February 27, 2007

Some US Generals ‘Will Quit’,...

 
US Generals ‘Will Quit’ If Bush Orders Iran Attack  

By Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter in Washington
 
SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defense and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learned that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defense source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defense secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”.

Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment program last week. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that his country “will not withdraw from its nuclear stances even one single step”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its program is purely for civilian energy purposes.

Nicholas Burns, the top US negotiator, is to meet British, French, German, Chinese and Russian officials in London tomorrow to discuss additional penalties against Iran. But UN diplomats cautioned that further measures would take weeks to agree and would be mild at best.

A second US navy aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS John C Stennis arrived in the Gulf last week, doubling the US presence there. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the US Fifth Fleet, warned: “The US will take military action if ships are attacked or if countries in the region are targeted or US troops come under direct attack.”

But General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said recently there was “zero chance” of a war with Iran. He played down claims by US intelligence that the Iranian government was responsible for supplying insurgents in Iraq, forcing Bush on the defensive.

Pace’s view was backed up by British intelligence officials who said the extent of the Iranian government’s involvement in activities inside Iraq by a small number of Revolutionary Guards was “far from clear”.

Hillary Mann, the National Security Council’s main Iran expert until 2004, said Pace’s repudiation of the administration’s claims was a sign of grave discontent at the top.

“He is a very serious and a very loyal soldier,” she said. “It is extraordinary for him to have made these comments publicly, and it suggests there are serious problems between the White House, the National Security Council and the Pentagon.”

Mann fears the administration is seeking to provoke Iran into a reaction that could be used as an excuse for an attack. A British official said the US navy was well aware of the risks of confrontation and was being “seriously careful” in the Gulf.

The US air force is regarded as being more willing to attack Iran. General Michael Moseley, the head of the air force, cited Iran as the main likely target for American aircraft at a military conference earlier this month.

According to a report in The New Yorker magazine, the Pentagon has already set up a working group to plan airstrikes on Iran. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been instructed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.

However, army chiefs fear an attack on Iran would backfire on American troops in Iraq and lead to more terrorist attacks, a rise in oil prices and the threat of a regional war.

Britain is concerned that its own troops in Iraq might be drawn into any American conflict with Iran, regardless of whether the government takes part in the attack.

One retired general who participated in the “generals’ revolt” against Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war said he hoped his former colleagues would resign in the event of an order to attack. “We don’t want to take another initiative unless we’'ve really thought through the consequences of our strategy,” he warned.
 
 
 
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February 25, 2007

Your Social Security Number is NOT Secure,...

Think Your Social Security Number Is Secure?

Think Again

It should come as little surprise that Social Security numbers are posted on the Internet. But, says Betty Ostergren, a former insurance claims supervisor in suburban Richmond, Va., who has spent years trolling for them, “people are always astounded” to learn that theirs is one of them.

Mrs. Ostergren, 57, has made a name for herself as a gadfly as she took on a lonely and sometimes frustrating mission to draw attention to the situation. With addresses, dates of birth and maiden names often associated with Social Security numbers, she said, they are a gift to data thieves.

But in the last few weeks, Mrs. Ostergren’s Web site, The Virginia Watchdog — with the help of lobbying from an unexpected ally, America’s farm bureaus — is having an effect.

One by one, states and counties have started removing images of documents that contain Social Security numbers, or they are blocking out the numbers. Four states, including New York, have removed links to images of public documents containing Social Security numbers.

Snohomish County, Wash., for example, said Wednesday that 61 types of documents, including tax liens and marriage certificates, would be blocked. (The documents are supposed to remain public at courthouses or state offices.)

On Wednesday, the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, issued a legal opinion that county clerks could be committing a crime by revealing Social Security numbers on the Internet.

“I am almost in a celebratory mode,” said David Bloys, a retired private investigator in Shallowater, Tex., who also highlights the public records issue on his Web site, NewsforPublicOfficials.com.

For people wondering if they should be worried about the security of their own numbers, there is a new tool to help them.

TrustedID, a company that sells services to consumers to give them more control over who sees their credit reports, has compiled a database of compromised numbers that could already be traded or sold on the Internet.

It has created an online search tool, StolenIDSearch.com, where people can check at no cost to see if their number is one that is in a too-public domain.

TrustedID said that about 220,000 people had tested their numbers in the three weeks the site has been open to the public.

The Social Security number remains the personal identifier not only for government documents, but for credit applications and medical records, as well as video and cellphone stores.

“In the commercial world, it is ubiquitous when credit is offered,” said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, a privacy advocate and senior fellow of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. “It all flows from the credit system and it flows very far.”

Even though Americans are told to protect their Social Security number to prevent identity theft, that is a tall order. The Social Security Administration says its card “was never intended and does not serve as a personal identification document.”

But that has not been true about the number almost from outset. The Social Security numbers that were first handed out in November 1936 as a means for the federal government to track payments to the retirement system were soon used for other purposes. They help track payrolls, loan payments, financial transactions and income taxes.

They are necessary for anyone seeking public assistance, like food stamps, or registering for the draft. Congress decreed that the numbers be put on records including professional licenses, marriages licenses and divorce decrees to better track scofflaws of child support orders.

