Obama Bans Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document

AP
Published April 07, 2010

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.

The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."

The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document still was being written, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document will be the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on U.S. foreign policy, like his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used.

The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.

That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo, Egypt, and promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terror and winning the war of ideas.

"You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, 'We're building you a hospital so you don't become terrorists.' That doesn't make much sense," said National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy.

Ramamurthy runs the administration's Global Engagement Directorate, a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach "in pursuit of a host of national security objectives."

Since then, the division has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terror but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio.

Before diplomats go abroad, they hear from the Ramamurthy or his deputy, Jenny Urizar. When officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming.

Ramamurthy maintains a database of interviews conducted by 50 U.S. embassies worldwide. And business leaders from more than 40 countries head to Washington this month for an "entrepreneurship summit" for Muslim businesses.

"Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?" Ramamurthy said.

To deliver that message, Obama's speechwriters have taken inspiration from an unlikely source: former President Ronald Reagan. Visiting communist China in 1984, Reagan spoke to Fudan University in Shanghai about education, space exploration and scientific research.

He discussed freedom and liberty. He never mentioned communism or democracy.

"They didn't look up to the U.S. because we hated communism," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama's foreign policy speechwriter.

Like Reagan in China, Obama in Cairo made only passing references to terrorism. Instead he focused on cooperation. He announced the United States would team up to fight polio with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a multinational body based in Saudi Arabia.

The United States and the OIC had worked together before, but never with that focus.

"President Obama saw it as an opportunity to say, `We work on things far beyond the war on terrorism,"' said World Health Organization spokeswoman Sona Bari.

Polio is endemic in three Muslim countries -- Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- but some Muslim leaders have been suspicious of vaccination efforts, which they believed to be part of a CIA sterilization campaign. Last year, the OIC and religious scholars at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that parents should have their children vaccinated.

"We're probably entering into a whole new level of engagement between the OIC and the polio program because of the stimulus coming from the U.S. government," said Michael Galway, who works on polio eradication for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Centers for Disease Control also began working more closely with local Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria, a network that had been overlooked for years, said John Fitzsimmons, the deputy director of the CDC's immunization division.

Though health officials are reluctant to assign credit to any one action, new polio cases in Nigeria fell from 83 during the first quarter of last year to just one so far this year, Fitzsimmons said.

Public opinion polls also showed consistent improvement in U.S. sentiment within the Muslim world last year, although the viewpoints are still overwhelmingly negative, however.

Obama did not invent Muslim outreach. President George W. Bush gave the White House its first Quran, hosted its first Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan, and loudly stated support for Muslim democracies like Turkey.

But the Bush administration struggled with its rhetoric. Muslims criticized him for describing the war against terror as a "crusade" and labeling the invasion of Afghanistan "Operation Infinite Justice" -- words that were seen as religious. He regularly identified America's enemy as "Islamic extremists" and "radical jihadists."

Karen Hughes, a Bush confidant who served as his top diplomat to the Muslim world in his second term, urged the White House to stop.

"I did recommend that, in my judgment, it's unfortunate because of the way it's heard. We ought to avoid the language of religion," Hughes said. "Whenever they hear 'Islamic extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic fundamentalism,' they perceive it as a sort of an attack on their faith. That's the world view Osama bin Laden wants them to have."

Hughes and Juan Zarate, Bush's former deputy national security adviser, said Obama's efforts build on groundwork from Bush's second term, when some of the rhetoric softened. But by then, Zarate said, it was overshadowed by the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and a prolonged Iraq war.

"In some ways, it didn't matter what the president did or said. People weren't going to be listening to him in the way we wanted them to," Zarate said. "The difference is, President Obama had a fresh start."

Obama's foreign policy posture is not without political risk. Even as Obama steps up airstrikes on terrorists abroad, he has proven vulnerable to Republican criticism on security issues at home, such as the failed Christmas Day airline bombing and the announced-then-withdrawn plan to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.

Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist and former Bush adviser, is skeptical of Obama's engagement effort. It "doesn't appear to have created much in the way of strategic benefit" in the Middle East peace process or in negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said.

Obama runs the political risk of seeming to adopt politically correct rhetoric abroad while appearing tone deaf on national security issues at home, Feaver said.

The White House dismisses such criticism. In June, Obama will travel to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, and is expected to revisit many of the themes of his Cairo speech.

"This is the long-range direction we need to go in," Ramamurthy said.

Obama's national security strategy: A little George Bush, lots of Bill Clinton

By Samuel R. Berger
The Washington Post
Sunday, May 30, 2010; B04

President Obama's national security strategy released by the White House on Thursday, tackles a delicate but unavoidable question: How do we respond to security challenges in an era of financial distress at home and reordering of political power abroad?

For some time now, it has been clear that U.S. national security strategy needs rethinking. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the global economic crisis, cyber-terror threats and even the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico underscore that the challenges America faces in 2010 have changed, even from just a decade ago.

And while U.S. military supremacy is certainly not at risk, new international arrangements -- such as the shift in focus from the G-8 club of powerful nations to the G-20, which incorporates emerging countries such as China and Brazil -- are needed so that the costs and benefits of a stable international order are shared. The United States cannot solve most global threats without help, nor should we bear the burden alone.

Enter the national security strategy. These congressionally mandated documents can easily become laborious and impenetrable, or mere compendiums of bureaucratic pleading from various parts of the government. (Make sure you do right by Japan! Don't step on the Pentagon!) The challenge, which President Bill Clinton impressed upon me and his other advisers, is to provide a strategic framework that clarifies our stance to the rest of the world and informs administration decision-makers up and down the line. It's not a blueprint for action but a means to convey the president's principles and priorities.

In Obama's case, his sober and comprehensive 52-page strategy incorporates the new realities and breaks with past strategies in several key respects. But it also reflects an understanding that we face enduring challenges -- nuclear proliferation, terrorism and regional conflicts -- for which the best response is a return to fundamentals.

One such fundamental is economic strength. At a time when the financial crisis and the fiscal burden of two long wars have raised fears of an overextended America, the administration makes a case for economic and technological renewal as a crucial underpinning of U.S. security. Obama also argued this point in a West Point speech last weekend. "At no time in human history," he said, "has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy."

Another fundamental challenge is arms control and nuclear proliferation. By seeking strategic arms cuts with Russia, the president has returned to a long bipartisan tradition that languished during the prior administration. And by convening an international summit on securing nuclear material this spring, Obama has given new urgency and global purchase to the effort started in 1991 when Sens. Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar initiated a program to lock down nuclear materials.

On terrorism, the strategy builds on the past but breaks with it where necessary. Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama each have deployed many of America's tools: military power, homeland defense, law enforcement, sanctions, intelligence and vigorous efforts to cut off terrorist financing. But the critical difference in the Obama strategy is its rejection of the "global war on terror" lens through which the prior administration viewed the challenge. "This is not a global war against a tactic -- terrorism -- or a religion -- Islam," the new strategy says. "We are at war with a specific network, al-Qaeda, and its terrorist affiliates."

