International Herald Tribune
Report: Muqtada al-Sadr says Iraq's government is near its end

The Associated Press
Monday, August 20, 2007

LONDON: A top Iraqi Shiite militia leader predicted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government was nearing its end because it has been tainted by its close work with American forces, a British newspaper reported Monday.

Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told The Independent newspaper that al-Maliki's government was on the brink of collapse, despite efforts to bolster its base of support.

"Al-Maliki's government will not survive because he has proven that he will not work with important elements of the Iraqi people," the cleric was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

"The prime minister is a tool for the Americans, and people see that clearly. It will probably be the Americans who decide to change him when they realize he has failed. We don't have a democracy here, we have a foreign occupation."

Al-Sadr had been among al-Maliki's strongest supporters.

Early this year, al-Sadr agreed to government appeals to tone down his anti-American rhetoric and not directly challenge the waves of U.S. soldiers trying to regain control of Baghdad.

However, he broke with al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite, in April and withdrew his five supporters from the Iraqi Cabinet to protest the prime minister's refusal to demand a timetable for the pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq.

However, the interview became mired in controversy when Ahmed al-Shaibani, a senior official in al-Sadr's office in Najaf denied it had taken place. The Independent stood by its story, and said the confusion may have arisen because the interview was arranged without the assistance of al-Sadr's media representatives.

The newspaper reported that, during the interview, conducted in the southern Iraqi city of Kufa, al-Sadr also declared that British forces had been defeated in Iraq and would be forced to pull out sooner than they planned.

He said resistance and a rising death toll among troops had forced a withdrawal, the newspaper reported.

"The British have given up and they know they will be leaving Iraq soon," al-Sadr was quoted as saying. "They are retreating because of the resistance they have faced. Without that, they would have stayed for much longer, there is no doubt."

Al-Sadr controls a political movement that includes a network of hardcore militants, many of whom are blamed for dozens of deaths among British troops. The militants have frequently clashed with British troops and rival militias for control of the southern city of Basra.

"The British have realized this is not a war they should be fighting or one they can win," al-Sadr was quoted as saying. "The Mahdi army has played an important role in that."

British Maj. Mike Shearer rejected al-Sadr's assessment, arguing that British forces had always expected an increase in violence in the months before they hand over the southern city of Basra to Iraqi forces.

"The malign influences in the city, we have always predicted, would raise their game to create the false impression that they were driving us out, and that is not the case," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today program.

"The reality is it makes sense, the closer we get to achieving Iraqi control in Basra province, that we reduce our operational footprint in the city and allow the Iraqi security forces to take the lead in policing security of their own city," he said.

Al-Sadr warned that Britain's involvement in Iraq made Britain a target of violence, The Independent reported.

"The British put their soldiers in a dangerous position by sending them here, but they also put the people in their own country in danger," he said, according to the newspaper. "They have made enemies among all Muslims, and they now face attacks at home because of their war. That was their mistake."

Al-Sadr said the problems in southern Iraq would persist long after British forces departed, the newspaper reported. The number of British forces in Iraq has dropped from 7,000 at the beginning of the year to about 5,500 now.

"There will still be some problems in southern Iraq, there will be violence because some countries are trying to influence the situation," he was quoted as saying, apparently referring to Iran. "But with the occupation of southern Iraq finished we will be freer to live our lives as brothers."

He rejected recent reports that he had fled to Iran and denied claims his forces had requested help from Tehran, according to the newspaper.
Notes:

International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

War Has Made Baghdad Pre-Industrial

City in a Time Warp

War is pushing Baghdad out of the 21st century and back to a bygone age of ferrymen, midwives, donkey drivers and shepherds.
Photo illustration by Wathiq Khuzaie / Getty Images for NewsweekA horse-drawn cart is reflected in sewage water as it drives through Sadr City, Baghdad

xas News
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Aug. 19, 2007, 6:11PM
RETURNING FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
Veterans swap war for a college education
Once they're back home, many decide to shift gears


By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

TOOLS Email Get section feed Print Subscribe NOW Comments if (MCP_PLUCK) { gSiteLife.Recommend("ExternalResource",PluckItemID); } Recommend There is a student studying political science who as a soldier last year carried an assault rifle and stared down anyone approaching Camp Anaconda, a massive base in Iraq.

A political science student led a squad, constantly reminding his seven troops they were more likely to be killed by a bomb than a bullet.

And there is the architecture major who grew so accustomed to mortar attacks that diving for cover was just another day at the office.

After swapping their weapons for pens and Kevlar vests for laptops, these University of Houston students are among many local veterans returning from war to take on a new challenge: college.

When school starts today , military veteran students, especially those who recently returned to civilian life, will be easy to spot.

They often keep their hair military short and prefer earth-tone colors that protected them in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I don't wear it on my sleeve," UH political science major Chris Webb said of his service.

"The further you get away from it, the less it comes up," he said of his tour, which finished in 2006. "It is not as big a part of my identity as it was."

As fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, soldiers are seeing more combat and colleges are getting students with experiences not seen in sizable numbers since Vietnam.

That trend should continue as the Department of Defense reports that 95 percentof eligible enlistees sign up for college-assistance programs.

UH, perhaps due to being a large commuter school, has more veterans than other major Texas campuses, although officials don't track combat history.

Veterans made up 2.3 percent of the student body at UH in Fall 2006.

Figures indicate a veteran is three times more likely to be seen on the UH campus than at the University of Texas at Austin or Texas A&M University.




Showing more discipline
Those who go to war and later become students seem to walk a bit taller and have more discipline than typical college kids. At UH, they're an average of 29 years old, compared to 23 for the overall student body.

Grades are about the same, and it takes them the same amount of time to graduate. But they shoulder quite different burdens than most students.

They leave behind the camaraderie that came with being part of a military team as they try to wind down from the hyper-awareness that came with life in a combat zone and making life and death decisions on a daily basis.

"After 15 months in Iraq, I was ready to move on," said another student who served as an Army sergeant and asked to be identified only by his first name, Adrian, because he doesn't want others knowing about his combat experience.

"You deal with trauma. You deal with separation from your family. And you deal with an insurmountable amount of stress on a daily basis — there is always a mission," he said.

The toll the stress takes varies, but it is a consistent issue.

One-third of soldiers who returned from Iraq have used mental-health services, according to the federal government.

Manuel De La Garza, who at the Audie Murphy VA Hospital in San Antonio coordinates a program to help soldiers return to civilian life, said it's tough to shake life-preserving skills.

"They are vigilant, always on the lookout," he said."They will scope out a place, see where the exits are and sit with their backs to the wall."




Dealing with the past
Allen Grundy, who manages UH's Veterans' Services Office, said that is where his facility helps. "We watch each others' backs and can talk to each other when someone else cannot," Grundy said.

"They say you do not know until you have walked a mile in somebody's shoes."

The veterans' office, which is funded by the state, aims to ease the transition by helping with everything from counseling to the paperwork.

There are also computers for veterans to use and an area where they can read, make copies or use the fax machine.

It is a place where they can take a breather, network, be among their own.

"We always have the common ground of the military, and we discuss those issues here," Grundy said.

The UH courtship of veterans dates back at least to World War II. So many postwar veterans enrolled that the student body nearly doubled.

A "Veterans' Village," with about 700 trailers and shacks, was set up on campus to give them places to live.

"It was hard to adjust," recalled Orville Story, 81, who joined the Navy when he was 17 and served in the Pacific before returning to UH.

He recalled how he went from the military, where nearly every minute of every day was determined by the government, to the freedom of being a teenager again.




Negative effect
As for the latest generation of veterans, Story said they are no different than veterans from other wars in that they had a period of time taken out of their lives. The biggest difference between World War II and wars since is the American public, Story said.

"We had 100 percent support — everybody was in favor of the war; we had to defend ourselves against an enemy we knew," he said.

"They cannot be vindictive or have negative feelings," he said of those who now return from war and get swept into discussions about politics.

"They have got to be constructive, move on, and be proud they served their country," he said.

Diego Ariza, an architecture student who served in the Air Force and survived numerous mortar attacks, said his time in Iraq will always be with him.

"It is who you are now; it is part of your life," Ariza said. "Even if you become a civilian, you're always a military guy."

dane.schiller@chron.com

That our way of thinking is the problem, not them other guys.

Extended Buildup Would Exhaust US Forces

LOLITA C. BALDOR

The Associated Press
LAUREN FRAYER Soldiers of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, rest as they have arrive to a US military Base Warhorse in Baqouba, Iraq, 60 kilometers (35 miles) north east of Baghdad, Tuesday, March 13, 2007. More than 700 additional U.S. troops arrived in Iraq's increasingly volatile Diyala province on Tuesday, to try to quell burgeoning violence just northeast of Baghdad during a security crackdown there. (AP Photo/Lauren Frayer) » More images WASHINGTON - Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

,Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

,Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

,Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

For a war-fatigued nation and a Congress bent on bringing troops home, none of those is desirable.

In Iraq, there are 18 Army brigades, each with about 3,500 soldiers. At least 13 more brigades are scheduled to rotate in. Two others are in Afghanistan and two additional ones are set to rotate in there. Also, several other brigades either are set for a future deployment or are scattered around the globe.

The few units that are not at war, in transformation or in their 12-months home time already are penciled in for deployments later in 2008 or into 2009. Shifting them would create problems in the long-term schedule.

Most Army brigades have completed two or three tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; some assignments have lasted as long as 15 months. The 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, has done four tours.

Two Marine regiments , each roughly the same size as an Army brigade , also in Iraq,, bringing the total number of brigades in the country to 20.

When asked what units will fill the void in the coming spring if any need to be replaced, officials give a grim shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders or a palms-up, empty-handed gesture.

"The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply," the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said last week. "Right now we have in place deployment and mobilization policies that allow us to meet the current demands. If the demands don't go down over time, it will become increasingly difficult for us to provide the trained and ready forces" for other missions.

Casey said he would not be comfortable extending troops beyond their 15-month deployments. But other military officials acknowledge privately that option is on the table.

Pentagon leaders hope there is enough progress in Iraq to allow them to scale back at least part of the nearly 30,000-strong buildup when soldiers begin leaving Iraq around March and April.

There are 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now, the highest level since the war began in 2003. That figure is expected to hit 171,000 this fall as fresh troops rotate in.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq who will deliver a much anticipated progress report to Congress in September, said Wednesday he is considering possible troop cuts and believes the U.S. will have fewer forces in Iraq by next summer.

Other commanders have said the security situation is improving, which would allow U.S. troops to be shifted from combat and lead to an eventual force reduction.

Still, Petraeus and other military leaders have warned against drawing down too quickly. In fact, an upbeat progress report in September may solidify arguments that additional troops should stay longer to ensure that positive changes stick.

"The longer that you keep American forces there, the longer you give this process to solidify and to make sure that it's not going to slide back," said Frederick Kagan, an American Enterprise Institute analyst who recently returned from an eight-day visit to Iraq. "The sooner you take them out, the more you run the risk that enemies will come in and try to disrupt."

Kagan, a leading supporter of the current buildup strategy, said any decision to maintain force levels would have to take into account the effects on the Army. That would include, he said, the strains of sending Guard units back to Iraq more rapidly than Pentagon policy allows or keeping active duty units there longer than 15 months.

"You have the same tradeoff at every moment in this process, which is the institutional well-being of the Army versus what is felt is necessary to win the war," Kagan said.

According to military officials, some soldiers in Iraq are hearing that it may not be wise to pack their bags to come home when their 15-month tour is up. But to date, Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have said they have no plans to extend those tours.

National Guard officials are bracing for a new round of Guard deployments and a move to decrease their time at home between tours , despite announced plans to give the citizen soldiers five years off for every one year served.

One Guard official said this past week that the Army is pushing to give Guard units four years or less at home in order to get access to those combat brigades sooner.

Last April the Pentagon notified National Guard brigades in four states that they should be prepared to deploy to Iraq later this year. But documents obtained by the AP show that Guard units in five states , Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma and Minnesota , are scheduled to deploy to Iraq before the end of the year. A New York Guard unit is set to go to Afghanistan.

The shortage of combat units will be remedied over time. The Pentagon slowly is increasing the size of the active-duty Army by 65,000 members to 547,000 by 2012. The 38 combat brigades currently available for war will expand to 48 by 2013.

The Iraqis hold the key to any U.S. withdrawals. The government in Baghdad has made little progress on political changes the Pentagon says are critical to restoring stability to the country, thus allowing U.S. troops to begin leaving.

If progress is not made and the violence does not abate, the Pentagon will turn again to the Army.

"The Army will do what's necessary and will pay a very high price if necessary," said Kagan. "but I'm hopeful that it won't come to that and I honestly don't think that it will."

Rising powers have the US in their sights

The assault on the United States' supremacy has been as striking as it has been unexpected - from the breaking of the Anglo-American 24-hour news monopoly globally to the rise of the Russian energy superpower and of the Chinese economic juggernaut. New powers are challenging different aspects of US dominance - Russia and China in the forefront, with Venezuela and Iran forming the second rank. - Dilip Hiro (Aug 21, '07)

Iraqi 'surge' misses its mark
It appears that the "surge" of American troops in Iraq is pleasing no one. Residents of Baquba, site of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, caught in the middle of the US-al-Qaeda fight, say it has brought no security. And in the US, a survey of 100 foreign-policy experts reveals that more than half now think that the "surge" is having a negative impact. - Ahmed Ali (Aug 21, '07)

India splitting atoms over nuclear deal
The ongoing political impasse in New Delhi over India's nuclear deal with the United States obscures the broader debate over the direction of India's foreign policy, and that India, rather than choose to be anti-US or pro-US, could take the middle path. - Zorawar Daulet Singh (Aug 21, '07)

Shell, Dow eye China's
refining sector
Two global giants, Shell and Dow Chemical, are entering China's oil product market by participating in a project in Guangdong province. Of primary interest to the two giants is a soon-to-be constructed ethylene plant with a capacity of 1 million tonnes.

The Smarter Way to Target Iran

By Michael Jacobson


My colleague Patrick Clawson and I published a piece today on the potential impact of an IRGC designation.

On August 15, the New York Times and Washington Post reported that the Bush administration was considering sanctioning Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for its terrorist-related activities. This designation could have a significant impact, as Iranian leaders are vulnerable to the types of "smart sanctions" that would result. Finding others to join in this designation, however, would make it far more effective.

Ratcheting up the Pressure

A terrorist designation for the Revolutionary Guards would mark the culmination of the administration's recent campaign to highlight the IRGC's dangerous activities. Speaking in Dubai in March 2007, U.S. under secretary of the treasury Stuart Levey warned, "When corporations do business with IRGC companies, they are doing business with organizations that are providing direct support to terrorism." In a July 2007 speech, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson focused on the Revolutionary Guards, arguing, "The IRGC is so deeply entrenched in Iran's economy and commercial enterprises, it is increasingly likely that if you are doing business with Iran, you are somehow doing business with the IRGC."

Despite the growing rhetoric, this would be the United States's first such enforcement action against the IRGC or its officials. In fact, the United States -- unlike Europe -- still has not designated the IRGC entities and officials named in UN Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747. (It is ironic that the U.S. government has yet to fully comply with the Security Council resolutions it so strongly advocated.) Designating the IRGC also likely indicates resistance at the UN to American proposals to target the IRGC. After the passage of Resolution 1737 in December 2006, in which IRGC commander Yahya Rahim Safavi was listed, Levey argued that "the resolution also requires that the assets be frozen of all the entities [Safavi] owns or controls. So if it is fully implemented, that applies to the entire IRGC."

To read the rest of the article, click here

Members of Congress Question IMF on Coup in Venezuela
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, August 21, 2007

[link to the Members' letter:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/issues/IMF_coup_Letter.pdf
link to the IMF statement:
http://imf.org/external/np/tr/2002/tr020412.htm]

One activity you can't do too much: challenge the hollowness of the
Bush Administration's rhetoric about "supporting democracy." And, so
long as this Administration is in office, it's not too late for
Congress to demand straight answers about past actions.

Last week five Members of Congress - Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Raul
Grijalva, Jose Serrano, Barbara Lee, and Tammy Baldwin - sent a letter
to the head of the International Monetary Fund, Rodrigo de Rato,
asking about a statement by IMF spokesman Thomas Dawson in 2002, hours
after a military coup overthrowing the democratically elected
Venezuelan government, in which Dawson, reading from a prepared text,
said "we stand ready to assist the new administration in whatever
manner they find suitable."

This was a remarkable statement, given that the IMF, a U.S.-taxpayer
funded institution, is not supposed to interfere in countries'
political affairs. It's hard to imagine a more dramatic interference
than endorsing a military coup as it's unfolding.

The Members of Congress asked the IMF:

How, when, and by whom was this decision made?
Did IMF officials have any advance knowledge a coup would take place?
Has the IMF ever decided this quickly to support a government that had
taken power by military coup?

They also asked for all documents and records relating to the decision.

So far there has been no response from the U.S. taxpayer-funded IMF.

It's virtually impossible that this decision was taken without the
knowledge of Bush Administration officials.

The question is: which officials? Who gave the green light?

--
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy's current estimate of Iraqi deaths due to violence
since the U.S. invasion - now more than a million:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

"IAEA Opens Third Round of Nuclear Talks With Iran," Global Security Newswire
• "U.S. Stays Firm on Sanctions Against Iran," By Brian Knowlton, International Herald Tribune
• "India Wants Abe to Back its Nuke Deal With U.S.," The Japan Times
• "Fissioning Forward With India," Op-Ed, Chicago Tribune
• "Pakistan Warns India Against Nuclear Tests," Middle East Times
• "Arguing on Shaky Ground," Op-Ed, The Economist

The Military Death Toll While Enforcing the Occupation of Iraq
by Paul de Rooij

Updated June 10th, 2007

A regularly updated resource with links to many articles, quotes, and important information missing from mainstream news coverage about the war in Iraq.

Blaming All Americans for Bush’s Debacle in Iraq?
by Walter C. Uhler / August 21st, 2007

Take a look at the September/October 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs and you’ll find a fascinating article by James Dobbins: “Who Lost Iraq? Lessons From the Debacle.” An Assistant Secretary of State under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Dobbins candidly admits that Bush’s invasion of Iraq qualifies as a “national catastrophe,” and notes that the changes made thus far, including the so-called “surge,” have not “reversed a worsening situation.” But his main objective is to assure that the “current debate over the United States’ failure in Iraq . . . yield[s] constructive results” for future administrations. (Full article …)

The Authority to Abuse the Constitution

The FBI's New Power
By SAUL LANDAU

On August 4, ignoring former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who had spoken of Bush's "phony war" on terrorism, Congress authorized vast authority for repressive agencies to spy further on the public. Under the pretext of "fighting terror," the bill opens further already existing wide parameters for telephone and email intrusion without court warrants.

As usual, Democrats capitulated. Some fearing the wuss label, others actually agreeing that Bush needed more power to diminish the already diminishing Bill of Rights to deal with the "terrorist threat." 41 House Democrats voted for the Bill, 16 in the Senate.

Congress refuses to learn. In 1947, President Truman launched a bipartisan coalition to create new agencies to deal with the then mortal enemy ­ the Soviet Union. Although Democrats launched the Cold War, some liberals began to object when extreme right wing Republicans like Senator Joe McCarthy took Truman's anti-Communist crusade "too far."

Like the Cold War, Bush's anti-terrorism campaign increased the already vast powers of the secret agencies. Did Congress not recall that the most notorious spies were high employees FBI and CIA officials? The Bureau's Joseph Hansen and the Agency's Aldrich Ames sold the Soviets hundreds of thousands of "top secrets" ­ before the USSR collapsed in 1991. Simultaneously those agencies spent fortunes spying on innocent citizens.

Worse, FBI "informants" often doubled as "agents provocateurs." In the 1960s, anti war and civil rights activists learned to suspect those proposing violence and labeling skeptics "chickenshit." Such advocates regularly turned out to be FBI infiltrators. I recall a meeting during which one man screamed: "Let's kill a pig. That'll wake people up and show 'em, we mean business." Inevitably, such statements gained the support of a few nuts and indeed some violent scenarios actually took shape.

By placing such characters inside the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements, the Bureau hoped to provoke violence so as to show the public that anti-war and civil rights activists were dangerous. Most citizens opposed the war and sympathized with anti-war protests, but drew a sharp line at violence.

I recall at anti-Vietnam War meetings insisted on violent action as the only means could to bring about radical transformation. Later, I learned the cops had busted him on drug charges and turned him over to the FBI, who offered to drop the charges in return for his inciting groups to commit mayhem.

Some of these "turned criminals" just infiltrated left groups and reported to their Special Agents about their plans and activities. From 1968-1973, the FBI placed 72 "informants" inside the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. A few of the infiltrators volunteered for such work out of patriotic feelings. One such informant worked for Karl Hess, a former Goldwater speechwriter and Libertarian. After spending a month at IPS, the informant confessed to Hess that he had permeated the Institute in order to report on its subversive activities. But he felt qualms after finding not one sign of unpatriotic activity. Indeed, he discovered lively debate, few agreements among fellows and not a trace of Soviet influence. As a result of his disclosure IPS filed suit and won a court order for the FBI to stop their illegal practices and not circulate material on IPS to other government agencies. In the late 1980s, IPS fellows discovered that the FBI had turned a book keeper and a janitor whose relatives faced felony charges. IPS endured the consequences when the bookkeeper failed to pay payroll taxes for several months and serious financial problems ensued.

Congress has virtually ignored the FBI's role as a political police and allowed the Bureau to maintain its façade of fighting crime. Since the FBI did not get punished for using informants to provoke crimes, this MO clung like a dingleberry to the Bureau.

Even before J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI in 1924, he had made his name by pursuing political radicals. In 1919-1920, he became a right hand man to Attorney General J. Mitchell Palmer, who carried out the notorious "Palmer Raids" against "radical aliens."

Hoover built a PR apparatus that profiled his organization as tough on crime, while he collected massive amounts of data on everyone he could, including Members of Congress. Given this knowledge of the FBI's past wiretapping and data collecting of hundreds of thousands of innocent US citizens, one would have thought Congress might have reflected before authorizing the current bill, which expands the power of the Bureau and other agencies, opening the door to perfidy on a grander scale.

Instead, the Members, some of whom feared getting labeled "soft on terrorism," voted carte blanche for the repressive agencies to "pursue terrorists." In the FBI's case, this means not only snooping into private affairs, but using agents provocateurs to create crime where none existed.

On June 22, 2006, FBI Special Agents arrested seven African American men and accused them of conspiring to unleash a ground war against US targets. Five had previous arrest records for assault and possession of illegal drugs and weapons. Federal prosecutors told the media that this nefarious gang had links to al-Qaida and planned to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower in "support of a foreign terrorist organization."

Most of the "plotters," residents of the Liberty City area, where some half a million African Americans share decaying space with recently-arrived Haitians, were unemployed. The announcement of the arrest came in the context of police busts in England where local terrorist cells also had supposed links to al-Qaida. When some reporters scrutinized the evidence, however, it turned out that the arrested men had no connection to some supposed central headquarters of the infamous world terrorist plotters.

In England, angry local Muslims had learned bomb making not in the mosques, but on web sites. More than a dozen such sites existed even before 9/11. Thousands now exist.

The FBI, however, fell behind technologically, failing even to obtain proper computer interfaces. It still lacks sufficient Arabic-speaking Agents who would be able to surf the Web and find some of the illicit sites.

Throughout this country, millions of black Muslims resent the dominant culture. Alongside them, immigrants from the Muslim world now inhabit neighborhoods inside cities and in the suburbs. So, the FBI resorted to its old tricks.

In Miami, however, the FBI targeted a group whose members had no knowledge of bomb-making; nor possessed sufficient computer literacy to search the web. Two paid FBI informants discovered Narseal "Prince Marina" Batiste. According to the indictments and court testimony, they posed as al-Qaida members and approached Batiste with a grandiose plan that he would lead. At "secret" meetings at a warehouse the FBI had wired for surveillance and even paid rent on the place, the infiltrators shared joints with Batiste and his buddies. It isn't clear from court records if the FBI also paid for the marijuana it supplied "plotters" who smoked while conspiring.

The 32 year old Batiste had heard of al-Qaida, but wasn't sure what it stood for. The FBI instigators made Batiste swear loyalty to al-Qaida; then had him call on his local buddies to form an "Islamic army" in Miami. None had military training. Some could barely read. But Batiste assured the group in the midst of its collective marijuana buzz of greatness ahead.

One of the paid FBI informers, Charles James Stewart, had gotten busted for rape. After he joined the group he fought with and killed one of Batiste's friends. Then he testified against the entire group.

The other undercover plant ­ born in the Middle East -- had a record for assault and marijuana possession. The FBI had promised him citizenship papers if he came through successfully.

The terrorists included five U.S. citizens, one Haitian with a green card and one without. The FBI infiltrators promised Batiste and his seven man army boots, uniforms, guns, radios, vehicles and $50 thousand. Imagine how these poor men felt when army boots and some primitive electronic equipment appeared, including a small digital camera, a cell phone and $3,500 in cash!

The FBI never supplied weapons or explosives. The money was a bit short of the $50,000 the informers boasted they would provide. None of the group knew how to use explosives or had formal weapons training.

When the public learned of the pathetic nature of these dangerous terrorists, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole explained that the conspiracy was "more inspirational than operational." Yes, FBI informants inspired the plot with non-operational conspirators, as they did in previous eras against different enemies.

Congress has just authorized more money and power to an agency that will no doubt use it to collect more files on US citizens and perpetrate more Miami style plots in the name of the "war on terrorism," Members of both House should enjoy their summer!

LINKTV will air Saul Landau's classic 1968 film "Fidel" starting Friday, August 24 at 5pm Pacific. LINK is accessible on DIRECT TV Channel 375 and on DISH TV on Channel 9410.

Saul Landau writes a regular column for CounterPunch and progresoweekly.com. His new Counterpunch Press book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD. His new film, WE DON'T PLAY GOLF HERE (on globalization in Mexico) is available through roundworldproductions@gmail.com

DOD Memo Shows Pentagon Looking Past Iraq Deputy SecDef Gordon England Has Another Internal Memo Exposed Posted 7 hr. 24 min. ago Alex Wong/AFP/Getty Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England seems to consistently have trouble keeping the contents of his internal memos quiet. Just over a year ago, Brown's memo stating the government's commitment to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions set off a firestorm of speculation over how it would impact US detainee policy. Earlier this year, members of the media ridiculed Brown's reminder to staff that they should work aggressively on their program initiatives because DOD policy would change with the next election.

Now AFP has acquired a copy of Brown's top 25 priorities for DOD in the final stretch of the Bush Administration, reporting that only one item on the list concerns Iraq. "Conduct September 2007 Iraq surge assessment and revise and execute plans accordingly," the memo states in its sole reference to Iraq.

"It's basically saying, 'Let's move forward," a Pentagon official told AFP.

Though other points on the "to do" list do not specifically address Iraq, some do concern critical elements of the US's war-fighting capabilities, like aggressive acquisition of MRAP vehicles and support of the Joint IED Defeat Organization. England also calls for pressing ahead with plans to expand, reorganize and reequip US ground forces, and to expand US special forces.

England also calls for a focus to "swiftly improve high value target tracking and locating capabilities," and the development of a long-range strategy for handling detainees by the end of 2008.

According to AFP, other goals under the rubric of "Prevail in Global War on Terrorism" are to develop a security and cooperation plan for the Near East and South Asia; to develop the capabilities of partner countries; and to communicate in "a 24/7 New Media Age."

Other items on his list: establish a new Africa command, carry out a "cyberspace strategy," and begin a new approach to nuclear deterrence.

Gwynne Dyer Arab News August 21, 2007 It's impossible to say whether the United States will attack Iran before President George W. Bush leaves office in 17 months' time, because nobody in the White House knows yet either. It is easy to predict what would happen if the US did attack Iran, however, and the signs are that the hawks in the White House are winning that argument.

The most alarming sign is the news that the Bush administration is about to brand the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "terrorist organization." This is a highly provocative step, for the IRGC is not a bunch of fanatical freelances. It is a 125,000-strong official arm of the Iranian state, parallel to the regular armed forces but more ideologically motivated and presumably more loyal to the ruling clerics.

Almost everybody in the Bush administration believes that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons in order to dominate the region and to attack Israel. (Others are less certain.) The war party, led by Dick Cheney, also believes that the clerical regime in Iran would collapse at the first hard push, since ordinary Iranians thirst for US-style democracy — and that the attack must be made while President Bush is still in office, since no successor will have the guts to do it. Even after all this time, the administration's old machismo survives: "The boys go to Baghdad; the real men go to Tehran."

So what will happen if Cheney & Co. get their way? The Iranian regime would not collapse: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now unpopular due to his mishandling of the economy, but patriotic Iranians would rally even around him if they were attacked by foreigners. What would collapse, instead, is the world's oil supply and the global economy.

Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, explained how that would be accomplished in a speech on Aug. 15 (though he made no direct reference to the US threat). "Our coast-to-sea missile systems can now reach the length and breadth of the Gulf and the Sea of Oman," he said, "and no warships can pass in the Gulf without being in range of our coast-to-sea missiles." In other words, Iran can close the whole of the Gulf and its approaches to oil tanker traffic, and if the US Navy dares to fight in these waters it will lose.

Despite the huge disparity in military power between the United States and Iran, this is probably true. Overcommitted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States cannot come up with the huge number of extra troops that would be needed to invade and occupy a mountainous country of 75 million people. The US can bomb Iran to its heart's content, hitting all those real and alleged nuclear facilities, but then it runs out of options — whereas Iran's options are very broad.

It could just stop exporting oil itself. Pulling only Iran's three and a half million barrels per day off the market, in its present state, would send oil prices shooting up into the stratosphere. Or it could get tough and close down all oil-tanker traffic that comes within range of those missiles — which would mean little or no oil from Iraq, Saudi Arabia or the smaller Gulf states either. That would mean global oil rationing, industrial shutdowns, and the end of the present economic era.

Can those missiles do all that? Yes, they can. The latest generation of sea-skimming missiles have mobile, easily concealed launchers, and they would come in very fast and low from anywhere along almost 2,000 km (well over 1,000 miles) of Iran's Gulf coast. Sink the first half-dozen tankers, and insurance rates for voyages to the Gulf become prohibitive, even if you can find owners willing to risk their tankers.

It's very doubtful that US air strikes could find and destroy all the missile launchers — consider how badly the Israeli Air Force did in south Lebanon last summer — so Iran wins. After a few months, the other great powers would find some way for the United States to back away from the confrontation and let the oil start flowing again, but the US would suffer a far greater humiliation than it did in Vietnam, while Iran would emerge as the undisputed arbiter of the region.

Many, perhaps most, senior American generals and admirals know this and are privately opposed to a foredoomed attack on Iran, but in the end they will do as ordered. Vice President Dick Cheney and his coterie don't know it, preferring to believe that Iranians would welcome their American attackers with glad cries and open arms. You know, like the Iraqis did. And Cheney seems to be winning the argument in the White House.

— Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

Analysis: Iraq, who is to blame
Washington (UPI) Aug 21, 2007 - With the situation in Iraq becoming more complicated amid increasing setbacks, so too is the political recrimination becoming more apparent. Meanwhile, attributing blame for the failures in Iraq is turning into something of a national pastime. In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, James Dobbins looks at who is to blame for the way the war was, and still is, being conducted. The author ... more

+ Analysis: Political Islam's problems
Washington (UPI) Aug 21, 2007 - Political Islam is an attractive concept for many Muslims, and some expect it to resolve some of the economic, political and cultural problems they face. But most don't know how this will happen. From the early 19th to the mid-20th century, the Islamic world produced a string of scholars -- Jamaluddin Afghani and Syed Abul A'ala Maududi in British India, Hassan al-Banna and Syed Qutub i ... more

India to push ahead with IAEA nuke negotiations: report
New Delhi (AFP) Aug 21, 2007 - The Indian government indicated it would push ahead with a controversial Indo-US nuclear deal despite strong objections from its communist allies, the Press Trust of India reported on Tuesday. Asked whether India would open talks in September with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the next step towards implementing the deal, a spokesman of the ruling Congress party replied "our ... more

Support Our Troops
They want us out of Iraq by Justin Raimondo If the op-ed page of the New York Times has often served as the first battleground in America's wars, where the arguments and counter-arguments for intervention are debated, then the past week or so has certainly brought this institutional tradition to the fore: last week, we had Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack averring that it's too early to sing a dirge over the "surge," which has been cited by the War Party as proof positive that "victory" is at hand – or, at any rate, is at least possible.

These two Brookings Institution scholars, who spent a total of eight days in Iraq recently, have come back to tell us the "surge" is working, "morale is high," and Gen. Petraeus will save us. Their article has been touted by the administration and its amen corner in the media as the answer to the rising tide of public discontent over the war.

Aside from the content of their arguments – anecdotes, really – we are told that these two are "harsh critics of the war," when the reality is that both supported it. Pollack wrote an entire book, The Threatening Storm, that was instrumental in mobilizing Democratic Party leaders to lend their support to the invasion. Indeed, in the article, the authors describe themselves as "two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq" (emphasis added).

On the other side of the barricades, we have an article signed by seven soldiers in Iraq, who describe the political debate in Washington – where O'Hanlon and Pollack can get away with being called "war critics" – as "surreal." They write:

"To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict."

In other words, the much-touted "success" of the "surge" is a fraud. These guys are on the ground in Iraq, with the famed 82nd Airborne, and they're telling us – and Bill Kristol, Rich Lowry, and Messrs. O'Hanlon and Pollack – that it isn't working. No one questions American military superiority over the insurgents, but, they say, this has not brought about success, by any measure. Instead, we find ourselves confronted with a proliferating array of "actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, al-Qaeda terrorists, Shi'ite militiamen, criminals, and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense."

The details of this "Janus-faced role" are bloodcurdling. The seven describe an incident in which the Iraqi army and police helped ambush U.S. units, causing one American death and two critical injuries: "Iraqi police and army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb."

Yet how can this be? Aren't we in Iraq precisely to support the very army and police units these soldiers say are killing Americans?

It makes no sense, unless one takes into consideration what Seymour Hersh calls "the redirection" of U.S. strategy in the region, which is geared to the next target of the neocons' "regime change" agenda: Iran. The redirection requires a sudden and radical shift in our alliances, sundering our ties with the Shi'ites and taking up the cause of the defeated Sunnis – with Saudi Arabia, our primary regional satrap, standing behind them. Those ambushed soldiers were caught in the shifting currents of the American about-face, and they will not be the only ones to suffer severe whiplash. The seven authors of "The War as We Saw It" recognize this new turn yet seem bewildered by it:

"Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shi'ite militias and the Shi'ite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against al-Qaeda.

"However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave."

What they don't see is that this is part of a larger anti-Shi'ite, anti-Iranian strategic turn – that Washington is already fighting the next war, as the invasion and occupation of Iraq merges seamlessly into an armed conflict with Iran.

Their lack of comprehension as far as this issue is concerned is shared by Sen. Carl Levin, who has lately taken up the Sunni cause and is now demanding that the Maliki government step down. Has there ever been a more blatant expression of America's imperialistic arrogance? Usually, as in the case of Vietnam – e.g., the toppling of President Ngo Dinh Diem – this sort of thing is done sub rosa. However, in a fit of irrational exuberance – perhaps unwarranted – the latest bearers of the White Man's Burden are openly talking about exercising their imperial prerogatives. Added to this vulgar display is the spectacle of Iyad Allawi – formerly the CIA's favorite candidate for prime minister – trying to make a comeback, not in Iraq but in the editorial pages of the Washington Post, where he calls for "change at the top of the Iraqi government." It isn't clear if he's asking to be installed in office by force of U.S. arms, but if he isn't, he's coming awfully close.

What is very interesting about all this is the new confluence of Democratic rhetoric and administration policy when it comes to measuring "success" in Iraq: Sen. Levin is essentially demanding that the Bush people implement the "redirection" faster, and harder. As one blogger reported:

"Barbour, Griffith & Rogers LLC, the registered lobbyists working on behalf of Ayad Allawi, sent out Levin's statements to their mailing list, from the account of DrAyadAllawi@allawi-for-iraq.com

"I wonder if the lobbyists canvassed Levin before he made his remarks, thereby influencing his views.

"Don't reporters find this odd: Ayad Allawi has lobbyists running around D.C. peddling him as Maliki's replacement, probably influencing Democratic thinking on Iraq, and consequently shaping Democratic strategies for the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. … Doesn't this count as news?"

Well, yes, it does, but, aside from merely reporting this news, there is the question of what it means. Rather than the assessment advanced by the aforementioned blogger – the "surge" is working, and Levin is simply grasping at another partisan straw – I would suggest another explanation entirely.

A Levin-Allawi-Sunni alliance amounts to the Democratic leadership helping to write the next chapter in the history of America's conquest of the Middle East – indeed, if, as is widely expected, the Democrats take the White House in '08, they'll be the primary authors of that bloodstained and thoroughly wretched saga. While this odd alliance presents the Sunni "moderate" case in terms of stabilizing Iraq to the point where our presence is no longer required – Allawi calls for aiming at a U.S. withdrawal two years from now – the revival of the Democrats' call for "benchmarks" is just a cover story for a darker, deadlier narrative.

The tempo of events is increasing as we approach the much-touted September report on "progress" in Iraq, in which Gen. Petraeus is expected to note the "gains" we have supposedly made by allying with our former Sunni enemies, while targeting the Iranians as the real obstacles to lasting success. There are increasing reports of border incidents, and we are very close, I believe, to a major confrontation between U.S. and Iranian forces. By taking up the Allawi lobby, the Democrats are helping to set the stage for a disaster that will dwarf our present predicament in Iraq by several degrees of magnitude – war with Iran.

More Troop Reduction Legerdemain
Charles Peña Once again, we are being teased with the possibility that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will be reduced. According to unnamed administration officials, Gen. David Petraeus – the top U.S. military commander in Iraq – is expected to propose a partial troop pullback in his September status report to Congress. That's the good news. The bad news is that, once again, there is less there than meets the eye.

To begin, any U.S. troop reduction would only be partial. At best, we might see U.S. forces reduced to pre-surge levels or about 130,000 troops. Yet logic suggests that if 130,000 troops couldn't stem the violence before, then scaling back to 130,000 troops would not improve the situation (especially since 160,000-plus troops don't seem to be doing much better – according to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, the number of daily attacks from February through May were at a record high of nearly 160 and although the number of Iraqi civilians killed each month is lower, it is still several thousand).

It is expected that Gen. Petraeus' recommendation will call for withdrawing U.S. troops from places that have become less violent and turn over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, which begs the question of where U.S. troops would be withdrawn to. Indeed, it is entirely possible that the force in Iraq could remain the same but be redeployed within Iraq – either moved to another hot spot (can you say Wack-A-Mole?) or held as a reserve force to respond to any rise in violence. But rearranging the U.S. military footprint inside Iraq is hardly a troop reduction. Moreover, the British experience of pulling forces out of Basra (a city once lauded by Vice President Cheney as a place "where things are going pretty well") suggests that withdrawing U.S. forces from areas where security and stability have been achieved will result in renewed violence. As British forces have left Basra, violence between Shi'ite militias has escalated over political supremacy and control over oil resources (according to one U.S. official, "it's hard now to paint Basra as a success story").

The problem with either a partial reduction or redeployment of U.S. troops inside Iraq is that the United States will still be a foreign military occupier. And the problem with foreign military occupation is that it breeds resentment and fuels violence.

One solution to occupation that has been proposed is to withdraw U.S. troops to neighboring countries in the region – for example, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's plan would be to "redeploy our troops to other locations in the region, reassuring our allies that we will stay engaged in the Middle East." Although it's not clear which countries would welcome those troops, what is tantamount to occupying other Muslim countries in the Middle East is no better than occupying Iraq. After all, it's important to remember that Osama bin Laden's grievance of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia ("the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places") was a reason why al-Qaeda attacked the United States on 9/11.

If there is a need to keep U.S. forces in reserve to respond against direct threats to the United States emanating from Iraq (or elsewhere in the Middle East), a better place for those forces would be in Europe (even though there is no threat to Europe that requires a U.S. military presence) where they would not be such an affront to Muslims. Better yet would be to bring those troops home. For both Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States military demonstrated that it could successfully conduct military operations without being forward-deployed in the theater of operations. And the United States military possesses true over-the-horizon power-projection capability – U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers flew round-trip missions from Whitman Air Force Base in Montana to Afghanistan.

Partial pullback or redeployment in Iraq (or to other countries in the Middle East) is the same thing as getting a little bit pregnant. It is long past time to acknowledge the reality that the U.S. military presence in Iraq does more harm than good – both to U.S. security and to Iraqis. That does not mean that withdrawing U.S. forces will solve all of Iraq's problems. But it does mean that there is no military solution to Iraq's problems, which means the only military solution is to withdraw U.S. troops and allow Iraqis to solve their own problems.

The Petraeus Report:
More Kabuki?
by William S. Lind September approaches, and with it the supposed watershed in the Iraq war that Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress will represent. In reality, the report will make little difference in what the Democratically controlled Congress does, because it has already decided what it will do, namely pretend to try to end the war while actually ensuring its continuation through the 2008 elections. That strategy seems to offer the best promise of electing more Democrats.

Nonetheless, much of the country eagerly wants to hear what Gen. Petraeus has to say. What he says about the progress of the war in Iraq, however, is a secondary question. The primary question is, how credible is his report? Will it be a real military analysis, honest and forthright, or will it just be more kabuki, political "spin" dictated by the Bush White House? If it is the latter, then its content is immaterial, because it is not credible.

I do not know Gen. Petraeus, and I therefore cannot judge his character. What I have seen of his work is certainly better than that of his predecessors. His attempt to move our forces in Iraq out of their bases and into the neighborhoods where counter-insurgency must be fought is laudable, if hopelessly too late.

A story in the Aug. 16 Cleveland Plain Dealer by the AP's Steven Hurst unfortunately brings Gen. Petraeus' credibility into some question. Hurst wrote:

"One of the most significant shifts for U.S. forces recently has been recruiting allies among former Sunni insurgent areas such as the western Anbar province. 'A pretty big deal,' said Petraeus.

"'You have to pinch yourself a little to make sure that is real because that is a very significant development in this kind of operation in counterinsurgency,' he said.

"'It's all about the local people. When all the sudden the local people are on the side of the new Iraq instead of on the side of the insurgents or even al-Qaeda, that's a very significant change.'"

The willingness of some Sunni tribes and insurgent groups to work with U.S. forces in al-Anbar against al-Qaeda is significant locally, However, all my sources state emphatically that the Sunnis who are now willing to work with us do not accept "the new Iraq," which is Newspeak for the Maliki government in Baghdad and Iraq's future status as an American satellite with large U.S. forces permanently based on its soil. As is usually the case in Fourth Generation war, the U.S.-Sunni local alliances are temporary tactical expedients, nothing more. The Sunnis we are working with make quite clear their continuing rejection of Maliki, Baghdad, and the "New Iraq" at the same time that they also reject al-Qaeda's terror tactics (including against Sunnis) and its goal of a puritanical Islamic theocracy.

This is just one slip on Gen. Petraeus' part, and given the way the U.S. military invents good news to pass up the chain, it may reflect what he is being told. At the same time, the term "New Iraq" is a Bushism. So does its use reflect what is corning up the chain or what is coming down?

It is the latter possibility that is troubling, because it is the norm, not the exception. As American military officers gain rank, they soon learn that the absolute worst political sin is "committing truth." Any time they say something that contradicts what is coming out of the White House or the office of the secretary of defense, they find themselves in very hot water. If they persist in the annoying practice, they discover they do not quality for senior commands.

If Gen. Petraeus is to present a genuine military report in September and not a "cooked" political document, he will have to buck the system. It should be fairly easy to judge whether he has done that or not, because if he has, the White House will howl. The gap between the reality in Iraq and the administration's rhetoric is so wide that it should show dramatically in any genuine military analysis. If it does not, and if the White House regards his report complacently, with just a few quibbles as part of the kabuki, then it amounts to nothing more than one of Napoleon's bulletins – from which we got the phrase, "to lie like a bulletin."

Come September, we will find out what Gen. Petraeus is made of. Depending on that, we may also find out something about the war in Iraq.

August 22, 2007 George W. Bush: A CIA Analysis
by Ray McGovern It is as though I'm back as an analyst at the CIA, trying to estimate the chances of an attack on Iran. The putative attacker, though, happens to be our own president.

It is precisely the work we analysts used to do. And, while it is still a bit jarring to be turning our analytical tools on the U.S. leadership, it is by no means entirely new. For, of necessity, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been doing that for almost six years now – ever since 9/11, when "everything changed."

Of necessity? Yes, because, with very few exceptions, American journalists lose their jobs if they expose things like fraudulent wars.

The craft of CIA analysis was designed to be an all-source operation, meaning that we analysts were responsible – and held accountable – for assimilating information from all sources and coming to judgments on what it all meant. We used information of all kinds, from the most sophisticated technical collection platforms to spies to open media.

Here I have to reveal a trade secret, which punctures the mystique of intelligence analysis. Generally speaking, 80 percent of the information one needs to form judgments on key intelligence targets or issues is available in open media.

It helps to have training from past masters of media analysis, which began in a structured way in targeting Japanese and German media in the 1940s. But, truth be told, everyone with a high-school education can do it. It is not rocket science.

This is not to denigrate the contribution of CIA operations officers, case officers running sensitive agents, for though small in percentage of the whole nine yards available to be analyzed, information from such sources can often make a crucial contribution.

Consider, for example, the daring recruitment in mid-2002 of Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who was "turned" into working for the CIA and quickly established his credibility. Sabri told us there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

My former colleagues, perhaps a bit naively, were quite sure this would come as a vast relief to President George W. Bush and his advisers. Instead, they were told that the White House had no further interest in reporting from Sabri; rather, that the issue was not really WMD, it was "regime change."

(Don't feel embarrassed if you did not know this; our corporate-owned, war-profiteering media has largely suppressed all this.)

So our former colleague, operations officer par excellence Robert Baer, reports (in this week's Time) that, according to his sources, the Bush/Cheney administration is winding up for a strike on Iran, that Bush's plan to put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list points in the direction of such a strike, and that delusional "neoconservative" thinking that still guides White House policy concludes that such an attack would lead to the fall of the clerics and rise of a more friendly Iran.

Hold on, it gets even worse: Baer's sources tell him that administration officials are thinking that "as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities."

VIPs member Phil Giraldi, writing in The American Conservative, earlier noted that Karl Rove has served as a counterweight to Vice President Dick Cheney, determined as Cheney seems to be to expand the Middle East quagmire to Iran.

And former Pentagon analyst retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the most rabid Pentagon neocons just before the attack on Iraq, has put into words (on LewRockwell.com) speculation several of us have been indulging in with respect to Rove's departure.

In short, it seems a good bet that Rove, who is no one's dummy and would not want to have to "spin" an unnecessary war on Iran, lost the battle with Cheney over the merits of a military strike on Iran, and only then decided to spend more time with his family.

Whatever else Rove has been, he has served as a counterweight to Dick Cheney's clear desire to expand the Middle East quagmire into Iran.

As for White House spokesperson Tony Snow, it seems equally possible that, before deciding he has to make more money, he concluded that his stomach could not withstand the task explaining why Bush/Cheney needed to attack Iran.

With the propaganda buildup we have seen so far, what seems most likely, at least initially, is an attack on Revolutionary Guard training facilities inside Iran, and that can be done with cruise missiles.

With some 20 targets already identified by anti-Iranian groups, there are enough assets already in place to do that job. But the while-we're-at-it neocon logic referred to above may well be applied after, or even during, that kind of attack from the air.

Cheerleading in the MSM

Yes, it is happening again.

The lead editorial in Tuesday's Washington Post regurgitates the unproven allegations that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is "supplying the weapons that are killing a growing number of American soldiers in Iraq;" that it is "waging war against the United States and trying to kill as many American soldiers as possible."

Designating Iran a "specially designated global terrorist" organization, says the Post, "seems to be the least the United States should be doing, giving the soaring number of Iranian-sponsored bomb attacks in Iraq."

It's as though Dick Cheney is again writing the Post editorials. And not only that, arch neocon James Woolsey has just told Lou Dobbs that the U.S. may have no choice but to bomb Iran in order to halt its nuclear weapons program.

As Woolsey puts it, "I'm afraid within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they could have the bomb."

Woolsey, self-described "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs," has long been way out in front plumbing for wars, like Iraq, that he and other neocons myopically see as being in Israel's, as well as America's, interest.

Within days of 9/11, Woolsey was arguing for war with Iraq even while conceding, at the time, that there was no evidence tying Iraq to 9/11.

The latest is also rubbish. And Woolsey knows it. And so do the reporters for the Washington Post, who are aware of, but have been forbidden to tell, a highly interesting story.

The NIE That Didn't Bark

The National Intelligence Estimate on if and when Iran is likely to have the bomb has been ready since February. It has been sent back four times – no doubt because its conclusions do not support what folks like Cheney and Woolsey are telling the president.

The conclusions of the most recent NIE on the issue (early 2005) was that Iran could probably not have a nuclear weapon until "early to mid-next decade," a formula memorized and restated by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell at his confirmation hearing in February.

One can safely assume that McConnell had been fully briefed on the first "final draft" of the new estimate, which has now been in limbo for half a year. It is a safe bet that the conclusions of the new draft resemble those of the 2005 estimate all too closely to suit Cheney.

It is a scandal that the congressional oversight committees have not been able to get hold of the new estimate, even in draft. For it is a safe bet it would give the lie to the claims of Cheney, Woolsey, and other cheerleaders for war with Iran and provide powerful ammunition to those arguing for a more sensible approach to Iran.

Despite the administration's warlike record, many Americans may still cling to the belief that attacking Iran won't happen because it would be crazy; that Bush is a lame-duck president who wouldn't dare undertake a new reckless adventure when the last one went so badly.

But – with this administration – rationality has not exactly been a strong suit. Bush has placed himself in a neoconservative bubble that operates with its own false sense of reality. As psychiatrist Justin Frank noted in a July 27 memorandum updating his book, Bush on the Couch:

"We are left with a president who cannot actually govern, because he is incapable of reasoned thought in coping with events outside his control, like those in the Middle East.

"This makes it a monumental challenge – as urgent as it is difficult – not only to get him to stop the carnage in the Middle East, but also to prevent him from undertaking a new, perhaps even more disastrous adventure – like going to war with Iran, in order to embellish the image he so proudly created for himself after 9/11 as the commander in chief of 'the first war of the 21st century.'"

Iraq War Takes Unique Toll
on National

CIA Details Errors It Made Before Sept. 11

Statement by George J. Tenet on CIA Report

CIA Report on 9/11 [pdf]

It's all about priorities for Michelle Obama
By Maria L. La Ganga
The candidate's wife with a 6-figure income, Ivy League degrees connects with
women on the campaign trail over shared struggles.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBW...Io30G2B0IrlM0Ec

'Systemic breakdown' at CIA before Sept. 11
By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer
A declassified report concludes that the agency lacked a full assessment of A1
Qaeda.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBW...Io30G2B0IrlO0Ee

Credit crisis a GOP worry
By Peter G. Gosselin
The credit crisis compounds Republicans' political troubles from the Iraq war.
It may bolster Democrats' calls for new regulations.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBW...Io30G2B0IrlW0Em

Bush to cite Vietnam in defense of Iraq
By James Gerstenzang and Maura Reynolds
The president plans to argue in a speech to veterans today that a U.S.
withdrawal had dire results in Asia.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBW...Io30G2B0IrlY0Eo

Pakistani crisis coming to a head
By Laura King
The president's political fate hangs in the balance as a key vote nears and the
Supreme Court weighs legal challenges to his rule.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBW...Io30G2B0IrlZ0Ep

Bush and U.S. ambassador extend faint praise for Maliki
By Tina Susman and James Gerstenzang
In an apparent distancing, the U.S. says the Iraqi government risks being
replaced if it doesn't respond to the people's demands.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBW...Io30G2B0Irla0Ew

Iran frees U.S. scholar on bail
By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi
Haleh Esfandiari, who continues to face grave charges, is let out on bail. The
67-year-old woman may not leave the country.
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'Sanctuary' as battleground
By Ronald Brownstein
Romney and Giuliani spar over what roles cities should have in enforcing
immigration laws.
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Not so fast, Christian soldiers
The Pentagon has a disturbing relationship with private evangelical groups.
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Leaflets said to warn of Iran move into north Iraq: Villagers report seeing leaflets dropped from helicopters - leaflets said villagers had 48 hours to evacuate before an Iranian offensive began

Fed primed for reform
The lack of transparency and accountability in asset management, derivative structures and the rating system has contributed the problems in the US financial system. The Federal Reserve's delay in implementing a thorough easing of monetary policy may be an attempt to gain the dominant hand in implementing necessary reforms. - Walter T Molano

'Headless chickens' and the China threat

Clearly losing patience, the Indian ambassador to the United States has labeled politicians back home as "headless chickens" over their delay in ratifying Delhi's groundbreaking nuclear deal with the US. The Indians have indeed tied themselves in knots, and invoking the China bogey to arouse an intense sense of patriotism is not exactly helping. - M K Bhadrakumar (Aug 22, '07)
Red hue to China's health care
Beijing is returning to its socialist roots in an attempt to provide affordable health care for its residents. A new pilot program will extend basic health insurance coverage to people in 79 cities who were previously ineligible. It's a much-needed step in a country where increasing numbers of people, especially the unemployed and rural residents, can't afford medical care. - Zhou Jiangong (Aug 22, '07)

Subprime Loans = Primetime for Vampire Lenders

Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown

How "reputable" financial firms are using an arsenal of tricks to extract high payments from homeowners, drain their equity and steal their homes.

Fox Attacks Iran [VIDEO]

Post by Robert Greenwald
Video: We document, record and provide evidence, of the war mongering and scare tactics. This time we won’t wait till after the fact! We begin now, to raise the cry, loud and clear. More »

CIA report: 'systemic failure pre-9/11'
Channel 4 News - 3 hours ago
'Systemic breakdown' at CIA before 9/11 Los Angeles Times
Goss Rejected Advice on Probe Into CIA's Role Before Sept. 11 Bloomberg
Spiegel Online - New York Times - New York Post - Voice of America
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