In this issue:

General Zinni: In Iraq, We Are Weeks Away From Chaos

Senator McCain Eyed by Neo-Cons To Replace Bush

Is Bremer Planning To Build a Private Army?

Official Numbers Rise on Battlefield Injuries in Iraq

Israel's Jabotinsky Fascists Are Also Crooks

Arafat To CNN: Israeli Military Actions Killed Road Map

Amram Mitzna: A Palestinian State Is an Asset for Israel

Joint Chiefs Report Says War Planning Was Flawed

From Volume 2, Issue Number 36 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Sept. 9, 2003
Mideast News Digest

General Zinni: In Iraq, We Are Weeks Away From Chaos

In an Aug. 31 interview with Corriere della Sera's correspondent in Washington, Gen. Anthony Zinni (USMC-Ret.) says that the U.S. should ask for a UN mandate and involve NATO and Islamic countries. "We are on the verge of chaos. We need a new mandate of the United Nations," Zinni says. Asked whether he thinks that the crisis could get out of control in a matter of days, Zinni replies: "Maybe not in a matter of days, but of weeks, yes. We are in a rush against time. The U.S. has neither resources nor personnel enough for the security and the recovery of Iraq. We need a massive intervention of the international community.... also a real Iraqi government is urgent, with its own police and army."

Zinni says that the U.S. should ask for a UN mandate "to NATO and Islamic countries that want to participate ... it is not necessary that the troops wear UN blue helmets, we have seen it in Bosnia. But it is necessary that Americans and Europeans are flanked by Muslims, otherwise they will remain or become targets." Zinni says that the Administration must make concessions to France, Germany, and Russia, "But I believe that, even reluctantly, they are getting there, they have understood that they have no alternatives. It was indicated by Undersecretary of State Dick Armitage, a friend of mine.

"Negotiations at the UN will be long and difficult, but I am confident that an agreement will be reached, say in a couple of months." The U.S. will not renounce the military command, but "often there is a misunderstanding on this. Each country always maintains command over its troops. The U.S. indicates strategy and tactics, but if your Carabinieri, for instance, disagree, they can refuse to follow the orders." Without such a solution, Zinni sees "a civil and religious war" breaking out in Iraq.

If the UN votes a new resolution, Zinni says, the priorities in Iraq should be to "Close borders, re-establish order in the cities, reactivate services from electricity to transport, give effective power to local and central government, arm an Iraqi police and army, and relaunch the economy."

Senator McCain Eyed by Neo-Cons To Replace Bush

With President Bush under the gun because of the U.S. economic collapse (see Economic Digest), the spiralling costs of the Iraq quagmire, and the failure in Iraq to find WMD, or to stop terrorism, the neo-conservative cabal around Vice President Dick Cheney is exploring the option of defeating Bush in 2004 with a repeat of the 1912 "Bull Moose" option, where a "third party" spoiler, Teddy Roosevelt, was used to defeat the incumbent Republican President, William Howard Taft, in the Presidential election. Neo-cons, such as Robert Kagan openly say that they would prefer a Joe Lieberman/McCain ticket over mentally incompetent G.W., and they believe that this would draw the Christian fundamentalist vote, and the Israeli lobby's money in the 2004 election.

The Sept. 9-11 issue of Weekly Standard, flagship publication of the neo-conservative warmongers in the U.S., gave the signal: send unlimited money, soldiers, ordinance, and personnel to Iraq. If not, the Cheney Doctrine of preventive war, and redrawing the map of the Middle East, will "die" in Iraq. The article was written by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, two of the leading Straussians who run the propaganda side of Dick Cheney's imperial war policy.

Days after the Kristol-Kagan piece was released, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) wrote the identical analysis for the Washington Post Aug. 31, called "Why We Must Win." McCain, who had just returned from a trip to Iraq, chastised the Bush Administration for trying to win the peace in Iraq "on the cheap." He called for the deployment of at least one more division of American troops, for increased American civilian advisers, and for a commitment of tens of billions of dollars over the next year, to avert a total descent into chaos and what he described as the biggest American defeat since Vietnam. McCain also reiterated the Kristol-Kagan warning that under no circumstances should the UN be given a prominent role in the Iraq occupation and reconstruction.

Is Bremer Planning To Build a Private Army?

According to a well-informed intelligence source based in India, the increasingly difficult situation in Iraq may have put in motion an effort to set up private armies within Iraq. Such private armies, if set up, will be under the U.S. control of Iraq, through L. Paul Bremer. The purpose of setting up the private army will be to "get some people out of the way," which would help the Administration "to stabilize the Iraq situation." These operations are otherwise risky, using U.S. military personnel.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has reported that the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts with 12 of the 24 U.S.-based Private Military Corporations since 1994. Subsequent investigations revealed Pentagon records value those contracts at more than $300 billion.

Interestingly, more than 2,700 of those contracts were held by just two companies: Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) and Booz Allen Hamilton. KBR is a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, which Dick Cheney, the U.S. Vice President, headed as CEO from 1995 to 1999. In 1992, the Pentagon, then headed by Cheney, who was Defense Secretary at the time, paid KBR $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave KBR an additional $5 million to update the report.

KBR was also awarded contracts in 1995 and 1997, under the Clinton Administration, to provide logistical support in the Balkans, where the U.S. military has been enforcing the 1995 Dayton Peace accord that ended the war in former Yugoslavia. Those contracts spiralled to $2.2 billion worth of payments over five years, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported the ICIJ. Also notable is that James Woolsey, the Defense Policy Board member and JINSA chickenhawk (and former CIA head), joined Booz Allen just before the onset of the Iraq war.

Official Numbers Rise on Battlefield Injuries in Iraq

The number of U.S. military injured is now more than double those injured in 1991's Desert Storm. The Washington Post of Sept. 2 reports that U.S. battlefield casualties in Iraq are "increasing dramatically" under continued insurgent attacks, with nearly 10 American troops per day being officially declared "wounded in action" during August. Official totals put the wounded at 1,124 since the war began in March. The total increased more than 35% in August.

Now, due to the frequency of battlefield injuries, U.S. Central Command is only issuing press releases listing injuries when the attacks kill one or more troops—so many injuries are going unreported. Fifty-five U.S. soldiers were wounded in action last week alone, pushing the number of those wounded since May 1, beyond the number wounded during "major combat operations." From March 19 to April 30, 550 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq. Since May 1, the number totals 574.

Giant C-17 transport jets arrive almost nightly at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, with medical evacuations from Iraq. Since the war began, more than 6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States, including thousands who became physically or mentally ill.

Israel's Jabotinsky Fascists Are Also Crooks

The corruption scandal surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is now hitting Cabinet Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of the fascist National Union Party, which calls for the "transfer" (ethnic cleansing) of all Palestinians out of Israeli and the occupied territories.

The two parallel bribery investigations, of Sharon and his sons, and now of Lieberman, converge in Austria.

In the long-running Sharon scandal, Sharon was "blessed" by the recent decision of an Austrian judge to prevent the Israeli police from getting access to Austrian financial records relevant to the Sharon case. According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz Aug. 28, investigators believe that Austrian evidence could show a "circle" of money-changing whereby Sharon NEVER really paid back illegal campaign funds that he got in the 2000 Likud elections, through the Annex Co. Investigators believe that Sharon got the illegal money and then "paid it back" to avoid legal penalties—but that the money then came back to Sharon and his boys in the form of "loan" from the South African, Cyril Kern. However, the money that Kern used may have come from an Austrian who somehow received the money that Sharon "paid back."

While that is being pursued, Ha'aretz revealed that Israeli police are looking into the fact that the Austrian-Russian businessman Robert Nowikovsky gave Avigdor Lieberman a guarantee for a $1-million credit line from an Israeli bank. At first this was seen as only violating election finance laws, which is not "criminal"; it now is being investigated as a possible bribe from Nowikovsky, who is based in Vienna, to "grease the wheels" for his interests in Israel. Nowikovsky is also implicated in the California money-laundering trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlov Lazarenko.

This turn has major implications for Sharon. First, the Austrian authorities have given the Israeli police full cooperation in the Lieberman-Nowikovsky case, and this could shake loose important details in the Sharon investigation. Lieberman's angel, Nowikovsky, is one of two "businessmen" who are suspected of giving illegal money to Sharon's son Gilad. The second suspect is Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff, the owner of casinos in Jericho, Israel.

On Sept. 3, relating to these investigations, Gilad Sharon was questioned for four hours by Israeli police. Several weeks ago, Gilad refused to answer questions, but both Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, and Cabinet Justice Minister Tommy Lapid said that it is "not legitimate" for him to maintain silence.

Arafat To CNN: Israeli Military Actions Killed Road Map

In an interview with CNN, reported Sept. 2, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said, "The Road Map is dead, but only because of Israeli military aggression in recent weeks." He also told CNN that the U.S. preoccupation with Iraq and the upcoming Presidential elections has gotten in the way of President George Bush's assuring the implementation of the Road Map for a Middle East peace. However, aides to Arafat and other leading PNA officials clarified that Arafat and the PNA are still committed to the Road Map—but urgent action from the Quartet is needed to stop the Israeli from their assassinations.

Israel has carried out no less than six helicopter missile attacks as targetted assassinations, killing and maiming many civilians since the Palestinian suicide bombing last on Aug. 19. The Israeli attacks continued with an IDF obliteration of an apartment building in Nablus on Sept. 5, to kill a Hamas member.

Amram Mitzna: A Palestinian State Is an Asset for Israel

Former Chairman of the Labor Party Amram Mitzna penned a commentary in Ha'aretz on Aug. 31, calling for an end to targetted assassinations, separation between Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Mitzna first denounces Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy of targetted assassinations as a total failure that has led to a situation where "the security of Israel's citizens has deteriorated to a level that is without parallel in the country's history."

Calling for separation between Israel and the occupied territories, Mitzna evokes Ben Gurion: "The original sin of indecision can be traced to 1967. The Six-Day War was a tremendous military victory but a total political-security failure. The first person to grasp this was David Ben-Gurion ... as a leader bearing national responsibility for the security of Israel and the future of the Zionist movement, Ben-Gurion was able—in contrast to all the leaders since—to look beyond the horizon, and called on the government to leave the new territories."

But Ben Gurion was ignored until "Yitzhak Rabin decided to snap us out of this illusionary dream ... he understood ... what the government of Ariel Sharon has yet to understand: That the continued confrontation with the Palestinians and the continued Israeli control of [the occupied territories] means the liquidation of Zionism and the end of the Jewish state." He then writes, "It follows that agreement to the establishment of a Palestinian state is neither a concession nor a surrender, it is an asset. There will be no Jewish state without the existence of a Palestinian state alongside it. This has to be the goal and any government policy has to be examined in its light—including the policy of targetted assassinations, which I regret to say, is the only policy now guiding the government of Israel."

He concludes that if there is "no one to talk to" on the Palestinian side, as Sharon claims, then Israeli has to unilaterally withdraw from the territories.

Joint Chiefs Report Says War Planning Was Flawed

A classified report prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq, on a flawed planning process that "limited the focus" in preparing for post-Saddam operations, reports Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times Aug. 3.

The report, entitled "Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategic Lessons Learned," a copy of which was leaked to the Washington Times, says that there was not enough time to put together "Phase IV," which is the reconstruction of Iraq. It says that the interagency process, such as that between the Pentagon and the State Department, "was not fully integrated prior to hostilities." The Washington Times article names as one of those responsible for the "flawed effort" Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith—one of the leading neo-cons, and author of the 1996 "Clean Break" war policy document against Iraq that was prepared for then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CHENEY GAVE THE SIGNAL. The "Lessons Learned" report includes a timeline of events, which says that President Bush signed off on the strategic war plan on Aug. 29, 2002—three days after Cheney's Veterans of Foreign Wars speech, which is when the Vice President used exaggerated and false intelligence to try to force the Iraq war through. The report states that on that date, Bush "approves Iraq goals, objectives and strategy."

KEEPING ISRAEL INFORMED. The JCS report also shows that the Bush Administration kept in close contact with Israel about its Iraq war plans. In mid-February, "key Israeli leaders" got a briefing on the war plan, and soon thereafter, the U.S. Central Command began sharing information with Tel Aviv through the European Command.

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