This sharper focus avoids alienating many in the Muslim world, ensures the support of key allies who never accepted the broader construct and prevents the overreactions that led us to forsake the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and turn our efforts to the unrelated threat from Saddam Hussein.

In perhaps the most dramatic departure from the strategy of its predecessor, the Obama administration has restored a less provocative policy on the use of military force. In the 2002 national security strategy, Bush articulated the rationale for preemptive war just weeks before seeking a U.N. resolution to invade Iraq. The new strategy endorses the principles that have guided administrations for decades: The use of force should be a last resort, should weigh all the costs and benefits and should have as much international support as possible. The administration reserves the right to act unilaterally -- against al-Qaeda and its allies, for example -- but resurrects the principle that Clinton described as "together when possible, alone when necessary."

Obama's critics have focused on his diplomatic engagement with hostile states such as Iran and North Korea. In the strategy, the president sets forth his rationale: to "create opportunities to resolve differences, strengthen the international community's support for our actions, learn about the intentions and nature of closed regimes, and plainly demonstrate to the publics within those nations that their governments are to blame for their isolation."

In the case of Iran, Washington's outstretched hand has not resulted in compliance. But attempts to engage have helped ensure that the world's attention is focused on Iran's intransigence rather than Washington's refusal to negotiate.

Without a doubt, there are gaps between principle and practice. Despite the administration's goal of doubling exports in the next five years, it has not put its muscle behind trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. And its call to respect human rights has at times been muted in the face of tough realities. Sixteen months into this administration, there has been much progress, but many of the true tests of this strategy lie ahead.

In the strategy's conclusions, the administration invokes an even earlier era, calling for both political parties to restore the cooperation and common purpose so crucial to our success during the dark days of the Cold War. Despite the intense debates at the time over nuclear arms control, Central America and detente, nearly all Americans supported the containment of communism.

In that same spirit, the administration's framework deserves bipartisan support. We can and should argue our differences over the detention of prisoners, methods to disarm dangerous states, how hard to push for democratic rights and the costs of climate-change legislation. But at the same time, we can rally around the overriding foreign policy goals spelled out in the strategy: renewing our economy at home to ensure leadership abroad, defeating al-Qaeda, succeeding in Afghanistan, preventing nuclear proliferation, curbing climate change and promoting an international order of enlightened self-interest, economic prosperity and the fundamental values upon which America is based.

Samuel R. Berger, chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, served as national security adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

Plight Of Iraq’s Refugees/Displaced Continuing

Joel Wing
musingsoniraq.blogspot.com
Friday, May 28, 2010

Iraq’s refugees are often ignored in reports on the improvements in the country. While security is much better and the government is attempting to bring in foreign investment to develop its oil and gas industry, the situation of several million Iraqi refugees and displaced is only getting worse. In February and March 2010 three organizations released reports on the problem. Those were Refugee International’s “Iraq: Humanitarian Needs Persist,” the Norwegian Refugee Council’s “Iraq Little new displacement but in the region of 2.8 million Iraqis remain internally displaced,” and the International Rescue Committee’s “A Rough Road Ahead, Uprooted Iraqis In Jordan, Syria, and Iraq."

Iraq’s refugee problem developed over several decades, and came in three waves. First Saddam Hussein forced out tens of thousands of Kurds, Shiites, and marsh Arabs for their opposition to his rule. There were also 80,000 Iraqis who lost their homes during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 that were still displaced after the U.S. invasion. The second wave came during the U.S. invasion and its immediate impact. Most of those were temporary however. The last wave occurred after the bombing of the Samarra shrine in February 2006 that set off the sectarian civil war. It’s estimated that before 2003 around 1 million Iraqis were displaced, 190,000 more lost their homes from March 2003 to February 2006, and that 1.55 million were forced to leave after the Samarra bombing.

Displacement began to decline in 2007 as violence decreased, and there have been very few new examples since then. In 2009 for example there were no major displacements reported. In 2010, 4,300 Christian families temporarily left their homes following attacks upon their communities. There were also 4,200 families from Tamim, Ninewa, Salahaddin, Maysan, Dhi Qar, and Basra who lost their homes due to a drought.

In total, there are an estimated 1.9 million refugees and 2 million displaced. Both of those numbers are contested. First, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered far fewer Iraqis living in other countries, and the number of displaced is likely out of date due to returns over the last several years.

Since the U.S. invasion over one million Iraqis have come back. From 2003 to 2009 approximately 745,630 displaced and 433,696 refugees have made the journey home, for a total of 1,179,326. The process of return has not come in the large, and steady waves as some hoped and predicted. For instance, 2004 saw the largest number of returns at around 291,997. The numbers were lower for the next three years before passing the 200,000 mark again in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

The major deterrents to coming back are the lack of jobs and security, and the demographic changes that occurred during the fighting. Baghdad for example, which saw the greatest number of Iraqis lose their homes, was once made up of mostly mixed neighborhoods, but is now largely segregated by sect. Most experts believe that refugees and those that left their provinces but still reside in Iraq are least likely to return.

Reclaiming property is another difficult matter. The Iraqi government doesn’t have the capabilities to deal with this legal issue, and hasn’t even taken care of all the property cases dating from before the war. As a result, the UNHCR reported in December 2009 that 15% of the displaced and 56% of the refugees that have returned have been unable to get their property back. Many people lack the papers to claim their lost land or homes. That also means that they are unable to send their kids to school, get services, or apply for government aid or food rations.

For those that continue to be displaced, their situation is getting worse. Of the 1.55 million that lose their homes from 2006-2007, 33% are estimated to be squatters, living in the worst conditions. They do not receive aid from the government, U.N., or non-governmental organizations. The authorities are actually opposed to helping them because they fear that will make their status permanent. In April 2010 the UNHCR reported that the number of squatters actually increased by 25% in 2009. It believes that 500,000 people live in camps, with the 260,000 in Baghdad alone.

The government has not created an effective program to deal with its refugee and displaced problem. In 2008 it began focusing upon getting Iraqis to come back, but that was largely a political move to improve the image of the country rather than to really help people. As part of the effort, $800 was offered to those that came back, but actually claiming the money proved to be a hard and arduous process due to the government bureaucracy. The authorities also issued orders to evacuate all squatters to make way for the returnees. Squatters were offered $250 per month for six months if they left. That plan was quickly dropped however.

The one exception has been in Diyala. There, the United Nations and the government have set up a largely successful program to accommodate returnees. Together they are working to rebuild 400 destroyed villages. Baghdad has committed $78 million to the project, which has resulted in 3,000 homes being rebuilt, with 6,000 more planned for 2010. Both Sunni and Shiite families have also gone back. In early 2010 the plan ran into problems, as authorities wanted to start rebuilding houses in the Khanaqin district of northern Diyala, which is a disputed territory. The district is controlled by the Kurds who object to Arab families going back there.

In the rest of the country, there is no organized aid campaign. The Ministry of Displacement and Migration is under funded, and the amount allocated for the displaced has gone up and down. The 2008 budget had $210 million set aside, compared to just $42 million in 2009, before going back up in 2010 to $170 million. The government also stopped registering refugees at the end of 2009. When they did, they only dealt with those that lost their homes after 2006, excluding several hundred thousand Iraqis who lost their homes during Saddam’s time or during the early years of the war.

Refugees also lack assistance. Life in other countries is becoming increasingly difficult for Iraqis. Many cannot send their kids to school and employing them is banned, although lots work illegally. Many are facing poverty as a result, as their savings have been depleted. The UNHCR has a cash grant program that helped 6,000 families in Jordan and 12,000 families in Syria last year. Its resources are limited however, as donations for Iraqi refugees have decreased in recent years. 60% are also 25 years or younger, and there are fears that they may become a permanent refugee population, lacking skills, experience, and education to move on with their lives.

Although accurate numbers are hard to come by approximately 2/3 of Iraq’s refugees and displaced are still without their homes. Although the process of return has begun, it has happened at an up and down pace. Those that come back still face difficulties, and the government, United Nations, and NGOs do not have the capabilities to adequately assist them. This has led some to speculate that the majority of Iraq’s refugees and many displaced that left their provinces may never come back. That means the Iraqi government, aid agencies, and the international community needs to come up with a comprehensive campaign to deal with this large population. The displaced need to get more assistance, and be integrated into their new provinces or countries. The problem is that planning is often shortsighted, and lacks adequate funding because Iraq is a fading issue for many in the world. If things don’t change, Iraqis could become the new Palestinians without the media attention, causing social, political, and economic problems in their host countries, and within Iraq itself.

SOURCES

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, “Iraq Little new displacement but in the region of 2.8 million Iraqis remain internally displaced,” Norwegian Refugee Council, 3/4/10

IRC Commission On Iraqi Refugees, “A Tough Road Home, Uprooted Iraqis In Jordan, Syria And Iraq,” International Rescue Committee, February 2010

Rao, Prashant, “Iraq squatter camp population on the rise: UN,” 4/11/10

Refugees International, “Iraq: Humanitarian Needs Persist,” 3/17/10

UNHCR, “Monthly Statistical Update on Return – December 2009,” 1/27/10

The 10 Worst U.N. Security Council Resolutions Ever

As the world's attention turns to whether yet another U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution will convince Iran to stop enriching uranium, a look at previous resolutions that have strained to meet expectations.

BY COLUM LYNCH
Foreign Policy
MAY 24, 2010

Following is a list of the 10 of the most ill-conceived, pointless, or just plain bad resolutions that have been adopted by the 15-nation security club. Some of these resolutions are perfectly fine, but contain flaws that have come back to haunt their authors. Others are good for some countries, but disastrous for others. And still others have simply outlived their expiration dates. In any case, they all highlight the fallibility of what dignitaries here like to call "this august body."

The Somalia Swan Song Resolution: 1863

Four days before Barack Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States, George W. Bush's administration pressed through a Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia, which was on the verge of losing its Ethiopian occupiers and being overrun by Islamist militants. The move had been strenuously opposed by the U.N. secretariat, which argued that there was no peace to keep in Somalia and no countries willing to send troops.

"Some view U.N. Security Council resolution 1863 as simply an empty gesture -- a call for a U.N. peace enforcement operation in Somalia by an outgoing Bush administration which knew the force would never be deployed," said Kenneth Menkhaus, a scholar at Davidson College. "But others argue this resolution was actively harmful. It handed the jihadist group al-Shabab a perfect mobilization tool against the U.S. and the U.N. precisely at the moment when an Ethiopian troop withdrawal from Somalia and a change of government in Somalia had put the Shabab on the defensive. The resolution only served to stir up a hornet's nest in Somalia."

Susan Rice, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was also cool to the idea. "I am skeptical, too, about the wisdom of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Somalia at this time," Rice said at her confirmation hearing.

The Condi & Sergei Do-Nothing Iran Resolution: 1835

Relations between the United States and Russia deteriorated dramatically after the United States sided with Georgia in its conflict with Russian troops over the breakaway republics Abkhazia and Ossetia. In the midst of the standoff, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report concluding that Iran had not complied with U.N. demands to cease its enrichment of uranium and that it could not verify whether Iran's nuclear program was peaceful. Such reports typically serve as a trigger for sanctions. Moscow made it clear it was not prepared to support a U.S. push for imposing new measures against Iran. But in an effort to demonstrate that relations between the two powers were not irreparable, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to put forward a resolution reiterating each country's support for existing U.N. agreements on Iran's nuclear program, but including no new measures.

The "We Command You to Stop Killing Your People ... Please" Resolution: 1706

In August, 2006, the U.N. Security Council passed this little-remembered resolution authorizing the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan, to use "all necessary means" to protect Darfuri civilians. But the resolution, which was championed by the Bush administration, required the consent of the Sudanese government to be implemented.

"Well, I think there's a chicken and egg situation here," then-U.S. ambassador John Bolton said after the vote. "I think once the resolution is passed, the consent may be forthcoming more rapidly than people think."

Sudan never gave it, and the U.N. was not prepared to fight its way into Darfur. It would be nearly another year before the council finally reached agreement with Sudan on a force that it would accept. On July 31, 2007, the Security Council passed resolution 1769, creating a hybrid United Nations/ African Union peacekeeping force that has been handicapped by a confused command structure and a shortage of advanced military hardware, such as attack helicopters.

"The go-to prescription for any problem is to throw a few peacekeepers at it, no matter how inappropriate or ineffectual," said John Prendergast, the cofounder of the Enough Project. "Instead of a diplomatic investment in a political solution, backed by real consequences for continued genocidal crimes, the U.S. supported a few thousand non-integrated African troops to be deployed throughout a vast, hostile Saharan terrain. They predictably had little impact, and the political problems continue to fester unaddressed."

The Pick Your Terrorist Resolution: 1530

In the hours after al Qaeda-inspired militants bombed a Spanish train in June 2004, in Madrid, killing 191 people, Spain's President José Maria Aznar mustered universal support in the Security Council for a resolution condemning the armed Basque separatist movement, ETA, for carrying out the attack. The Spanish initiative, taken three days before Spain's presidential election, showed how easy it is to bend the will of the council when a member is confronted with a national tragedy. But the ruse didn't work at home. Aznar was voted out of power, in part because of anger over what was seen as a political ploy to win support. Although no one in the Security Council still considers ETA responsible for the attack, the resolution still remains on the books.

"This is part of the modus operandi: well, we got it wrong, too bad, let's move on," said Colin Keating, a former New Zealand ambassador to the U.N. who now runs the Security Council Report. "This is not an organ that sees itself as accountable to anybody, and certainly not to the principle of historical accuracy."

The "Trust Me, He's a Terrorist" Resolutions: 1267 and 1390

Resolution 1267, passed after the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, imposed a series of travel and financial sanctions on members of the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan for refusing to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to stand trial for the embassy bombings. After the September 11 attacks, the council expanded the list of targets to al Qaeda and affiliated groups, setting the stage for the United States, Russia, and other countries to propose the inclusion of hundreds of individuals on a U.N. terror list.

The measures created a Kafkaesque predicament for those targeted by them. The accused had no legal recourse to challenge their listing, and in order to be removed, they had to convince the state that had placed them on the list in the first place. But some individuals had no way of even establishing which country had placed them on the list, because the procedures allow governments to secretly finger individuals.

Garad Jama, a Somali-born U.S. citizen who lives in Minneapolis, said his life was destroyed by the appearance on U.S. and U.N. terror lists. A year later, in August 2002, Jama was removed from both lists. "My life has been trouble," Jama told me then. "I have never had any connection with any terrorism."

Dick Marty, a Swiss investigator for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, denounced the U.N. blacklisting as a "flagrant injustice" that failed to meet basic human rights standards. He said the council's activities constituted a "dangerous erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms." European governments have been struggling for the past decade to revise the resolution and increase due-process protections.

The Genocide Rescue Brigade That Never Was Resolution: 912

In April 1994, as Rwandan extremists unleashed the largest mass killing operation in modern history, the Security Council reached agreement on Resolution 912, which called for the reduction in the size of an already under-equipped U.N. peacekeeping force. In a compromise, the United States allowed the resolution to include a provision that stated the council's willingness to consider any recommendations by then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali concerning the size and the mandate of the mission. Eight days later, Boutros-Ghali appealed to the council to reverse its decision, saying the U.N. mandate was insufficient to confront mass killings. But the United States blocked any decision by the council to expand the mission.

"The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility fro this tragedy," then U.S. President Bill Clinton said in a 1998 tour to Rwanda. "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide."

The Bosnian Unsafe Haven Resolution: 819

In 1992, the Bosnian Serb Army ethnically cleansed large swaths of north eastern and central Bosnia, forcing more than 100,000 civilians to flee to enclaves. On April 16, 1993, the U.N. passed Resolution 819, creating a "save haven" in Srebrenica, but then failed to muster enough forces to protect it. It compounded the problem by setting up other safe havens. The site would later become the site of the worst mass murder in Western Europe since World War II. Even at the time of the resolution's passage, Bosnians had little doubt as to the fecklessness of the gesture. Bosnia's U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Sacirbey, immediately denounced it as a cynical and meaningless act.

"The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever," then Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote in a 1999 review of the U.N.'s failure to protect the people of Srebrenica. "Through error, misjudgment and inability to recognize the scope of evil confronting us, we failed to do our part to save the people of Srebrenica."

The Iraqi Collateral Damage Resolutions: 661 and 687

These resolutions played a central role in the defeat, containment, and ultimate overthrow of Saddam Hussein, showing that U.N. resolutions can have extremely sharp teeth. But Resolution 661 of 1990, which imposed a comprehensive economic oil embargo, inflicted such extreme hardship on ordinary Iraqis that it has since been politically impossible to rally support for comprehensive embargos. Today, the council mostly imposes targeted sanctions aimed at a country's ruling elites.

Resolution 687 of 1991, known to U.N. diplomats as the Mother of All Resolutions, set the terms of Hussein's military defeat in the first Gulf War and required he destroy the country's weapons of mass destruction. (A decade later, the U.S. and Britain cited Iraq's alleged violation of this resolution as the legal justification for their overthrow of Saddam Hussein, against the objections of other council members.)

This resolution in many ways started out as an unqualified success, leading to Iraq's destruction of its WMD program within a year -- a fact that only became clear when American forces fruitlessly scoured the country in search of banned weapons after Hussein's overthrow. But it has also become a symbol of the council's abuse of power. The resolution established a monitoring system -- including U.N. weapons experts and sensors, drones, and cameras -- so elaborate and intrusive that it has been described as the world's first "foreign occupation by remote control." The United States and Britain piggybacked on the monitoring system to spy on Hussein's security detail.

Although Hussein's rule has ended and his regime's weapons are long since eliminated, the resolution continues to live on, placing restraints on the new government's ability to function like a normal country. The trade restrictions, which include a ban on chemicals, including pesticides, are "among the constraints that continue to prevent Iraq from regaining its status as a responsible and active member of the international community and, at the same time, deprive it of the benefits of technological progress and scientific research," said Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

The "You Say Territories I Say Des Territoires" Resolution: 242

As if the Middle East conflict weren't complicated enough on its own, the Security Council approved Resolution 242 -- which introduced the "land for peace" formula in 1967, right after the Six-Day War -- with an ambiguous translation. In English, the resolution calls for the "withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict," which Israel interpreted to mean it could give back some, but not all, conquered territories in a final settlement. The French version says that Israeli is obliged to withdraw from "des territoires occupés," which the Arabs interpreted as requiring Israel give up all the land it seized in the 1967 Six-Day War. The meaning of the resolution has never been fully resolved, and has tried the patience of linguists, politicians, diplomats and armed militants. It has also provided material for countless university dissertations, books, and papers with ponderous titles like "A Case Study in Diplomatic Ambiguity," and "A Legal Reappraisal of the Right-Wing Interpretation of the Withdrawal Phrase with Reference to the Conflict Between Israel and the Palestinians." The ambiguity reflected an inability of the council to agree on language defining the fate of Arab territories. "This situation could lead to real trouble in the future," then Secretary of State Dean Rusk would later recall.

The "What's Bad For the Bolsheviks, Is Bad For the Yanks" Resolution: 82

This 1950 resolution authorized the U.S. intervention into the Korean War and provided an early demonstration of the Security Council's extraordinary power. It also spurred the development of a way to circumvent the council entirely. After the Soviet Union realized the folly of its failure to block Resolution 82 (on account of a decision to boycott the council in protest over its refusal to transfer the Chinese seat from Taiwan to Beijing), Moscow committed to vetoing all further resolutions challenging North Korea.

In response, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson introduced a new procedure to the General Assembly called the "Uniting for Peace Resolution." Its purpose was to allow a member state to bypass the Security Council and seek approval for action in the General Assembly, including recommendations on the use of force.

But the Uniting For Peace formula would later come back to haunt the United States. The resolution also allows for convening an open-ended emergency special session to address threats to international peace and security ignored by the council. Under the leadership of Arab states seeking a way around the U.S. veto, the 10th emergency session was first convened in 1997 to address the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and it has never been formally closed.

Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike

By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A01

The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The "fusion centers" are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas.

Obama said during his campaign for the presidency that he would be willing to order strikes in Pakistan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a television interview after the Times Square attempt that "if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences."

Obama dispatched his national security adviser, James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Islamabad this month to deliver a similar message to Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari and the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani.

Jones and Panetta also presented evidence gathered by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies that Shahzad received significant support from the Pakistani Taliban.

The U.S. options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of U.S. Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan. One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a "large, punitive response" to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups.

The official added that there is a broad consensus in the U.S. military that airstrikes would at best erode the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and risk an irreparable rupture in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.

"The general feeling is that we need to be circumspect in how we respond so we don't destroy the relationships we've built" with the Pakistani military, the second official said.

U.S. Special Operations teams in Afghanistan have pushed for years to have wider latitude to carry out raids across the border, arguing that CIA drone strikes do not yield prisoners or other opportunities to gather intelligence. But a 2008 U.S. helicopter raid against a target in Pakistan prompted protests from officials in Islamabad who oppose allowing U.S. soldiers to operate within their country.

The CIA has the authority to designate and strike targets in Pakistan without case-by-case approval from the White House. U.S. military forces are currently authorized to carry out unilateral strikes in Pakistan only if solid intelligence were to surface on any of three high-value targets: al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban chief Mohammad Omar. But even in those cases, the military would need higher-level approval.

"The bottom line is you have to have information about targets to do something [and] we have a process that remains cumbersome," said one of the senior military officials. "If something happens, we have to confirm who did it and where it came from. People want to be as precise as possible to be punitive."

U.S. spy agencies have engaged in a major buildup inside Pakistan over the past year. The CIA has increased the pace of drone strikes against al-Qaeda affiliates, a campaign supported by the arrival of new surveillance and eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency.

The fusion centers are part of a parallel U.S. military effort to intensify the pressure on the Taliban and other groups accused of directing insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said that the sharing of intelligence goes both ways and that targets are monitored in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the Peshawar fusion cell, which was set up within the last several months, Pakistanis have access to "full-motion video from different platforms," including unarmed surveillance drones, one official said.

The fusion centers also serve a broader U.S. aim: making the Pakistanis more dependent on U.S. intelligence, and less likely to curtail Predator drone patrols or other programs that draw significant public opposition.

To Pakistan, the fusion centers offer a glimpse of U.S. capabilities, as well as the ability to monitor U.S. military operations across the border. "They find out much more about what we know," one of the senior U.S. military officials said. "What we get is physical presence -- to see what they are actually doing versus what they say they're doing."

That delicate arrangement will be tested if the two sides reach agreement on the fusion center near Quetta. The city has served for nearly a decade as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders who fled Afghanistan in 2001 and have long-standing ties to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

U.S. officials said that the two sides have done preliminary work searching for a suitable site for the center but that the effort is proceeding at a pace that one official described as "typical Pakistani glacial speed." Despite the increased cooperation, U.S. officials say they continue to be frustrated over Pakistan's slow pace in issuing visas to American military and civilian officials.

One senior U.S. military official said the center would be used to track the Afghan Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. But other officials said the main mission would be to support the U.S. military effort across the border in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a major U.S. military push is planned.

US attacks and attempted attacks since 9/11

BBC NEWS
Published: 2010/05/04 17:17:52 GMT


There have been a number of attacks and attempted attacks on American soil since 11 September, 2001. Here are some of the most significant:

DETROIT PLANE BOMB CASE, 25 DECEMBER 2009

As a Northwest Airlines flight approached Detroit on Christmas Day, Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of lighting a makeshift bomb smuggled aboard in his underwear. The device fizzled and smoked but did not detonate, and passengers and crew subdued the suspect. Mr Abdulmutallab, who was burnt in the attempt, is currently in US custody awaiting further legal proceedings. A not guilty plea has been entered by his lawyers. Mr Abdulmutallab's father, a prominent Nigerian banker, sought to warn US officials about his son ahead of the alleged attempt.

FORT HOOD SHOOTINGS, 5 NOVEMBER 2009

A gunman killed 13 soldiers and wounded dozens more at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. Army psychiatrist Maj Nidal Hasan, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, has been charged with murder in the attacks, and military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Officials say that before the attack he was in contact with a radical American-born Islamist cleric based in Yemen.

PLOT TO BOMB NEW YORK SUBWAY, 2009

Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who worked at a New York City coffee stand and later drove an airport shuttle in Colorado, and New Yorker Zarein Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb the New York subway system last year. A third suspect awaits trial. US authorities say the plot was hatched by senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.

'LACKAWANNA SIX'

A group of young Yemeni-American men in Lackawanna, New York state, pleaded guilty in 2003 to aiding a terror organisation and received prison sentences. Prosecutors accused the six of training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in the months before the 11 September, 2001 attacks. Their defence attorneys said the men had no advance knowledge of the attacks and had left the camp early because they were disturbed by the rhetoric they heard there.

EL AL TICKET COUNTER, LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, JULY 2002

A gunman later identified as 41-year-old Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohammed Ali Hadayet opened fire at the Los Angeles International Airport ticket counter of Israeli airline El Al, killing two people and wounding several others. He was shot and killed by a security guard. Federal law enforcement officials later said he had acted alone and had no connections to international terror organisations.

ACCUSED 'DIRTY BOMBER' JOSE PADILLA

A former Chicago gang member, Mr Padilla was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in May 2002 on a material witness warrant. The US government accused him of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" on US soil. After years of detention during which he was transferred between military and civilian courts, Mr Padilla was convicted in January 2008 of less specific charges of support for terrorism and conspiracy. The judge in the case rebuked the Bush administration for its treatment of Mr Padilla during his detention.

Obama security doctrine stresses diplomacy

By Matt Spetalnick
Thu May 27, 3:34 pm ET 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a new national security doctrine that would join diplomatic engagement and economic discipline with military power to bolster America's standing in the world.

Striking a contrast to the Bush-era emphasis on going it alone, President Barack Obama's strategy called for expanding partnerships beyond traditional U.S. allies to encompass rising powers like China and India in order to share the international burden.

Faced with a struggling economy and record deficits, the administration also acknowledged that boosting economic growth and getting the U.S. fiscal house in order must be core national security priorities.

"At the center of our efforts is a commitment to renew our economy, which serves as the wellspring of American power," the wide-ranging policy statement said.

Obama's first official declaration of national security goals, due to be released in full later on Thursday, pointedly omitted predecessor George W. Bush's policy of pre-emptive war that alienated some U.S. allies.

Laying out a vision for keeping America safe as it fights wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the document formalized Obama's intent to emphasize multilateral diplomacy over military might as he tries to reshape the world order.

The administration even reiterated Obama's determination to try to engage with "hostile nations," but warned nuclear-defiant Iran and North Korea it possessed "multiple means" to isolate them if they ignored international norms.

The National Security Strategy, required by law of every president, is often a dry reaffirmation of existing positions but is considered important because it can influence budgets and legislation and is closely watched internationally.

SEEKS "FISCALLY SUSTAINABLE PATH"

Obama, who took office faced with the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, took a clearer stand than any of his predecessors in drawing the link between America's economic health at home and its stature overseas.

"We must renew the foundation of America's strength," the document said, asserting that the sustained economic growth hinges on putting the country on a "fiscally sustainable path" and also urging reduced dependence on foreign oil sources.

There was no discussion of what has become an emerging consensus in foreign policy circles -- that heavy U.S. indebtedness to countries like China poses a security problem.

But the report did reflect Washington's enigmatic relationship with Beijing, praising it for a more active role in world affairs while insisting it must act responsibly. It also reiterated unease over China's rapid military buildup.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States' fiscal problems presented a long-term threat to its diplomatic clout. "We cannot sustain this level of deficit financing and debt without losing our influence, without being constrained about the tough decisions we have to make," she said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Bush used his first policy statement in 2002 to stake out the right to unilateral and pre-emptive military action against countries and terrorist groups deemed threats to the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Obama's plan implicitly distanced his administration from what became known as the Bush Doctrine and underpinned the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which lacked U.N. authorization.

While renewing previous presidents' commitment to preserve U.S. conventional military superiority, the doctrine laid out on Thursday put an official stamp on Obama's break from what Bush's critics called "cowboy diplomacy."

"We need to be clear-eyed about the strengths and shortcomings of international institutions," the document said. But it said Washington did not have the option to "walk away."

"Instead, we must focus American engagement on strengthening international institutions and galvanizing the collective action that can serve common interests such as combating violent extremism, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials, achieving balanced and sustainable economic growth, and forging cooperative solutions to the threat of climate change," it said.

MESSAGE TO EMERGING POWERS

Obama's insistence the United States cannot act alone in the world was also a message to current and emerging powers that they must shoulder their share of the global burden.

Obama already has been widely credited with improving the tone of U.S. foreign policy but still is struggling with two unfinished wars, nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea and sluggish Middle East peace efforts.

Critics say some of his efforts at diplomatic outreach show U.S. weakness, and they question whether he jeopardizes American interests by relying too heavily on "soft power."

Obama's strategy repeated his goal to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat" al Qaeda but insisted that in the process the United States must uphold and promote human rights. It also rejected torture as a tool of U.S. national security.

Obama has reached out to the Muslim world, where the U.S. image under Bush was hurt by the Iraq war, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and his use of phrases like "war on terror" and "Islamo-fascism."

Curbing the threat of "home-grown" terrorism was also listed as a top priority. This comes in the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner and the botched Times Square car bombing attempt earlier this month.

Analysts question Korea torpedo incident

By Jeff Stein
washingtonpost.com
May 27, 2010; 4:19 PM ET

How is it that a submarine of a fifth-rate power was able to penetrate a U.S.-South Korean naval exercise and sink a ship that was designed for anti-submarine warfare?

Such questions are being fueled by suggestions in the South Korean and Japanese media that the naval exercise was intended to provoke the North to attack. The resulting public outcry in the South, according to this analysis, would bolster support for a conservative government in Seoul that is opposed to reconciliation efforts.

As fanciful as it may sound to Western ears, the case that Operation Foal Eagle was designed to provoke the North has been underscored by constant references in regional media to charts showing the location where the ship was sunk -- in waters close to, and claimed by, North Korea.

"Baengnyeong Island is only 20 kilometers from North Korea in an area that the North claims as its maritime territory, except for the South Korean territorial sea around the island,” Japanese journalist Tanaka Sakai wrote in the left-leaning Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.

He called the sinking of the ship “an enigma.”

"The Cheonan was a patrol boat whose mission was to survey with radar and sonar the enemy’s submarines, torpedoes, and aircraft ... " Sakai wrote.

"If North Korean submarines and torpedoes were approaching, the Cheonan should have been able to sense it quickly and take measures to counterattack or evade. Moreover, on the day the Cheonan sank, US and ROK military exercises were under way, so it could be anticipated that North Korean submarines would move south to conduct surveillance. It is hard to imagine that the Cheonan sonar forces were not on alert."


The liberal Hankyoreh newspaper in Seoul echoed a similar theme.

“A joint South Korean-U.S. naval exercise involving several Aegis warships was underway at the time, and the Cheonan was a patrol combat corvette (PCC) that specialized in anti-submarine warfare. The question remains whether it would be possible for a North Korean submarine to infiltrate the maritime cordon at a time when security reached its tightest level and without detection by the Cheonan,” it reported.


American spy satellites were also monitoring the exercise, “so the U.S. would have known that North Korean submarines had left their ports on a mission,” adds Scott Snyder, director of Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation.

“The route the North Korean submarines apparently took was from the East Sea, not directly from the North across the NLL,” or Northern Limit Line, the sea boundary unilaterally imposed by Seoul. “Essentially, they went the roundabout way and came at the ROK vessel from behind,” he said.

But Bruce Klingner, chief of the CIA’s Korea Branch in the 1990s, said “anti-submarine operations are far more difficult than is often realized.

“Beyond the obvious difficulty in tracking something that is designed to operate quietly, navies are confronted with natural acoustical phenomena as shallow, noisy littoral waters and layers of water salinity which can provide cover for submarines.”

Moreover, says Terence Roehrig, a professor at the Naval War College, “the Cheonan was an older Pohang-class corvette and not one of these [newer] ships.”

“Satellite and communications coverage of sub bases can tell when subs have left base…” adds Bruce Bechtol, Jr., professor of international relations at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. “It cannot tell locations of submarines once they are at sea -- unless they surface or communicate.”

“A mini-submarine like the type that is assessed to have penetrated the NLL is designed specifically for covert maneuvering in shallow waters like those that exist off of the west coast of the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

“It appears from the reports that [the South Korean Ministry of Defense] has released that a submarine departed port off the west coast of North Korea, accompanied by a support vessel. The submarine perhaps could have come fairly close to the NLL using diesel power, then switched to battery power, which is much quieter,” Bechtol added. “The submarine could have then slipped past the NLL at an appropriate time and waited for a ROK ship to approach.”


Suspicions about what happened, Bechtol said, are unwarranted.

“The fact of the matter is, a submarine did infiltrate into South Korean waters -- and they have done so in the past fairly frequently," he said.

"It is their mission.”

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Chris McGreal
The Guardian
Monday, May 24, 2010

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were "never any negotiations" between the two countries. She did not comment on the authenticity of the documents.

South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.

The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials "formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal".

Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.

The memo, marked "top secret" and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: "In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere."

But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet.

The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.

The use of a euphemism, the "correct payload", reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong's memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.

In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.

Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any deal would have to have had final approval by Israel's prime minister and it is uncertain it would have been forthcoming.

South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.

The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.

Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: "It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement... shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party".

The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.

The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies."

Former CIA officer on Iran: Brazil and Turkey are vital checks and balances

By Graham E. Fuller
Mon May 24, 1:14 pm ET 2010

Washington – If Washington thinks it now faces complications on getting United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran, that’s not the half of it. A greater obstacle is the subtle change introduced into international power relationships by the actions of Brazil and Turkey that has accompanied it.

These two medium-size powers, Brazil and Turkey, have just challenged the guiding hand of Washington in determining nuclear strategy towards Iran. They undertook their own initiative to persuade Iran to accede to a deal on the handling of nuclear fuel issues. Not only was that initiative entirely independent, it moved ahead in the face of fairly crude American warnings to both states not to contemplate it – even though it closely paralleled one offered to Iran last year that fell through, mainly due to Iranian maneuvering and its fundamental distrust of Washington’s intent and blustering style.

Adding insult to injury, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan both had the temerity to actually succeed in their negotiations with Iran while Washington was publicly predicting their certain (and hoped for) failure.

Are the Iranians simply engaging in another con game, playing for time – a maneuver at which they excel? Or has something more profound taken place?

First, it is not only the terms of the deal that matter, but the messengers and atmospherics. Washington for decades has dealt with Iran – almost always indirectly – with considerable truculence and belligerence as the background music to “negotiations.” This is business as usual – the world’s sole superpower demanding others to agree to its strategy of the moment.

When Mr. Lula and Mr. Erdogan came to Tehran, the game was entirely different. It wasn’t the content so much as the negotiators, the venue, and the atmospherics. Tehran did not feel this time that it was acceding to superpower pressure, but to a reasoned and respectful request by two significant peer states in the world with no record of imperialism in Iran. In one sense, the deal was almost bound to succeed. What Iran wants as much as anything in this world is to blunt US dominance of the international order, and especially its ability to dictate terms in the Middle East.

If Iran is to yield at all on nuclear policy, what better device than to accede to two respected and successful states that were themselves defying Washington’s wishes in even attempting negotiations? If Tehran had refused that offer, it might have torpedoed the very concept of independent alternative, non-American efforts in international strategy. It made all the sense in the world for Iran to say “yesâ€

The same goes for China and Russia. After the Lula-Erdogan success, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately proclaimed her own success at garnering Russian and Chinese support for enhanced sanctions against Iran – a stunningly insulting response to the remarkable accomplishment of Brazilian and Turkish negotiation. These states are, after all, immensely important to US regional and global interests. To blow them off like that was a major blunder, not just in terms of Iran, but in broader global strategy. The rest of the world has surely taken further negative note that Washington’s game remains depressingly familiar.

But do we really believe Clinton has in fact garnered Russian and Chinese support? Just as Tehran had every incentive to accept a proposal from “equals,” offered with respect instead of bluster and threats, so too Russia and China have every reason to welcome this initiative from Brazil and Turkey. Yes, the terms of the agreement do matter somewhat, but what is far more important for them is the slow but inexorable decay of US ability to deliver international diktats and to have its way. This is what Chinese and Russian foreign-policy strategy is all about. Neither of these countries will, in the end, permit the US hard-line approach to win out over the Brazilian-Turkish one in the Security Council, even if the Brazilian-Turkish deal requires a little tweaking. Russia and China champion the emergence of multiple sources of global power and influence that chip away at dying American unipolar power.

China and Russia, of course, represent the alternative polarity in the emerging struggle to end American hegemony in international affairs. But of greater moment, they now witness the political center in international politics shifting away from Washington as well. These two countries that defied American wishes are not just some Third World rabble-rousers scoring cheap points off the US. They are two major countries that are supposedly close friends of the US This makes the affront even crueler.

These events are profound signs of the times. The problem with unipolar power is that without checks and balances it invariably becomes subject to error and foolishness. On occasion, Americans actually believe in checks and balances when it comes to our own Constitution. Microsoft may be a great corporation, but nobody wants it to have a monopoly on IT.

Similarly in the world, international checks and balances are valuable safety valves. When Washington moves into its fourth decade of paralysis and incompetence in handling Iran, still unable even to speak to it – just as it cannot bring itself to talk to Cuba after 50 years – it has exacerbated the problem, strengthened Iran and the forces of radicalism in the Middle East, polarized emotions and, worst, failed in all respects. Shouldn’t the world welcome the actions of two significant, responsible, democratic, and rational states to intervene and help check the foolishnesses of decades of US policy? That is what checks and balances are all about and why the center is shifting.

And, who knows? “Rogue states” – a term beloved in Washington in reference to recalcitrant countries that don’t toe the Washington line – may more readily come to accede to new approaches free of the old imperial techniques of interventionism and ultimatums. Meanwhile, the US is rapidly running the risk of becoming its own “failed state” in terms of being able to exercise competent and effective international leadership since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Graham E. Fuller is the former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA and author of numerous books on international politics, including the forthcoming “A World Without Islam” (August 2010).

WH official says US hunting Yemeni-American cleric

Kimberly Dozier
Associated Press Writer
Sun May 23, 10:17 am ET 2010

WASHINGTON – White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says the U.S. is actively hunting American-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

The radical cleric is calling for the killing of American civilians, in a new video released Sunday by Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot, al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula.

The White House spokesman says President Barack Obama will continue to take action directly against terrorists like al-Awlaki, and keep the U.S. safe from what Gibbs calls "murderous thugs."

Senior administration officials say al-Awlaki is on a list of terrorists U.S. forces are authorized to capture, or kill. His Internet sermons are believed to have helped inspire attacks on the U.S.

Gibbs appeared Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Yemeni cleric calls for killing US civilians

Maamoun Youssef
Associated Press Writer
Sun May 23, 9:54 pm ET 2010

CAIRO – A U.S.-born cleric who has encouraged Muslims to kill American soldiers called for the killing of U.S. civilians in his first video released by a Yemeni offshoot of al-Qaida, providing the most overt link yet between the radical preacher and the terror group.

Dressed in a white Yemeni robe, turban and with a traditional jambiyah dagger tucked into his waistband, Anwar Al-Awlaki used the 45-minute video posted Sunday to justify civilian deaths — and encourage them — by accusing the United States of intentionally killing a million Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

American civilians are to blame, he said, because "the American people, in general, are taking part in this and they elected this administration and they are financing the war."

"Those who might be killed in a plane are merely a drop of water in a sea," he said in the video in response to a question about Muslim groups that disapproved of the airliner plot because it targeted civilians.

Al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and is believed to be hiding in his parents' native Yemen, has used his personal website to encourage Muslims around the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

He has emerged as a prominent al-Qaida recruiter and has been tied by U.S. intelligence to the 9/11 hijackers, the suspects in the November shooting at an Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, and the December attempt to blow up a U.S. jetliner bound for Detroit.

For U.S. officials, al-Awlaki is of particular concern because he is one of the few English-speaking radical clerics able to explain to young Muslims in America and other Western countries the philosophy of violent jihad.

Al-Awlaki's direct role in al-Qaida — if any — remains unclear. The U.S. says he is an active participant in the group, though members of his tribe have denied that.

However, Sunday's video provides the clearest link yet between the cleric and the terror group.

It was produced by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's media arm, which touted the recording as its first interview with al-Awlaki. It may also indicate al-Qaida is trying to seize upon al-Awlaki's recruiting prowess by featuring him in its videos.

In the months before the Fort Hood shooting, which killed 13 people, al-Awlaki exchanged e-mails with the alleged attacker, U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki's Internet sermons, and approached him for religious advice.

Yemen's government says al-Awlaki is also suspected of contacts with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who traveled to Yemen late last year, and U.S. investigators say Abdulmutallab told them he received training and his bomb from Yemen's al-Qaida offshoot.

In Sunday's video, al-Awlaki praised both men and referred to them as his "students."

Speaking of Hasan, the cleric said, "What he did was heroic and great. ... I ask every Muslim serving in the U.S. Army to follow suit."

Because of what U.S. officials view as al-Awlaki's growing role with al-Qaida, the Obama administration placed him on the CIA's list of targets for assassination — despite his American citizenship.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday that the U.S. is "actively trying to find" al-Awlaki.

"The president will continue to take action directly at terrorists like Awlaki and keep our country safe from their murderous thugs," Gibbs said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Ali Mohammed al-Ansi, Yemen's national security chief and head of the president's office, said in remarks published Sunday in Yemen's ruling-party newspaper that the country's security forces will continue to pursue al-Awlaki until he turns himself in or he is arrested.

Yemen has indicated that if its security forces capture al-Awlaki, it wants to try the cleric on Yemeni soil.

Al-Awlaki was born in 1971 in New Mexico. His father, Nasser al-Awlaki, was in the United States studying agriculture at the time and later returned with his family to Yemen to serve as agriculture minister. The father remains a prominent figure in Yemen, teaching at San'a University in the capital.

The younger al-Awlaki returned to the United States in 1991 to study civil engineering at Colorado State University, then education at San Diego State University, followed by doctoral work at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

He was also a preacher at mosques in California and Virginia before returning to Yemen in 2004.

"We have had more freedom in America than in any Muslim country," he said in Sunday's video. "But when America started to feel the danger of Islam's message, it tightened limits on freedom, and after 9/11 it was impossible to live in America as a Muslim."

Al-Awlaki is believed to be hiding in Yemen's Shabwa province, the rugged region of towering mountains that is home to his large tribe. He said he was moving from place to place under the protection of his tribe.

"As for the Americans, I will never surrender to them," al-Awlaki said. "If the Americans want me, let them come look for me. God is the protector."

U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast

By MARK MAZZETTI
New York Times
May 24, 2010

WASHINGTON — The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.

The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.

While the Bush administration had approved some clandestine military activities far from designated war zones, the new order is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term, officials said. Its goals are to build networks that could “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to “prepare the environment” for future attacks by American or local military forces, the document said. The order, however, does not appear to authorize offensive strikes in any specific countries.

In broadening its secret activities, the United States military has also sought in recent years to break its dependence on the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy agencies for information in countries without a significant American troop presence.

General Petraeus’s order is meant for small teams of American troops to fill intelligence gaps about terror organizations and other threats in the Middle East and beyond, especially emerging groups plotting attacks against the United States.

But some Pentagon officials worry that the expanded role carries risks. The authorized activities could strain relationships with friendly governments like Saudi Arabia or Yemen — which might allow the operations but be loath to acknowledge their cooperation — or incite the anger of hostile nations like Iran and Syria. Many in the military are also concerned that as American troops assume roles far from traditional combat, they would be at risk of being treated as spies if captured and denied the Geneva Convention protections afforded military detainees.

The precise operations that the directive authorizes are unclear, and what the military has done to follow through on the order is uncertain. The document, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, provides few details about continuing missions or intelligence-gathering operations.

Several government officials who described the impetus for the order would speak only on condition of anonymity because the document is classified. Spokesmen for the White House and the Pentagon declined to comment for this article. The Times, responding to concerns about troop safety raised by an official at United States Central Command, the military headquarters run by General Petraeus, withheld some details about how troops could be deployed in certain countries.

The seven-page directive appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, most likely to gather intelligence about the country’s nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive. The Obama administration insists that for the moment, it is committed to penalizing Iran for its nuclear activities only with diplomatic and economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has to draw up detailed war plans to be prepared in advance, in the event that President Obama ever authorizes a strike.

“The Defense Department can’t be caught flat-footed,” said one Pentagon official with knowledge of General Petraeus’s order.

The directive, the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order, signed Sept. 30, may also have helped lay a foundation for the surge of American military activity in Yemen that began three months later.

Special Operations troops began working with Yemen’s military to try to dismantle Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden’s terror network based in Yemen. The Pentagon has also carried out missile strikes from Navy ships into suspected militant hideouts and plans to spend more than $155 million equipping Yemeni troops with armored vehicles, helicopters and small arms.

Officials said that many top commanders, General Petraeus among them, have advocated an expansive interpretation of the military’s role around the world, arguing that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight militant groups.

The order, which an official said was drafted in close coordination with Adm. Eric T. Olson, the officer in charge of the United States Special Operations Command, calls for clandestine activities that “cannot or will not be accomplished” by conventional military operations or “interagency activities,” a reference to American spy agencies.

While the C.I.A. and the Pentagon have often been at odds over expansion of clandestine military activity, most recently over intelligence gathering by Pentagon contractors in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there does not appear to have been a significant dispute over the September order.

A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to confirm the existence of General Petraeus’s order, but said that the spy agency and the Pentagon had a “close relationship” and generally coordinate operations in the field.

“There’s more than enough work to go around,” said the spokesman, Paul Gimigliano. “The real key is coordination. That typically works well, and if problems arise, they get settled.”

During the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld endorsed clandestine military operations, arguing that Special Operations troops could be as effective as traditional spies, if not more so.

Unlike covert actions undertaken by the C.I.A., such clandestine activity does not require the president’s approval or regular reports to Congress, although Pentagon officials have said that any significant ventures are cleared through the National Security Council. Special Operations troops have already been sent into a number of countries to carry out reconnaissance missions, including operations to gather intelligence about airstrips and bridges.

Some of Mr. Rumsfeld’s initiatives were controversial, and met with resistance by some at the State Department and C.I.A. who saw the troops as a backdoor attempt by the Pentagon to assert influence outside of war zones. In 2004, one of the first groups sent overseas was pulled out of Paraguay after killing a pistol-waving robber who had attacked them as they stepped out of a taxi.

A Pentagon order that year gave the military authority for offensive strikes in more than a dozen countries, and Special Operations troops carried them out in Syria, Pakistan and Somalia.

In contrast, General Petraeus’s September order is focused on intelligence gathering — by American troops, foreign businesspeople, academics or others — to identify militants and provide “persistent situational awareness,” while forging ties to local indigenous groups.

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

• • The Guardian, Sunday 23 May 2010

The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa. Photograph: Guardian

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.
The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.
They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.
A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were "never any negotiations" between the two countries. She did not comment on the authenticity of the documents.
South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.
The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials "formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal".
Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.
The memo, marked "top secret" and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: "In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere."
But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet.
The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.
The use of a euphemism, the "correct payload", reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong's memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.
In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.
Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any deal would have to have had final approval by Israel's prime minister and it is uncertain it would have been forthcoming.
South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.
The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.
Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: "It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement... shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party".
The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.
The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.
Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.
Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies."