In this issue:

After Meeting Bush, Sharon Kills Hamas Leader

World Denounces the Sharon-Bush Agreement

Zinni Derides Rumsfeld's Ignorance of U.S. Iraq Casualties

U.S. Forces Launch New Provocation in Najaf After Mediation Talks

Schiff: U.S. Should 'Get Out of Iraq as Soon as Possible'

From Volume 3, Issue Number 16 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Apr. 20, 2004
Mideast News Digest

After Meeting Bush, Sharon Kills Hamas Leader

On April 17, Hamas leader Abd Al-Aziz Rantisi was killed in a "targetted assassination" by the Israeli government, by a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter. The attack came hours after a suicide-bomb attack on the Erez crossing, that killed one Israeli border policeman. Rantisi, the leader of the political arm of Hamas, had been named as a target by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and other members of Sharon's cabinet, weeks ago, and several months ago, Rantisi survived an earlier Israeli assassination attempt. Despite the threats, Rantisi refused to go underground.

U.S. intelligence sources in Washington had warned that the White House acceptance of the Sharon plan would be taken as a green light by the Israeli right wing to eliminate Palestinian leaders. It was known that Hamas was in discussions with the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza to prepare for a broad governing coalition if the Israelis withdraw from the area.

World Denounces the Sharon-Bush Agreement

Following the exchange of letters between George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon on April 14 (see this week's InDepth), there has been a broad condemnation of the unilateral moves to permanently seize occupied lands, and deny Palestinian refugees the right to return to their former homes and lands. A sampling of the responses on April 14 and 15, appear below:

European Union foreign policy head Javier Solana: "I welcome the Israeli Prime Minister's proposals for disengagement from Gaza." But, "Final status issues can only be resolved by mutual agreement between the parties."

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan: "The Secretary-General reiterates his position that final status issues should be determined in negotiations between the parties based on relevant Security Council resolutions."

French President Jacques Chirac: "I have reservations about any unilateral or bilateral undermining of international law.... If circumstances or men start playing with international stability and the rules of international law, it is a troubling precedent.... It's dangerous."

Italian opposition leader Francesco Rutelli: Bush's statements are "a clear indication of the inability of the U.S. President to understand the immeasurable damage caused by a unilateral strategy.... This strategy ... could plunge the entire Gulf region into chaos."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia: "The Bush statements are destroying the peace process." Bush is "the first President who has legitimized the settlements in the Palestinian territories, when he said that there will be no return to the borders of 1967. We, as Palestinians, reject that. We cannot accept that. We reject it, and we refuse it. It cannot be decided by the President of the United States what is realistic and what is not realistic.... This is a real violation of the Road Map."

Arab League leader Hossam Zaki, in Cairo, described Bush's declarations as "very dangerous" and "legally baseless." "No state, especially if it is a mediator, has the right to cancel the rights of the Palestinian people."

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the U.S. policy shift was "a violent shock to anyone who believes in Middle East peace."

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal declared that Bush's new policy puts an end to "illusions that there can be a U.S.-sponsored political settlement.... This stance proves that resistance is the only way. [Bush] fired a fatal bullet at the Road Map and at any other settlement plan that comes under any other title. This dangerous and critical turning point requires Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians to respond with a joint stance—folding the page of [political] settlement. to support the choice of resistance."

Zinni Derides Rumsfeld's Ignorance of U.S. Iraq Casualties

In exceptionally strong language, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni (USMC-ret.) told the San Diego Union-Tribune in an interview published April 16, that the "surprise" over the high number of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq last week, expressed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on April 15 is unbelievable. At a Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld said that he could not have known that this high number of American troops would die in Iraq. On April 18, the number of U.S. troop deaths passed 700, with 100 soldiers dying in the month of April, alone.

About Rumsfeld, Zinni said, "I'm surprised that he is surprised because there [were] a lot of us who were telling him that it was going to be thus. Anyone could know the problems they were going to see. How could they not? (emphasis added)

Zinni said, "I've been called a traitor and a turncoat for mentioning these things.... I think that some heads should roll over Iraq. I think the President got some bad advice."

After ignoring warnings and the warnings of other senior military officials, the Bush Administration is trying to go "hat in hand," to the United Nations to pull its "chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq.... "We're betting on the UN, who we blew off and ridiculed during the run-up to the war," Zinni said. "It would be funny if not for the lives lost.... I spent two years in Vietnam, and I've seen this movie before."

U.S. Forces Launch New Provocation in Najaf After Mediation Talks

Just as it appeared that perhaps a negotiated solution could be found in Najaf, to prevent a U.S. military assault on the city, a new provocation was launched. During the night of April 15/16, American planes dropped leaflets over the city, characterizing Shi'ite cleric Moqtadar al-Sadr as an "outlaw," and calling for his arrest or surrender. The text says he is accused of being a killer.

The talks that have been conducted by Iraqi religious leaders, including the son of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, had reached a point, where it appeared that the United States would no longer demand Al-Sadr's arrest, but would, rather, proceed lawfully, and defer the case to an Iraqi court, to be convoked once a legitimate Iraqi government were formed.

One mediator stated that the Americans now are placing conditions that are "impossible." On April 15, Ayatollah al-Sistani told mediators that Najaf and Kerbala represent "red lines," and that he would not allow the occupying forces to invade under any circumstances. On April 16, a representative of al-Sistani, speaking at Friday prayers in Kerbala, confirmed this, saying it would lead to terrible consequences. He called for political moves, to end the crisis peacefully. He said that Iraqi people were tired of bloodshed; however, that, if these methods do not prove to be effective in restoring independence, and if the Marja (highest Shi'ite religious authority) feels that bloodshed and weapons are the only way, after all means have been exhausted, then one can only resort to these methods.

As for Al-Sadr, on April 15, he was reported as saying that he believes it is clear that the occupying forces want to invade Najaf and Kerbala. Their intention, he said, is to stay in Iraq for many years. The negotiations are leading nowhere. To talk about democracy and freedom, he said, is nonsense, and people should not listen to it.

Al-Sadr said, "We won't allow them into Najaf and Kerbala, we are ready for martyrdom. Support me with patience and steadfastness. This is a war of religion." He called on the Japanese to pull out their troops, and learn the lessons of Hiroshima. He called on soldiers of the occupation to surrender and lay down their arms, promising them protection.

In Kufa, where Al-Sadr reportedly delivered a speech at the April 16 Friday prayers, U.S. troops attempted a limited incursion. Two Humvees were set on fire, and an armored vehicle was ambushed. The U.S. forces responded with mortar fire.

In other news, Al Jazeera reported, April 16, that the new Iraqi Army brigade, which had refused to fight against Iraqis in Fallujah, has been surrounded by American troops.

Schiff: U.S. Should 'Get Out of Iraq as Soon as Possible'

Senior Israeli military commentator Ze'ev Schiff writes in the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz of April 16, that Iraq is the United States' Lebanon war, and that the U.S. should get out as soon as possible. Schiff says the United States has been killing Iraqis at a rate unheard of in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with 700 Iraqis killed in recent days in Fallujah alone.

Schiff concludes: "What is happening in Iraq is not President George W. Bush's Vietnam, as Massachusett's Sen. Edward Kennedy has said. What is happening in Iraq is more reminiscent of what happened to Israel in Lebanon. And the lesson from that affair is not only the growth of the Hezbollah, which came [to take the] place of the Shi'ite organization Amal. Another lesson is to hand governance over to the Iraqis and to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, and furthermore, to redefine the aims of the war. Just what kind of democracy does Bush want to teach the Iraqis? Lebanese, Egyptian, or Moroccan democracy? These are concepts that the Muslim world sees in an entirely different way."

Schiff, a senior military correspondent for Ha'aretz, is the author of a well-known book on the Israeli war in Lebanon.

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