The Social Security number took on a second role. It allowed collectors of data to link pieces of information together, like a driver’s license record, credit report data and the information on the warranty card for a toaster. That is a useful tool for marketers and just as useful for criminals.

It was only in 2004 that Congress prohibited states from using the Social Security number on drivers’ licenses. Yet the databases with those numbers still exist. Until 2001, states could sell lists with those numbers, which means that for virtually anyone 22 years or older, the name, address, phone number and Social Security number are in private databases.

The nine-digit string took on a third role — as a password that was supposed to protect all that private information from snoops and criminals. But its ubiquity defeats that purpose, Mr. Hoofnagle said. “It will pass when the business community no longer needs a Social Security number,” he said.

The Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General said that 16 percent of the 99,000 fraud cases it investigated in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30 involved the misuse of Social Security numbers. One involved an identify theft ring in Central Florida. Twelve people were convicted, sentenced to prison and ordered to repay more than $2 million.

About 16,000 incidents are not a lot considering that 240 million numbers are currently in use, and certainly theft and fraud involving credit card numbers are much more pervasive.

But credit card numbers are rarely exposed on documents in public view. And if a credit card is stolen or misused, obtaining a new one is a fairly simple process. A new Social Security number is rarely granted. (Indeed, one is limited to 3 replacements of the green paper Social Security card in a year and 10 over a lifetime.)

Social Security numbers are routinely traded and sold by thieves over the Internet like credit card numbers, says Panos Anastassiadis, chief executive of Cyveillance, a company in Arlington, Va., that monitors online fraud attempts for major financial institutions. His company has found caches of them in Web chat rooms where they are offered as samples by criminals selling even larger lists.

They are sometimes obtained by “key logging” software surreptitiously installed on home computers to record what is typed. Some come from so-called phishing attacks in which people are misled into entering the data on fake Web sites of banks or utilities.

The numbers are also out in the open. “People think it is the banks, but banks are very secure,” Mr. Anastassiadis said. “The problem is every dentist’s office has Social Security numbers. Every doctor’s office has them. How secure are these?”

It has been Mrs. Ostergren’s near obsession to answer that question.

Few things delight her more than finding a number belonging to a celebrity because it draws attention to her cause.

“Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed recently as she stumbled upon the Social Security number of a member of the boldfaced set as she demonstrated how New York State Web sites display documents containing names, addresses and Social Security numbers. “Let me download this one. This is Donald Trump’s number. I can’t wait to tell him.”

Mrs. Ostergren never got through to Mr. Trump to confirm whether the nine-digit identifier was indeed his, but she has found and tried to notify others, including Kelly Ripa, the actress and talk-show host; Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida; Porter Goss, the former C.I.A. director; and scores of state legislators. She posted links to some of those documents on her site. (New York later made the documents unavailable, so the links no longer work.)

She has found Social Security numbers on tax liens on the official site of Maricopa County in Arizona. In Florida, as in many states, they appear on documents consumers sign when they buy furniture or other merchandise on credit.

Mrs. Ostergren wants the documents taken off the Web, and she applies pressure by using the people whose numbers she finds. “I’ve been calling people and telling them that they are exposed,” Mrs. Ostergren said. “It is not very hard to find the numbers. They are exposed everywhere.”

Her Web site may be cluttered with so many typefaces that it resembles a ransom note, but she seems to be having an impact. In the last month she found a pressure point: farmers.

Their numbers show up on Uniform Commercial Code filings when they buy machinery or supplies on credit. She showed state farm bureau leaders their numbers; they contacted their state legislators. She has also found common cause with other gadflies like Mr. Bloys.

She has had her share of setbacks as well. Several state legislators tried to ban her from posting information about their personal data that appeared in public records. She wins no fans among legitimate companies who sell databases. Removing the data from the Internet slows their ability to collect public information, but does not stop them.

“There are a lot of people in the data brokerage business who don’t like what I do,” she said.
 
 
 
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February 21, 2007

Surge within the Surge

 
Not Good News
By Sam Gardiner

 
 
For those concerned about a possible war with Iran should turn up their worry-dials two notches. This morning’s news has a couple dark clouds.

IED’s Inside Iran - If you have not been reading foreign press, you might have missed two explosions this past week in Iran. One of them killed 11 and injured 31 members of the Revolutionary Guard, and the other was near a school.

Although the devices were not IED’s like those found in Iraq, the explosions were in the area a group sponsored by the United States may be operating. The area in Iran is Sistan-Baluchestan near the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sy Hersh and a number of other reporters have said this is the area in which the MEK (or the mouthful name Mujahedin-e Khalq) have been operating.

This morning a Chinese newswire is reporting that the Iranians have evidence linking the attacks to the United States.

According to the report, “Relevant documents, photographs and film footage, which show that the explosives and arsenals used in the attack were American, would soon be made public, an ‘informed source’ was quoted as saying.”

The issue is not that “informed source” has switched sides, although I find quoting him to be interesting. This, however, ratchets up the tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Even if the United States were behind the operation, it is unlikely the Iranians would find weapons and materials that would be identifiable as American. US organizations that are involved in covert operations are very good about not leaving signatures that can be traced.

That is even more of a concern. The Iranians are choosing to make an issue.

