar Mr. Ramadan in the future based on that clause.

But the government also said that Mr. Ramadan's case had been and remained a national security matter, and that statements he made in recent interviews with American consular officials in Switzerland had raised new "serious questions" about whether he should be allowed to come to the United States.

Neither the government's documents nor its lawyer, David S. Jones, an assistant United States attorney, explained why Mr. Ramadan was first banned or provided any detail about the new concerns.

The hearing, before Judge Paul A. Crotty in Federal District Court in Manhattan, came in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three academic and writers' organizations who have invited Mr. Ramadan to speak. The groups claim their First Amendment rights have been violated because they cannot meet with Mr. Ramadan.

Mr. Ramadan's difficulties began in 2004, after he had been hired by the University of Notre Dame as a tenured professor. On July 28, 2004, the State Department revoked his visa without official explanation. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told reporters then that the visa had been pulled under the clause barring foreigners who support terrorism.

In December 2004, after Notre Dame unsuccessfully pressed the administration to reconsider, Mr. Ramadan resigned his position at the university and took a nontenured professor's position at Oxford University in England.

After receiving a raft of invitations to speak in the United States, Mr. Ramadan applied again for a visa in September. He was interviewed twice by consular officials in Bern in December. In a recent interview, Mr. Ramadan said he had spoken openly about his opposition to the American occupation of Iraq.

The government would not predict when it would decide on the visa, leaving Judge Crotty frustrated.

The plaintiff's "First Amendment rights can't wait forever," he said.

One group in the suit, the PEN American Center, has invited Mr. Ramadan to speak at a conference in New York starting April 25.

Judge Crotty did not rule, but indicated he was inclined to order the government to at least make a decision about Mr. Ramadan.

U.S. stops U.N. criticism of Israel

UNITED NATIONS, April 13 (UPI) -- The United States has blocked a U.N. Security Council attempt to criticize Israel for attacks last weekend against the Palestinians.

The Israelis had said they were responding to Palestinian attacks.

"After lengthy deliberation we have concluded there will be no presidential statement on recent developments in the Middle East, which I think is the correct result," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, told reporters on emerging from a closed door session of the panel of 15 Thursday evening.

Such a statement is reached by consensus rather than a vote and is read out to reporters, while a presidential statement is a U.N. document read out in the formal council chamber.

"The United State is very much of the view that the draft text was not fair and balanced and consistent with our longstanding policy that we are not prepared to support text that distorts the reality in the region," Bolton said. "So, we did reject it."

Since the United States, as one of the five permanent members of the council, holds veto power. It meant an informal death to the statement, which, could be converted into a resolution and put to a vote carried out in the chamber where the United States could then cast a veto.

But sponsors of the measure, Qatar, representing Arab members of the United Nations, opted instead for a formal meeting of the council Monday afternoon to "debate" the issue without a vote, meaning all 191 U.N. members are eligible to speak.

Rumsfeld Rebuked By Retired Generals

Ex-Iraq Commander Calls for Resignation
By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post
April 13, 2006

The retired commander of key forces in Iraq called yesterday for Donald H. Rumsfeld to step down, joining several other former top military commanders who have harshly criticized the defense secretary's authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.

"I think we need a fresh start" at the top of the Pentagon, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, said in an interview. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."

Batiste noted that many of his peers feel the same way. "It speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," he said earlier yesterday on CNN.

Batiste's comments resonate especially within the Army: It is widely known there that he was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there but he declined because he no longer wished to serve under Rumsfeld. Also, before going to Iraq, he worked at the highest level of the Pentagon, serving as the senior military assistant to Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense.

Batiste said he believes that the administration's handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of command and unity of effort. In other interviews, Batiste has said he thinks the violation of another military principle -- ensuring there are enough forces -- helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.

His comments follow similar recent high-profile attacks on Rumsfeld by three other retired flag officers, amid indications that many of their peers feel the same way.

"We won't get fooled again," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, who held the key post of director of operations on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 to 2002, wrote in an essay in Time magazine this week. Listing a series of mistakes such as "McNamara-like micromanagement," a reference to the Vietnam War-era secretary of defense, Newbold called for "replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach."

Last month, another top officer who served in Iraq, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he called Rumsfeld "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically." Eaton, who oversaw the training of Iraqi army troops in 2003-2004, said that "Mr. Rumsfeld must step down."

Also, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a longtime critic of Rumsfeld and the administration's handling of the Iraq war, has been more vocal lately as he publicizes a new book, "The Battle for Peace."

"The problem is that we've wasted three years" in Iraq, said Zinni, who was the chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, in the late 1990s. He added that he "absolutely" thinks Rumsfeld should resign.

On Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, who is the first Marine to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attempted to tamp down the revolt of the retired generals. No officers were muzzled during the planning of the invasion of Iraq, he said.

"We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us," he said at a Pentagon briefing. "The articles that are out there about folks not speaking up are just flat wrong."

Lawrence T. Di Rita, a counselor to the Defense Department, disagreed with the retired generals' characterizations of Rumsfeld's style. "People are entitled to their opinions. What they are not entitled to is their own facts. . . . The assertions about inadequate exposure to military judgment are just fundamentally incorrect," he said.

Other retired generals said they think it is unlikely that the denunciations of Rumsfeld and his aides will cease.

"A lot of them are hugely frustrated," in part because Rumsfeld gave the impression that "military advice was neither required nor desired" in the planning for the Iraq war, said retired Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, who until last year commanded Marine forces in the Pacific Theater. He said he is sensing much anger among Americans over the administration's handling of the war and thinks the continuing criticism from military professionals will fuel that anger as the November elections approach. He declined to discuss his own views.

Another retired officer, Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs, said he believes that his peer group is "a pretty closemouthed bunch" but that, even so, his sense is "everyone pretty much thinks Rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out."

He emphatically agrees, Riggs said, explaining that he believes Rumsfeld and his advisers have "made fools of themselves, and totally underestimated what would be needed for a sustained conflict."

Military experts expressed some concern about the new outspokenness of retired generals.

"I think it flatly is a bad thing," said Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina who writes frequently on civilian-military relations. He said he worries that it could undermine civilian control of the military, especially by making civilian leaders feel that that they need to be careful about what they say around officers, for fear of being denounced as soon as they retire.

"How can you prosecute a war if the military and civilians don't trust each other?" Kohn asked.

Also, the generals themselves may be partly to blame for the situation in Iraq, along with Rumsfeld and the White House, said Michael Vickers, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.

"It's just absurd to lay the blame on Don Rumsfeld alone," he said.

Data Leaks Persist From Afghan Base

A computer drive sold at a bazaar for $40 may hold the names of spies for the United States who inform on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times
April 13, 2006

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — A computer drive sold openly Wednesday at a bazaar outside the U.S. air base here holds what appears to be a trove of potentially sensitive American intelligence data, including the names, photographs and telephone numbers of Afghan spies informing on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The flash memory drive, which a teenager sold for $40, holds scores of military documents marked "secret," describing intelligence-gathering methods and information — including escape routes into Pakistan and the location of a suspected safe house there, and the payment of $50 bounties for each Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter apprehended based on the source's intelligence.

The documents appear to be authentic, but the accuracy of the information they contain could not be independently verified.

On its face, the information seems to jeopardize the safety of intelligence sources working secretly for U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan, which would constitute a serious breach of security. For that reason, The Times has withheld personal information and details that could compromise military operations.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan said an investigation was underway into what shopkeepers at the bazaar describe as ongoing theft and resale of U.S. computer equipment from the Bagram air base. The facility is the center of intelligence-gathering activities and includes a detention center for suspected members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups flown in from around the world.

"Members of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command are conducting an investigation into potential criminal activity," a statement said.

The top U.S. commander here, Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, has ordered a review of policies and procedures for keeping track of computer hardware and software.

"Coalition officials regularly survey bazaars across Afghanistan for the presence of contraband materials, but thus far have not uncovered sensitive or classified items," the statement added.

The credibility and reliability of some intelligence sources identified in the documents is marked as unknown.

Other operatives, however, appear to be of high importance, including one whose information, the document says, led to the apprehension of seven Al Qaeda suspects in the United States.

One document describes a source as having "people working for him" in 11 Afghan cities. "The potential for success with this contact is unlimited," the report says.

Even the names of people identified as the sources' wives and children are listed — details that could put them at risk of retaliation by insurgents who have boasted about executing dozens of people suspected of spying for U.S. forces.

The drive includes descriptions of Taliban commanders' meetings in neighboring Pakistan and maps of militants' infiltration and escape routes along its border with Afghanistan.

In another folder, there is a diagram of a mosque and madrasa, or Islamic school, where an informant said fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had stayed in Pakistan.

Another document describes in detail how a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the Taliban's former mentors, tried to recruit an Afghan spying for the U.S. by promising him $500 a month.

Some of the documents can't be opened without a password, but most are neither locked nor encrypted.

Numerous files indicate the flash drive may have belonged to a member of the Army's 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), based at Ft. Bragg, N.C. The unit is operating in southern Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led coalition is battling a growing insurgency.

Some of the computer files are dated as recently as this month, while others date to 2004. The clerk who sold the computer drive said an Afghan worker smuggled it out of the Bagram base Tuesday, a day after The Times first reported that military secrets were available at several stalls at the bazaar.

The 1-gigabyte flash drive sold at the bazaar Wednesday is almost full and contains personal snapshots, Special Forces training manuals, records of "direct action" training missions in South America, along with numerous computer slide presentations and documents marked "secret."

There is also a detailed "Site Security Survey" describing the layout of the Special Forces unit's "Low Visibility Operating Base" in southwestern Afghanistan. Another document outlines procedures for defending the base if it comes under attack, and there are several photographs of the walls and areas inside the perimeter.

The drive holds detailed information on a handful of Afghan informants identified by name and the number of contacts with U.S. handlers. In some cases, photographs of the sources are attached.

A report on a spy involved with a code-named operation says the Afghan has been used in "cross border operations." But it cautions that an American officer "has come to the conclusion that Contact may or may not be as security conscious as thought to be or expected."

The report describes a potential "low-level source" who reportedly has "brought in active and inactive Taliban and Al Qaeda associates/operators who have expressed a desire to repatriate/end conflict peacefully."

The man is identified as a former ISI agent in the 1980s, during the U.S.-backed mujahedin war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. He also provided a document on Al Qaeda's cell structure to the CIA, the report adds.

The document also names the man's wife and children and lists his cellphone number.

It describes the informant as very punctual, with a good sense of humor. Politically, it adds, he is "much like a Republican in the United States."

The computer files also provide a rare look at how the U.S. military contracts and pays its Afghan spies, and the commitments they make in signed contracts, written in English.

In a two-page "Record of Oral Commitment," marked "secret" and dated Jan. 28, 2005, a source agreed to work for the U.S. Army by providing information on Al Qaeda, the Taliban and an allied militia, the Hizb-i-Islami, led by fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

"The source will be paid $15 USD for each mission he completes that has verified information," the agreement stipulates. "This sum will not exceed a total of $300 USD in a 1-month period," the report says. The sum rises to $500 a month for information "deemed of very high importance."

And there are serious consequences for any breaches of the commitment, such as failing to disclose information on the terrorist organizations or missing either of two meetings scheduled for each month.

The penalty for "using his new skills to participate in activities that are deemed" anti-U.S. or against the Afghan government is "termination with prejudice," according to the document.

Another document describes how an Afghan informant for the U.S. military said he was contacted by an official from Pakistan's Embassy, who asked the Afghan to spy for the ISI.

A high-level ISI official then offered the Afghan $500 a month and other incentives, the document says.

The report adds that the ISI official "said that he's looking for an U.S. Embassy employee to aid in the bombing of the embassy that [he] is planning." The ISI official promised he would pay the Afghan $100,000 after the destruction of the embassy in Kabul.

The report concludes: "Everything that [Pakistani] told the Source could be made up or inflated as to look good and exciting to the Source; a possible ploy to get the Source to 'sign up' for the ISI…. However, my 'gut' tells me otherwise, and this guy really is trying to recruit my source for the other side."

Beauty Queen Goes Into Hiding

Washington Times
April 13, 2006

AMMAN, Jordan -- Iraq's newly crowned beauty queen has gone into hiding, fearing she will be targeted by Islamic militants who reportedly threatened to kill other women who participated in a Baghdad pageant last week.

Silva Shahakian, an Iraqi Christian, received the title of Miss Iraq when the initial winner stepped down after receiving death threats and two runners-up bowed out, a person familiar with the event said yesterday.

If It Comes To Force In Iran...

Though undesirable, military action may become necessary. Now is the time to prepare.
By James Jay Carafano
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 13, 2006

Iran wants nukes. Months of diplomatic efforts to dissuade the anti-American mullahs from their quest have yielded one muted and toothless United Nations resolution, and zero concessions.

Iran's intransigence, capped by this week's thumb-in-the-eye announcement that the nation has started enriching uranium, forces realists to consider alternatives to diplomacy. Common wisdom holds that there are no good military options. Here, common wisdom is right.

But just because military options are not attractive does not mean they should be ruled out. Though we are not there, the time may come when Iran's determination to play with nuclear fire makes bad options look better and better.

The military options at America's disposal range from the "merely" troubling, difficult and expensive, to the truly horrifying.

Option 1: Surgical attacks. The least unattractive option, it would be hard to pull off. Israel's quick-strike destruction of Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility 25 years ago cannot be replicated in Iran. The mullahs have dispersed, hardened and hidden nuclear installations and facilities throughout the country. Putting them out of commission would require a sustained and widespread campaign of air and missile strikes. Some locations would likely require American boots on the ground. Not an impossible task, but not quick and easy - or clean.

Option 2: Invasion. An even messier option, this would look something like the invasion of Iraq, only a bit tougher. Ultimately, Iran's military would be defeated. But U.S. military forces would be strained severely - a situation that would continue throughout an unpredictable and costly occupation. With unfinished business in Iraq and other critical commitments - such as defending South Korea, watching the Taiwan Strait, and supporting homeland security - this option hinges on America's willingness to commit to real and sustained increases in defense spending in the years ahead.

Option 3: Nuke 'em. The "rubble don't make trouble" approach is the least viable. Absent a clear, present and immediate threat of nuclear attack, Americans instinctively recoil from the thought of overthrowing even the maddest tyrant if the price tag includes millions of innocent dead.

Fortunately, additional defense-related options exist. Though they may not keep Iran from building a bomb, they can help make the neighborhood safer.

For starters, we can beef up the Proliferation Security Initiative, a multinational effort to break up networks trying to spread weapons of mass destruction technologies and materials to terrorists and other bad actors. The initiative has succeeded in interdicting shipments of dangerous materials, and it's our best hope of stopping delivery of a covert nuclear weapon.

Continued success on this front requires that we keep one step ahead of the bad guys, by beefing up intelligence assets and modernizing our Coast Guard and naval forces.

We also need to get serious about Theater Missile Defense. We're already working with friends and allies to establish a mix of air-, land- and sea-based defenses that can destroy ballistic missiles in flight. We should put these efforts into overdrive to protect our friends in the region.

To further pose a credible military deterrent to Iran, the United States also must pump up its special operations and human intelligence resources, and arrange ready access to the Middle East.

Today, our special ops are overstretched. The Pentagon should stop using these troops for foreign training assignments and other jobs that can be handled by conventional units. And it should bolster their ranks and expand human intelligence assets, ensuring that they have the language skills, area knowledge, and detailed and accountable intelligence needed to operate in Iran.

Finally, the Pentagon should nail down basing options in the region. That doesn't mean permanent bases - just agreements with friends who will let us use their territory, waters and air space to launch and sustain operations against Iran, should they become necessary.

There are no easy solutions for the threat posed by the nuke-hungry mullahs of Iran. But appropriate military options exist. To be able to exercise these options successfully - and to provide maximum deterrent effect - we must start making the right military investments now.

James Jay Carafano is senior research fellow for national security and homeland security in the Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

Will Arab States Underwrite Hamas Government?

Hamas seeks grass-roots support in Islamic world to wrest additional Arab aid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Mohammed Daraghmeh
April 11, 2006

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Fed up with unmet promises of aid for the cash-starved Palestinian Authority, Hamas is organizing protests across the Arab and Islamic world to pressure governments to send money, a Hamas leader said Tuesday.

Hamas' refusal to renounce its violent, anti-Israel ideology after its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January has led Israel, the United States and the European Union to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from a government they view as terrorist.

Hamas initially boasted that it would make up the shortfall by appealing to the Arab and Muslim world. But Arab states have so far failed to back up their rhetorical solidarity with the Palestinians with money, so Hamas is now pinning its hopes on grass-roots support.

“Don't forget that Hamas has broad support in the Arab and Islamic world, and that is something Western governments apparently have not realized,” said Farhat Assad, a Hamas leader in the West Bank.

Unrest in the already volatile West Bank and Gaza Strip is liable to grow because of the government's inability to pay government employees.

Arab League official Mohammad Sobeih said no new funds have been sent to the Palestinians since the new government took office, though some nations are paying off previous pledges. He said Algeria sent $37 million to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, bypassing the Hamas-led government.

Analysts say Arab states are reluctant in part because they see Hamas as part of a global Islamic movement that is challenging autocratic Arab regimes.

“You're talking about a democratically elected Islamic government that is part of the wider Muslim Brotherhood network in the region,” said Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group in Amman, Jordan.

“If that experiment succeeds, then the other parts of the Muslim Brotherhood will be clamoring for elections themselves and feel emboldened to achieve power and leadership through the ballot box,” Rabbani said.

In addition, the reluctance of Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait to cross the United States is another reason for their stinginess.

“They're definitely looking at Washington,” said Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, a senior research fellow in Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University. “They don't want to be seen as overly supportive of the Hamas government.”

A Jordan-based Arab diplomat, citing signals sent by Washington, said he doubted that oil-rich Gulf Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, would step in to make up for the shortfall of Western aid.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss Arab contributions to the Palestinians.

In one sign that Arab nations are taking U.S. concerns into consideration, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit declined to meet this week with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Zahar of Hamas, in Cairo, saying his schedule was too packed.

Even Iran, which is engaged in a standoff with the West over the Iranian nuclear program, is aware of Washington's “clear messages,” Rabbani said.

“Iran has problems of its own,” Rabbani said. “I don't think it's going to go out of its way to create an additional one.”

Even before Hamas rose to power, Arab states had a history of shortchanging the Palestinian Authority.

In 2002, the members of the Arab League promised to donate $55 million a month to the Palestinian Authority. But since 2003, Arab countries have paid out just $761 million – just 30 percent of the promised amount over that period. And at the last Arab summit in March, pledges did not increase, despite the Palestinian Authority's dire financial situation.

The late Yasser Arafat's tilt toward Saddam Hussein before the 1991 Gulf War, and decades-old Palestinian attempts to topple the regimes in Jordan and Lebanon when living there in exile created bad blood with the Arab world, analysts said.

Arab states “would like to see a Palestinian state, but the history of relations is mixed,” said Shimon Shamir, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt and Jordan.

The Disappearing President

Maybe good government could be good politics.
The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A16

CAN THIS PRESIDENCY be saved? President Bush's approval rating has plummeted to a dismal 38 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC News poll. Democrats will rejoice at their improving prospects of recovering a majority in Congress. But a damaged president governing for nearly three more years in a dangerous world is no cause for rejoicing. With that in mind, we offer Mr. Bush, at no charge, some advice on a fresh start.

The president's two largest handicaps aren't going away. He's spending most of his political capital, as he noted recently, on the war in Iraq. He's right to do so: As long as there remains a chance of achieving a political settlement in Iraq, that must be the president's first priority. He could be more engaged and more open to fresh thinking; he could, for example, embrace the new bipartisan commission on Iraq policy established at the urging of Congress -- especially of Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) -- and led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). But nothing he does on Iraq is likely to do him any good in the polls.

Nor will the poisonous partisanship in Washington, with Democrats united in their desire to see Mr. Bush fail while his erstwhile Republican allies scurry for cover. Mr. Bush wasn't interested in bipartisanship when he was flying high; he's certainly not going to find it now. So we propose no initiatives that, however needed, would require radical cooperation across the aisle -- no entitlement reform, no reshaping of the tax code.

Nonetheless, there are things Mr. Bush could do. He spent his first five years insisting that research on climate change is all the government need do. But the danger signs have steadily strengthened, the cost of inaction could be catastrophic, and there is ample space for creative policies that would begin to address the problem without harming the economy. Imagine if he embraced the evidence, and the opportunity.

He could seize hold of the immigration debate, where he has provided wavering leadership at best, to insist not only on comprehensive, generous reform but also on a deepened relationship with Mexico, including investment aid, that would offer the ultimate best hope for solving the border problem. Mr. Bush could renew his oft-stated commitment to ethical government by championing lobbying reform. He could give meaning to his statement of seven months ago, in an artfully staged speech from New Orleans: "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action." That's the last we heard of it; what if he decided to show it wasn't just a sound bite to get him through hurricane season?

Or imagine the positive shock he could deliver by announcing that he would no longer tolerate the scandal of U.S. abuse of detainees, eight of whom have been tortured to death and at least 98 of whom have died in custody. Acknowledging the long-term damage done to the nation by the mistreatment, and by the refusal to punish any but the lowest-level servicemen, Mr. Bush could promise to reform the system, allow the Red Cross into his secret prisons, and work with Congress to provide a legal framework for detention, interrogation and trials.

Could good policy and good politics go together? When you've tried everything else, it's worth a shot.

Iraq Boycotts Talks After Egyptian Leader's Remarks

By Associated Press
April 12, 2006

BAGHDAD — Iraq won't participate in a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on the efforts to stabilize the country because of recent remarks by Egypt's president questioning the loyalty of Shiites, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Tuesday.

During an interview with Al-Arabiya television that aired Saturday, President Hosni Mubarak angered Iraqi leaders by saying Shiites in Iraq and the Middle East are more loyal to Iran than to their own countries. He also said Iraq was on the brink of civil war.

“We have taken a decision not to participate in the conference” today, al-Jaafari said after criticizing Mubarak's comments.

Mubarak's remarks reflect a concern among Arab leaders that Iran has too much influence in Iraq and that its Islamic theocracy could spill over into their largely Sunni countries. Iraq is one of the few Arab nations with a Shiite majority like that in Iran, a non-Arab country.

Al-Jaafari, who is a Shiite, complained that the Egyptians had still not provided a satisfactory explanation for the comments. He said Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari would not take part in the Cairo meeting.

The boycott of today's meeting in Cairo may signal a deepening rift between Iraq's Shiite- and Kurdish-led government and Sunni-led Arab nations, including regional powerhouse Egypt.

“Definitely Iran has influence for Shiites,” Mubarak said in the interview. “Shiites are 65% of the Iraqis. … Most of the Shiites are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in,” he added.

Meanwhile, three American soldiers were killed Tuesday north of Baghdad by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said. The military also said a soldier died Monday of wounds suffered the day before in fighting in Anbar province west of the capital. Another soldier was killed Sunday when his vehicle was hit by a blast near Balad.

In Baghdad, a car bombing killed five people, and three others died when a bomb exploded on a minibus, police told the Associated Press. Both attacks were in Shiite areas of the capital, the authorities said.

Police also said they found the bodies of 24 people, apparent victims of death squads. Most of the bodies were found in Baghdad.

U.S. Options On Confronting Iran Limited

Tehran's announcement on nuclear enrichment calls into question assumptions made in Washington about using pressure on the regime.
By Paul Richter
Los Angeles Times
April 12, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush, who has defined his dealings with Iran in terms of confrontation since the early days of his administration, may have been drawn one step closer to a showdown after Tehran asserted Tuesday that it had successfully produced enriched uranium that can be used as nuclear fuel.

Through years of tough talk and veiled threats, Bush and members of his administration have been the chief proponents of ratcheting up international pressure to persuade Iran's leaders to accede to demands that they forswear atomic weapons and steer clear of nuclear enrichment work. In its new national security manifesto, the White House warned in stark terms last month that diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program must succeed "if confrontation is to be avoided."

But Tuesday's announcement is certain to raise questions not only about Bush's approach to the Iranian nuclear issue, but also about other U.S. judgments, such as whether U.S. intelligence agencies are able to accurately assess Iran's capabilities and intentions.

U.S. officials have based their approach toward Iran on a conviction that sustained pressure from the world community would force the Iranian leadership to back down, arguing that this has long been Iran's pattern.

Iran's announcement "seems to negate that idea," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"What they're trying to say is, 'That type of pressure isn't going to work, and we'll meet pressure with our own countermeasures,' " Takeyh said.

Bush administration officials have rejected suggestions that they negotiate directly with Iran. But they have pursued a diplomatic course from a distance, backing efforts by European negotiators while constantly criticizing Iran, refusing to disavow U.S. military options and pushing for international sanctions by the United Nations.

If that approach has proven ineffective, Bush is likely to face questions from across the political spectrum about whether a different approach — softer or harder — may have been better.

The Iranians insist their only objective is to develop a peaceful, civilian nuclear energy program. And they say they have now succeeded in enriching uranium to the concentration needed for civilian nuclear power generation. It is unclear whether they yet have the kind of mastery of the process they would need to enrich uranium on an industrial scale necessary to eventually produce nuclear weapons fuel.

Bush, for his part, has declared in the past that he wants to prevent Iran from enriching uranium even to the point necessary for civilian use, fearing that capability could lead to the ability to produce a bomb.

"Enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil … is not acceptable to the international community," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last month.

Iran's announcement appeared to be timed to convince the U.N. Security Council that there was no longer any need for the council to press the country to halt its nuclear research program. "They want to be able to present this as a fait accompli," Takeyh said.

Such a defiant declaration would quickly test the U.S. plan to confront Iran with a unified world response. Some countries may be galvanized to more forceful action by the Iranian news. But others, such as Russia, have already been convinced that Iran was going to gain nuclear capability sooner or later. For them, the news may further lessen their appetite for a dispute with Tehran.

Within the United States, the enrichment announcement is likely to bring a challenge to the Bush policy from conservative opponents of containment who have been urging more forceful action, fearing that the administration was taking too much time trying to build a consensus and gradually increasing pressure on Tehran.

U.S. intelligence officials have estimated that Iran is five to 10 years away from being able to develop a nuclear bomb. But even before Tuesday's announcement, Israel had estimated that Iran could gain the knowledge needed to build a bomb within the next few months. Israeli newspapers Tuesday quoted unidentified senior officials as saying that they believe Iran's claims are accurate and in line with Israel's forecasts.

Last month, staff members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, told foreign diplomats in briefings that they believed the Iranians were moving faster than expected with their small-scale enrichment efforts. They predicted that Tehran might be able to build a bomb in three years.

"If it turns out that the Iranians have been moving a heck of a lot faster than we thought, we're going to have to consider ways to press them sooner," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "If it turns out that the Iranians were making a lot of progress, and our estimates were too optimistic, then we've got a problem here."

One U.S. official, however, defended the U.S. estimate, saying that Iran's most recent claims still put it years away from being capable of building a bomb. The Iranian claims and the U.S. predictions still are "broadly consistent," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing U.S. intelligence estimates.

2 Treated After Exposure To Chemicals At Lab

Washington Post
April 12, 2006
Pg. B5

Two employees of an Army research laboratory were taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore yesterday after a brief power outage exposed them to small amounts of VX and mustard agent, Aberdeen Proving Ground officials said.

Fifteen people at the Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense were monitored for possible exposure, and two later asked to be treated at the hospital, saidproving ground spokesman George Mercer.

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War

Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.

None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission. The contents of the final report, "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers," remain classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. Those interviewed took care not to discuss the classified portions of their work.

"There was no connection to anything biological," said one expert who studied the trailers. Another recalled an epithet that came to be associated with the trailers: "the biggest sand toilets in the world."

Primary Piece of Evidence

The story of the technical team and its reports adds a new dimension to the debate over the U.S. government's handling of intelligence related to banned Iraqi weapons programs. The trailers -- along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was claimed to be a nuclear weapons program -- were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.

Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied allegations that intelligence was hyped or manipulated in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But officials familiar with the technical team's reports are questioning anew whether intelligence agencies played down or dismissed postwar evidence that contradicted the administration's public views about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Last year, a presidential commission on intelligence failures criticized U.S. spy agencies for discounting evidence that contradicted the official line about banned weapons in Iraq, both before and after the invasion.

Spokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified. A spokesman for the DIA asserted that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The survey group's final report in September 2004 -- 15 months after the technical report was written -- said the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were "almost certainly intended" for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.

"Whether the information was offered to others in the political realm I cannot say," said the DIA official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

The technical team's findings had no apparent impact on the intelligence agencies' public statements on the trailers. A day after the team's report was transmitted to Washington -- May 28, 2003 -- the CIA publicly released its first formal assessment of the trailers, reflecting the views of its Washington analysts. That white paper, which also bore the DIA seal, contended that U.S. officials were "confident" that the trailers were used for "mobile biological weapons production."

Throughout the summer and fall of 2003, the trailers became simply "mobile biological laboratories" in speeches and press statements by administration officials. In late June, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared that the "confidence level is increasing" that the trailers were intended for biowarfare. In September, Vice President Cheney pronounced the trailers to be "mobile biological facilities," and said they could have been used to produce anthrax or smallpox.

By autumn, leaders of the Iraqi Survey Group were publicly expressing doubts about the trailers in news reports. David Kay, the group's first leader, told Congress on Oct. 2 that he had found no banned weapons in Iraq and was unable to verify the claim that the disputed trailers were weapons labs. Still, as late as February 2004, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet continued to assert that the mobile-labs theory remained plausible. Although there was "no consensus" among intelligence officials, the trailers "could be made to work" as weapons labs, he said in a speech Feb. 5.

Tenet, now a faculty member at Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, declined to comment for this story.

Kay, in an interview, said senior CIA officials had advised him upon accepting the survey group's leadership in June 2003 that some experts in the DIA were "backsliding" on whether the trailers were weapons labs. But Kay said he was not apprised of the technical team's findings until late 2003, near the end of his time as the group's leader.

"If I had known that we had such a team in Iraq," Kay said, "I would certainly have given their findings more weight."

A Defector's Tales

Even before the trailers were seized in spring 2003, the mobile labs had achieved mythic stature. As early as the mid-1990s, weapons inspectors from the United Nations chased phantom mobile labs that were said to be mounted on trucks or rail cars, churning out tons of anthrax by night and moving to new locations each day. No such labs were found, but many officials believed the stories, thanks in large part to elaborate tales told by Iraqi defectors.

The CIA's star informant, an Iraqi with the code name Curveball, was a self-proclaimed chemical engineer who defected to Germany in 1999 and requested asylum. For four years, the Baghdad native passed secrets about alleged Iraqi banned weapons to the CIA indirectly, through Germany's intelligence service. Curveball provided descriptions of mobile labs and said he had supervised work in one of them. He even described a catastrophic 1998 accident in one lab that left 12 Iraqis dead.

Curveball's detailed descriptions -- which were officially discredited in 2004 -- helped CIA artists create color diagrams of the labs, which Powell later used to argue the case for military intervention in Iraq before the U.N. Security Council.

"We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails," Powell said in the Feb. 5, 2003, speech. Thanks to those descriptions, he said, "We know what the fermenters look like. We know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like."

The trailers discovered in the Iraqi desert resembled the drawings well enough, at least from a distance. One of them, a flatbed trailer covered by tarps, was found in April by Kurdish fighters near the northern city of Irbil. The second was captured by U.S. forces near Mosul. Both were painted military green and outfitted with a suspicious array of gear: large metal tanks, motors, compressors, pipes and valves.

Photos of the trailers were quickly circulated, and many weapons experts were convinced that the long-sought mobile labs had been found.

Yet reaction from Iraqi sources was troublingly inconsistent. Curveball, shown photos of the trailers, confirmed they were mobile labs and even pointed out key features. But other Iraqi informants in internal reports disputed Curveball's story and claimed the trailers had a benign purpose: producing hydrogen for weather balloons.

Back at the Pentagon, DIA officials attempted a quick resolution of the dispute. The task fell to the "Jefferson Project," a DIA-led initiative made up of government and civilian technical experts who specialize in analyzing and countering biological threats. Project leaders put together a team of volunteers, eight Americans and a Briton, each with at least a decade of experience in one of the essential technical skills needed for bioweapons production. All were nongovernment employees working for defense contractors or the Energy Department's national labs.

The technical team was assembled in Kuwait and then flown to Baghdad to begin their work early on May 25, 2003. By that date, the two trailers had been moved to a military base on the grounds of one of deposed president Saddam Hussein's Baghdad palaces. When members of the technical team arrived, they found the trailers parked in an open lot, covered with camouflage netting.

The technical team went to work under a blistering sun in 110-degree temperatures. Using tools from home, they peered into vats, turned valves, tapped gauges and measured pipes. They reconstructed a flow-path through feed tanks and reactor vessels, past cooling chambers and drain valves, and into discharge tanks and exhaust pipes. They took hundreds of photographs.

By the end of their first day, team members still had differing views about what the trailers were. But they agreed about what the trailers were not.

"Within the first four hours," said one team member, who like the others spoke on the condition he not be named, "it was clear to everyone that these were not biological labs."

News of the team's early impressions leaped across the Atlantic well ahead of the technical report. Over the next two days, a stream of anxious e-mails and phone calls from Washington pressed for details and clarifications.

The reason for the nervousness was soon obvious: In Washington, a CIA analyst had written a draft white paper on the trailers, an official assessment that would also reflect the views of the DIA. The white paper described the trailers as "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program." It also explicitly rejected an explanation by Iraqi officials, described in a New York Times article a few days earlier, that the trailers might be mobile units for producing hydrogen.

But the technical team's preliminary report, written in a tent in Baghdad and approved by each team member, reached a conclusion opposite from that of the white paper.

Key Components Lacking

Team members and other sources intimately familiar with the mission declined to discuss technical details of the team's findings because the report remains classified. But they cited the Iraqi Survey Group's nonclassified, final report to Congress in September 2004 as reflecting the same conclusions.

That report said the trailers were "impractical for biological agent production," lacking 11 components that would be crucial for making bioweapons. Instead, the trailers were "almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen," the survey group reported.

The group's report and members of the technical team also dismissed the notion that the trailers could be easily modified to produce weapons.

"It would be easier to start all over with just a bucket," said Rod Barton, an Australian biological weapons expert and former member of the survey group.

The technical team's preliminary report was transmitted in the early hours of May 27, just before its members began boarding planes to return home. Within 24 hours, the CIA published its white paper, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants," on its Web site.

After team members returned to Washington, they began work on a final report. At several points, members were questioned about revising their conclusions, according to sources knowledgeable about the conversations. The questioners generally wanted to know the same thing: Could the report's conclusions be softened, to leave open a possibility that the trailers might have been intended for weapons?

In the end, the final report -- 19 pages plus a 103-page appendix -- remained unequivocal in declaring the trailers unsuitable for weapons production.

"It was very assertive," said one weapons expert familiar with the report's contents.

Then, their mission completed, the team members returned to their jobs and watched as their work appeared to vanish.

"I went home and fully expected that our findings would be publicly stated," one member recalled. "It never happened. And I just had to live with it."