Surge within the Surge - We have known before that five brigades were being sent to Baghdad. On Friday, the Department of Defense announced that an additional 1,000 troops from the 3rd Infantry Division Headquarters were being sent 90 days early. According to the announcement, these additional troops and a two star general were needed to do command and control in Baghdad.

This is a strange announcement because it was the same day that in a video press conference from Baghdad the commander of the division now operating there told reporters saw no command and control problems.

The announcement is a concern because if some of the brigades that are supposedly part of the Iraq surge were to go to the Iranian border, an additional headquarters would be required. We may be seeing that unfold.

 
Sam Gardiner is a retired Air Force colonel who has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. LC
 
 
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February 20, 2007

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February 15, 2007

Be all that you can be,...US military recruits more felons,...

 
US military recruits more felons
The number of people with criminal records in the United States military has doubled in the past three years, according to a new study.
 
The report comes at the same time as the US armed forces is facing a decline in the number of volunteers wishing to enlist in the armed forces.

It says 824 felons were allowed to sign up in 2004 as opposed to 1,605 in 2006 under the moral waivers scheme.

Almost 59,000 drug abusers entered the military in the same period.

The report, sponsored by the American think tank Michael D Palm Center, also showed that 43,977 people convicted of serious misdemeanors such as assault were permitted to enlist.

The moral waivers program allows otherwise unqualified candidates to serve in the military.

With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has raised its age limit for recruits from 35 to 42, and accepts more people with lower scores on its aptitude test.

Troubled pasts

The report's author, Michael Boucai, said the problem was not that the Armed Forces were letting in ex-offenders.

"Most of these recruits become fine service members, and military service often has a strong rehabilitative effect," he said.

"The real problem is that, increasingly, the military fails to recruit the best and the brightest."

The director of the Michael D Palm Center, Aaron Belkin, said in all about 100,000 people with what he called troubled pasts had joined the military over the past three years.

He said it showed the problem the US had "meeting our military needs in this time of war".

A US army spokesman, Paul Boyce, told the Associated Press "anything that is considered a risk or a serious infraction of the law is given the highest level of review."

"Our goal is to make certain that we recruit quality young men and women who can keep America defended against its enemies," he said.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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February 14, 2007

Bush Cuts Veterans Health Care,...

 
Bush Budget Plan Cuts Veterans Health Care
 
Cutbacks aimed to take effect after next president is in office

By Andrew Taylor
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


 
WASHINGTON— The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans’ health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

Bush is using the cuts, critics say, to help fulfill his pledge to balance the budget by 2012.

After an increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years — White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.   

The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends — its medical care budget has risen every year for two decades and 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office — sowing suspicion that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better.

“Either the administration is willingly proposing massive cuts in VA health care,” said U.S. Rep. Thomas C. Edwards, D-Texas, chairman of the panel overseeing the VA’s budget. “Or its promise of a balanced budget by 2012 is based on completely unrealistic assumptions.”

Edwards said that a more realistic estimate of veterans costs is $16 billion higher than the Bush estimate for 2012.

In fact, even the White House doesn’t seem serious about the numbers. It says the long-term budget numbers don’t represent actual administration policies. Similar cuts assumed in earlier budgets have been reversed.

 The veterans cuts, said White House budget office spokesman Sean Kevelighan, “don’t reflect any policy decisions. We’ll revisit them when we do the (future) budgets.”

The number of veterans coming into the VA health care system has been rising by about 5 percent a year as the number of people returning from Iraq with illnesses or injuries keep rising. Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans represent almost 5 percent of the VA’s patient caseload, and many are returning from battle with grievous injuries requiring costly care, such as traumatic brain injuries.

All told, the VA expects to treat about 5.8 million patients next year, including 263,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House budget office, however, assumes that the veterans’ medical services budget — up 83 percent since Bush took office and winning a big increase in Bush’s proposed 2008 budget — can absorb a 2 percent cut the following year and remain essentially frozen for three years in a row after that.

“It’s implausible,” U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said of the budget projections.

The White House made virtually identical assumptions last year — a big increase in the first year of the budget and cuts for every year thereafter to veterans medical care. Now, the White House estimate for 2008 is more than $4 billion higher than Bush figured last year.


 
 
 
 
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Pentagon caught in deception again,..

 

Pentagon lies with stats

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff


The Pentagon is playing a shameful numbers game and this week in Washington Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) blew the whistle on it. 
 
One set of “official” numbers for troops wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq lists the figure at about 23,000. But the actual number of those injured in those two theaters of operation is more than double that - around 53,000. 
 
Why the difference? The larger number reflects so-called non-combat injuries - say from riding in a Humvee that rolled into a ditch or contracting an illness while on duty. 
 
“It doesn’t make a difference whether you were hit by enemy fire, or injured because your vehicle crashed, or got sick because of serving in a war zone,” Obama said in a statement. “The effects on the soldiers and their families are the same. And the impact in terms of the current fighting force and future demands on the VA are also the same.” 
 
A Pentagon Web site used to list all war wounded, but according to the Associated Press that same site recently dropped non-combat wounded from its chart. The Veterans Administration also used to list all wounded (their number stood at about 50,000 last November), but under Pentagon pressure dropped the number to 21,000. 
 
The astonishing thing is that somehow the big thinkers at the Pentagon believe this will perhaps turn around public opinion - maybe make an increasingly misguided effort in Iraq more palatable. Obama and Snowe have filed legislation to force the VA and Defense to at least keep an honest set of numbers. It’s the least we owe those who wear this nation’s uniform.

 

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February 11, 2007

Bush/Cheney are helping Israel commit suicide,...

 
Helping Israel Die

By Ray McGovern


President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are unwittingly playing Dr. Jack Kevorkian in helping the state of Israel commit suicide. For this is the inevitable consequence of the planned air and missile attack on Iran. The pockmarked, littered landscape in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan and the endless applicant queues at al-Qaeda and other terrorist recruiting stations testify eloquently to the unintended consequences of myopic policymakers in Washington and Tel Aviv.

Mesmerized. Sadly, this is the best word to describe those of us awake to the inexorable march of folly to war with Iran and the growing danger to Israel’s security, especially over the medium and long term. An American and/or Israeli attack on Iran will let slip the dogs of war. Those dogs never went to obedience school. They will not be denied their chance to bite, and Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons will be powerless to muzzle them.

In my view, not since 1948 has the very existence of Israel hung so much in the balance. Can Bush/Cheney and the Israeli leaders not see it? Pity that no one seems to have read our first president’s warning on the noxious effects of entangling alliances. The supreme irony is that in their fervor to help, as well as use, Israel, Bush and Cheney seem blissfully unaware that they are leading it down a garden path and off a cliff.

Provoke and Pre-empt

Whether it is putting the kibosh on direct talks with Iran or between Israel and Syria, the influence and motives of the vice president are more transparent than those of Bush. Sure, Cheney told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer recently that the administration’s Iraq policy would be “an enormous success story,” but do not believe those who dismiss Cheney as “delusional.” He and his neoconservative friends are crazy like a fox. They have been pushing for confrontation with Iran for many years, and saw the invasion of Iraq in that context. Alluding to recent U.S. military moves, Robert Dreyfuss rightly describes the neocons as “crossing their fingers in the hope that Iran will respond provocatively, making what is now a low-grade cold war inexorably heat up.”

But what about the president? How to explain his fixation with fixing Iran’s wagon? Cheney’s influence over Bush has been shown to be considerable ever since the one-man search committee for the 2000 vice presidential candidate picked Cheney. The vice president can play Bush like a violin. But what strings is he using here? Where is the resonance?

Experience has shown the president to be an impressionable sort with a roulette penchant for putting great premium on initial impressions and latching onto people believed to be kindred souls—be it Russian President Vladimir Putin (trust at first sight), hail-fellow-well-met CIA director George Tenet or oozing-testosterone-from-every-pore former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Of particular concern was his relationship with Sharon. Retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a master of discretion with the media, saw fit to tell London’s Financial Times two and a half years ago that Sharon had Bush “mesmerized” and “wrapped around his little finger.”

As chair of the prestigious President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under George W. Bush and national security adviser to his father, Scowcroft was uniquely positioned to know—and to draw comparisons. He was summarily fired after making the comments about Sharon and is now persona non grata at the White House.

Compassion Deficit Disorder

George W. Bush first met Sharon in 1998, when the Texas governor was taken on a tour of the Middle East by Matthew Brooks, then executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Sharon was foreign minister and took Bush on a helicopter tour over the Israeli occupied territories. An Aug. 3, 2006 McClatchy wire story by Ron Hutcheson quotes Matthew Brooks:

If there’s a starting point for George W. Bush’s attachment to Israel, it’s the day in late 1998, when he stood on a hilltop where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and, with eyes brimming with tears, read aloud from his favorite hymn, ‘Amazing Grace.’ He was very emotional. It was a tear-filled experience. He brought Israel back home with him in his heart. I think he came away profoundly moved.

Bush made gratuitous but revealing reference to that trip at the first meeting of his National Security Council (NSC) on Jan. 30, 2001. After announcing he would abandon the decades-long role of honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians and would tilt pronouncedly toward Israel, Bush said he would let Sharon resolve the dispute however he saw fit. At that point he brought up his trip to Israel with the Republican Jewish Coalition and the flight over Palestinian camps, but there was no sense of concern for the lot of the Palestinians. In A Pretext for War James Bamford quotes Bush: “Looked real bad down there,” he said with a frown. Then he said it was time to end America’s efforts in the region. “I don’t see much we can do over there at this point,” he said.

So much for the Sermon on the Mount. The version I read puts a premium on actively working for justice. There is no suggestion that tears suffice.

Then-Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, who was at the NSC meeting, reported that Colin Powell, the newly-minted but nominal secretary of state, was taken completely by surprise at this nonchalant jettisoning of longstanding policy. Powell demurred, warning that this would unleash Sharon and “the consequences could be dire, especially for the Palestinians.” But according to O’Neill, Bush just shrugged, saying, “Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things.” O’Neill says that Powell seemed “startled.” It is a safe bet that the vice president was in no way startled.

A similar account reflecting Bush’s compassion deficit disorder leaps from the pages of Ron Susskind’s The One Percent Doctrine . Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader was in high dudgeon in April 2002 when he arrived in Crawford to take issue with Bush’s decision to tilt toward Israel and scrap the American role of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Bush’s freshly bestowed “man-of-peace” epithet for Sharon still ringing in his ear, Abdullah began by insisting that the president and his aides watch a 15-minute video. It showed the mayhem on the West Bank, American-made tanks, bloodied and dead children, screaming mothers. Then, still wordless, they all filed into another room where the Saudis proceeded to make specific demands, but Bush appeared distracted and was non-responsive. After a few minutes, the president turned to Abdullah and said, “Let’s go for a drive. Just you and me. I’ll show you the ranch.”

Bush was so obviously unprepared to discuss substance with his Saudi guests that some of the president’s aides checked into what had happened. The briefing packet for the president had been diverted to Cheney’s office. Bush never got it, so he was totally unaware of what the Saudis hoped to accomplish in making the trip to Crawford. (There is little doubt that this has been a common experience over the past six years and that there are, in effect, two “deciders” in the White House, one of them controlling the paper flow.)

Not that Bush was starved for background briefings. Indeed, he showed a preference to get them from Prime Minister Sharon who, with his senior military aide, Gen. Yoav Galant, briefed the president both in Crawford (in 2005) and the Oval Office (in 2003) on Iran’s “nuclear weapons program.” Sorry if I find that odd. That used to be our job at the CIA. I’ll bet Sharon and Galant packed a bigger punch.

There is, no doubt, more at play in Bush’s attitude and behavior regarding Israel and Palestine. One need not be a psychologist to see ample evidence of oedipal tendencies. It is no secret that the president has been privately critical of what he perceives to be his father’s mistakes. Susskind notes, for example, that Bush defended his tilt toward Israel by telling an old foreign policy hand, “I’m not going to be supportive of my father and all his Arab buddies!” And it seems certain that Ariel Sharon gave the young Bush an earful about the efforts of James Baker, his father’s secretary of state, to do the unthinkable; i.e., crank Arab grievances into deals he tried to broker between Israel and the Palestinians. It seems clear that this is one reason the Baker-Hamilton report was dead on arrival.

With Friends Like This...

George W. Bush may have the best of intentions in his zeal to defend Israel, but he and Cheney have the most myopic of policies. Israeli leaders risk much if they take reassurance from the president’s rhetoric, particularly vis-à-vis Iran. I am constantly amazed to find, as I speak around the country, that the vast majority of educated Americans believe we have a defense treaty with Israel. We don’t, but one can readily see how it is they are misled. Listen to the president exactly two years ago:

Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I’d listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country, I’d be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon as well. And, in that Israel is our ally [sic]—and in that we’ve made a very strong commitment to support Israel—we will support Israel if her security is threatened.

We do no favors for Israeli leaders in giving them the impression they have carte blanche in their neighborhood—especially as regards Iran—and that we will bail them out, no matter what. Have they learned nothing from the recent past? Far from enhancing Israel’s security, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Washington’s encouragement of Israel’s feckless attack on Lebanon last summer resulted in more breeding ground for terrorist activity against Israel. This will seem child’s play compared to what would be in store, should the US and/or Israel bomb Iran.

Bottom line: there is a growing threat to Israel from suicide bombers. The most dangerous two work in the White House.

 

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This article was first published at TomPaine.com
 ICH

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February 06, 2007

Bush's SURGE to War against Iran,...

 
Why the Surge will push us into a
War with Iran

By Mike Whitney

“If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.” Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter
 
No one has done more to expand Iran’s power in the region than George Bush. He routed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and then toppled Saddam and the Ba’athist Party in 2003. Both of these were the traditional enemies of the Islamic Republic. Now Bush has installed Iranian-backed warlords in the Green Zone and delivered the country to the Shiites.
 
Was that what Bush had intended; to expand Iranian power and influence throughout the Middle East? Or is it merely the unintended consequence of a deeply flawed policy that is destabilizing the region and irreparably damaging American interests?

Iraq is not Vietnam. America cannot simply pick up and leave Iraq. By 2020 60% of the world’s remaining oil will come from the Middle East. The world’s 4 largest oil fields (including the massive Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia) are in a permanent state of decline. Unless the American people are prepared to abandon their SUVs on the side of the freeway and pedal to work on their bicycles, some accommodation must be reached in Iraq.

The war was unnecessary. Saddam was always willing to sell his oil on the open market and he even offered to make oil-leasing concessions to the American oil giants just before the war broke out. But there were other factors involved as well, including Israel’s aspirations for regional hegemony and the confused, revolutionary ideology of the neocons (“preemption”, “creative destruction”) which drove the country to war.

All the same, “we are where we are” and we need to understand why “staying the course” will push us deeper into the quicksand of defeat while conferring ever-greater power to Iran.

Bush’s new “security strategy” does nothing to promote American interests in Iraq; it benefits Iran alone. The “surge” is a tactic not a strategy. It does not consider the overall objectives of US involvement in Iraq, but continues to pursue the narrow aim of eliminating one enemy over another. This is hopelessly counterproductive and will end in disaster. By focusing all of his military resources on defeating the Sunni-led resistance, Bush has made a “devil’s bargain” with the Iranian-backed Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the biggest gangster in all of Baghdad, who is instigating much of the sectarian violence. Al-Hakim spent 20 years in Iran prior to the fall of Saddam and is clearly allied to the Mullahs.  His militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained by the Iranian Republican Guards (as well as the CIA) and is perhaps the most feared death squad in all of Iraq. Al-Hakim’s militia operates out of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and is deeply engaged in the purging of Sunnis from Baghdad.

What does Bush gain by defeating the Sunnis-led resistance but elevating the agents of Iran? How long will it be, after the last Sunni is driven out of Baghdad, before the Badr Brigade turns their guns on Bush and the American troops?

Bush is just substituting one adversary for another while exhausting his forces at the same time.

If we can understand what is meant by the “surge” then we can see why it is bound to fail and why it will further strengthen Iran’s power in Iraq.

The “surge” is not a plan for security as it is touted to be; that’s merely a public relations smokescreen. No one in their right mind believes that 21,500 troops are sufficient to provide security to a city of 6 million Iraqis. Rather, the surge is designed to drive the Sunnis from Baghdad so that the platforms of support for the Iraqi resistance will be effectively removed. (“Drain the swamp”) No one has shown a better grasp of what the “surge” really means than military analyst and historian, William Lind. In a recent article in counterpunch, Lind summarized the policy like this:

“The Americans will drive out the Sunni insurgents, leaving Sunni neighborhoods defenseless. As the American troops move on, they will be replaced by Iraqi soldiers and police, mostly Shiite militiamen, WHO WILL ETHNICALLY CLEANSE THE AREA OF SUNNIS …The Americans will have fulfilled their allotted function, fighting the Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites”. (William S. Lind “The Real Game in Iraq” counterpunch.org)

That’s it in a nutshell; the surge is ethnic cleansing.

Lind’s predictions are, in fact, taking place right now in the Haifa district as well as other Sunni-dominated neighborhoods throughout the capital. As A.K. Gupta reports in this month’s Z Magazine “At least 10 mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad have already been turned exclusively Shia at gunpoint.” (“Bush’s Iraq Strategy for 2007” AK Gupta, Z Magazine, Feb 2007)

The surge illustrates the Bush administration’s basic misunderstanding of the war in which we are engaged. Iraq is not the type of conflict where one can simply draw up a checklist and eliminate enemies one by one. All of the main groups are lined-up against the occupation; some are merely waiting for the US military to crush their traditional rivals before they act. (We saw this unfold in thee recent massacre outside of Najaf this week) Increasing the violence at this point only strengthens future adversaries and undermines the prospects for a political solution.

Lt. General WILLIAM E. ODOM clarified this point in a recent article, “Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions,” where he states:

“The war has served primarily the interests of Iran and al Qaeda, not American interests….WE CANNOT REVERSE THIS OUTCOME BY MORE USE OF MILITARY FORCE IN IRAQ …Our democratization policy has installed Shiite majorities and pro-Iranians groups in power in Baghdad, especially in the ministries of interior and defense. Moreover, our counterinsurgency operations are, as unintended (but easily foreseeable) consequences, first, greater Shiite openness to Iranian influence and second, al Qaeda's entry into Iraq and rooting itself in some elements of Iraqi society.”

Odom’s comments are similar to those of veteran journalist, Tom Lasseter, whose recent article “Surge Might Only Help al-Sadr” confirms much of what Odom says:  “The US military drive to train and equip Iraq’s security forces has unwittingly strengthened Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over the capital as American forces are trying to secure it…

“They wave at us during the day, and shoot at us at night,” said 1st Lieutenant Dan Quinn. ..”People in America think its bad, but they believe that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.” Quinn added, “Honestly, within 6 months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it’ll be the same way here with al-Sadr. He already runs our side of the river.”

These comments show why Bush’s plan to eliminate his enemies one by one will not succeed, but will only further strengthen Iranian interests while weakening America’s already-tenuous position. There is no alternative to political solution, and yet, the Bush administration has proved that it is as incapable of negotiation as it is of thinking strategically.

The administration’s rejection of political dialogue is rooted in an ideological belief that “force alone” can produce political results. Perhaps this theory emerges from the Israeli-model where “no solution” is considered desirable. The occupation of Palestine depends on a permanent state of “no settlement”; a process which requires constantly moving the goalposts so that final status negotiations can never be realistically be held.

In Israel it is essential to sustain hostilities so that the expropriation of land can continue apace, but that model that won’t work in Iraq. This is not a territorial conflict, but a war for resources. The objectives are to establish political stability not to maintain a low-level war into perpetuity.

General William Odom suggests that the current “no plan” of the Bush administration should be reevaluated in terms of America’s long term goals:

“Any new strategy that does not realistically promise to achieve regional stability at a cost we can prudently bear, and does not regain the confidence and support of our allies, is doomed to failure. To date, I have seen no awareness that any political leader has gone beyond tactical proposals to offer a different strategic approach to limiting the damage in a war that is turning out to be the greatest strategic disaster in our history.”

Time is running out for the Bush administration. The American public no longer supports the war and the congress is taking a progressively more assertive role in the shaping the extent of US involvement. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which was presented to Bush on Friday “outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which there is a strong possibility of further deterioration”.  (Washington Post) The NIE suggests that there is no chance for near-term reconciliation and that the violence over the next 18 months is likely to intensify.

The Bush administration’s response to the NIE has been entirely predictable. They are planning to forge ahead with their plan for ethnic cleansing (via the surge) which will only add to “the hell that is Iraq”. (Saddam’s last words”)

The ceaseless violence is creating the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time, already 3 million Iraqi have been displaced within the country or have been forced into nearby Syria, Jordan and Egypt.  So far, the Bush administration has admitted less than 500 Iraqi refugees into the US although the crisis was triggered by its unprovoked aggression against a defenseless state.

Across Iraq, there has been a steady up-tick in the violence which goes unreported in the western press. In Albasrah.net (“An Appeal on Behalf of the Iraqi People”) we can read of the ongoing attack on Sunni cities like Haditha, “a city which has suffered repeated attacks from US forces during 2006 and has been under a medieval siege for more than 2 months, with food, water, electricity and fuel being cut off and movement in the city has been restricted….The US military tactics of collective punishment have been used repeatedly on neighboring cities of Fallujah, Tel Afar, Ramadi, Hussabaiya etc.” Reports from the Sunni heartland are completely blacked-out in the mainstream media. Two years later, and Americans still have not seen the vast devastation from the military’s Dresden-like bombardment of Fallujah.

Also, according to the conservative Jerusalem Post, “The pro-Iranian Mahdi Army is waging a war to eliminate the entire population Palestinian population in Iraq…. Palestinian leaders and activists are describing a ‘systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing’. Thousands of Palestinian families have been forced to flee Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein, but have no place to go.” (“Palestinians ‘Ethnic Cleansing” in Iraq”)

The deliberate attack on Iraqi intellectuals and academics has also gone largely unreported in the western media. In a heart-wrenching article by Layla Anwar, “A Stroll Down Haifa Street”, the author details the assault on a university professor, Ahmed Kamal Nabil. Nabil tells how teachers and students have been targeted as “the last line of resistance against political manipulation and terror in the new Iraq. Academics are targeted because they cannot be ideologically controlled…or sucked into the role of mouth piece for the occupation and its puppets…And academics are targeted because the new Iraq has become one big looting field run by mercenaries, thugs, politically corrupt opportunists, sectarian agitators, fanatical dark minds, and barbarians.

And they want it to remain that way. They want to make sure that Iraq will never raise its head again. So they drain it of its intellectuals.

In the New Iraq, there is no place for knowledge. Knowledge is the enemy.”

Nabil is right, of course; knowledge is the enemy in a country that is rapidly tilting towards religious extremism.
Changing Course

No one has shown a better grasp of the heavy price that America has paid for its misguided war in Iraq than Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter.  In testimony last week before the Senate subcommittee Brzezinski said:
"The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilians casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials...The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward, the U.S. global posture."

Brzezinski then added that Bush’s present “stay the course” policy will inevitably lead to a larger regional conflict:

“My horror scenario is that we simply stay put, this will continue, and then the dynamic of the conflict will produce an escalating situation, in which Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks will be blamed on the Iranians. There will be some clashes, collisions, and the war expands.”

Brzezinski is right; “staying put” will lead inexorably to escalation. The emphasis now needs to be on “regional stability” not the suppression of sectarian violence or the ongoing fight against the armed resistance. It is up to the congress to see that we avert the impending catastrophe by quickly changing course. Bush’s strategy has strengthened Iranian influence in Iraq and now it threatens to consume the entire Middle East in a region-wide conflagration. As Brzezinski said:
“If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.”

Congress is duty-bound to stop this tragedy from unfolding.


 
 
 
 
 
Posted by Choice America Network at 06:57:03 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

February 05, 2007

Bush's troop "surge" target is really for Iran

 
Iran: The War Begins
By John Pilger

As opposition grows in America to the failed Iraq adventure, the Bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on Iran, its latest target, by the spring.
 
The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of "buying time" for its disaster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a "surge" of American troops in Iraq, George W Bush identified Iran as his real target. "We will interrupt the flow of support [to the insurgency in Iraq] from Iran and Syria," he said. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

"Networks" means Iran. "There is solid evidence," said a State Department spokesman on 24 January, "that Iranian agents are involved in these networks and that they are working with individuals and groups in Iraq and are being sent there by the Iranian government." Like Bush's and Tony Blair's claim that they had irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction, the "evidence" lacks all credibility. Iran has a natural affinity with the Shia majority of Iraq, and has been implacably opposed to al-Qaeda, condemning the 9/11 attacks and supporting the United States in Afghanistan. Syria has done the same. Investigations by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others, including British military officials, have concluded that Iran is not engaged in the cross-border supply of weapons. General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said no such evidence exists.

As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neo-con" fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring. For public consumption, there are potent myths. In concert with Israel and Washington's Zionist and fundamentalist Christian lobbies, the Bushites say their "strategy" is to end Iran's nuclear threat.

In fact, Iran possesses not a single nuclear weapon, nor has it ever threatened to build one; the CIA estimates that, even given the political will, Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, at the earliest. Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory, and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations - until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear programme to military use.

The IAEA has said that for most of the past three years its inspectors have been able to "go anywhere and see anything". They inspected the nuclear installations at Isfahan and Natanz on 10 and 12 January and will return on 2 to 6 February. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, says that an attack on Iran will have "catastrophic consequences" and only encourage the regime to become a nuclear power.

Unlike its two nemeses, the US and Israel, Iran has attacked no other countries. It last went to war in 1980 when invaded by Saddam Hussein, who was backed and equipped by the US, which supplied chemical and biological weapons produced at a factory in Maryland. Unlike Israel, the world's fifth military power - with its thermo nuclear weapons aimed at Middle East targets and an unmatched record of defying UN resolutions, as the enforcer of the world's longest illegal occupation - Iran has a history of obeying international law and occupies no territory other than its own.

The "threat" from Iran is entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran's "nuclear ambitions", just as the vocabulary of Saddam's non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage. Accompanying this is a demonising that has become standard practice. As Edward Herman has pointed out, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "has done yeoman service in facilitating [this]"; yet a close examination of his notorious remark about Israel in October 2005 reveals how it has been distorted. According to Juan Cole, American professor of modern Middle East and south Asian history at the University of Michigan, and other Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad did not call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". He said: "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." This, says Cole, "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all". Ahmadinejad compared the demise of the Israeli regime to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Iranian regime is repressive, but its power is diffuse and exercised by the mullahs, with whom Ahmadinejad is often at odds. An attack would surely unite them.

Nuclear option

The one piece of "solid evidence" is the threat posed by the United States. An American naval build-up in the eastern Mediterranean has begun. This is almost certainly part of what the Pentagon calls CONPLAN, which is the aerial bombing of Iran. In 2004, National Security Presidential Directive 35, entitled "Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization", was issued. It is classified, of course, but the presumption has long been that NSPD 35 authorized the stockpiling and deployment of "tactical" nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

This does not mean Bush will use them against Iran, but for the first time since the most dangerous years of the cold war, the use of what were then called "limited" nuclear weapons is being discussed openly in Washington. What they are debating is the prospect of other Hiroshimas and of radioactive fallout across the Middle East and central Asia. Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker last year that American bombers "have been flying simulated nuclear weapons delivery missions . . . since last summer".

The well-informed Arab Times in Kuwait says that Bush will attack Iran before the end of April. One of Russia's most senior military strategists, General Leonid Ivashov, says the US will use nuclear munitions delivered by cruise missiles launched from the Mediterranean. "The war in Iraq," he wrote on 24 January, "was just one element in a series of steps in the process of regional destabilization.

It was only a phase in getting closer to dealing with Iran and other countries. [When the attack on Iran begins] Israel is sure to come under Iranian missile strikes . . . Posing as victims, the Israelis . . . will suffer some tolerable damage and then the outraged US will destabilize Iran finally, making it look like a noble mission of retribution . . . Public opinion is already under pressure. There will be a growing anti-Iranian . . . hysteria, . . . leaks, disinformation et cetera . . . It . . . remain[s] unclear . . . whether the US Congress is going to authorize the war."

Asked about a US Senate resolution disapproving of the "surge" of US troops to Iraq, Vice-President Cheney said: "It won't stop us." Last November, a majority of the American electorate voted for the Democratic Party to control Congress and stop the war in Iraq.

Apart from insipid speeches of "disapproval", this has not happened and is unlikely to happen. Influential Democrats, such as the new leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the would-be presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, have disported themselves before the Israeli lobby. Edwards is regarded in his party as a "liberal". He was one of a high-level American contingent at a recent Israeli conference in Herzliya, where he spoke about "an unprecedented threat to the world and Israel [sic]. At the top of these threats is Iran . . . All options are on the table to ensure that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon." Hillary Clinton has said: "US policy must be unequivocal . . . We have to keep all options on the table." Pelosi and Howard Dean, another liberal, have distinguished themselves by attacking the former president Jimmy Carter, who oversaw the Camp David Agreement between Israel and Egypt and has had the gall to write a truthful book accusing Israel of becoming an "apartheid state". Pelosi said: "Carter does not speak for the Democratic Party." She is right, alas.

In Britain, Downing Street has been presented with a document entitled Answering the Charges by Professor Abbas Edalat, of Imperial College London, on behalf of others seeking to expose the disinformation on Iran. Blair remains silent. Apart from the usual honorable exceptions, parliament remains shamefully silent, too.

Can this really be happening again, less than four years after the invasion of Iraq, which has left some 650,000 people dead? I wrote virtually this same article early in 2003; for Iran now, read Iraq then. And is it not remarkable that North Korea has not been attacked? North Korea has nuclear weapons.

In numerous surveys, such as the one released on 23 January by the BBC World Service, "we", the majority of humanity, have made clear our revulsion for Bush and his vassals. As for Blair, the man is now politically and morally naked for all to see. So who speaks out, apart from Professor Edalat and his colleagues? Privileged journalists, scholars and artists, writers and thespians, who sometimes speak about "freedom of speech", are as silent as a dark West End theater. What are they waiting for? The declaration of another thousand-year Reich, or a mushroom cloud in the Middle East, or both?

John Pilger is a renowned author, journalist and documentary film-maker. A war correspondent, his writings have appear in numerous magazines, and newspapers.

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Posted by Choice America Network at 04:42:22 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |