In this issue:

Bahraini, Syrian Papers Publish LaRouche Berlin Speech

Lautenberg: Cancel All Halliburton's Contracts in Iraq

Nations Back Palestine in Hearing Against Israeli Wall

Saudi Minister Calls for New Arab Peace Initiative

Russia, France: International Conference on Iraq Needed

Rumsfeld's Plans To Strike Lebanon Targets Exposed

President Assad Willing To Talk Peace With Sharon

Iranian President Khatami Featured Speaker at Davos

From Volume 3, Issue Number 4 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Jan. 27, 2004
Mideast News Digest

Bahraini, Syrian Papers Publish LaRouche Berlin Speech

Under a banner headline across the top of its op-ed page, the Bahraini daily Al-Wasat Jan. 19 published a speech by Lyndon LaRouche, entitled, "The Role of the Sublime in History," accompanied by a photo of LaRouche. The U.S. Democratic Presidential pre-candidate had delivered the address on Dec. 18, 2003 to the Berliner Salon, a cross-section of leading political and cultural figures in the German capital.

The translation into Arabic was the work of a leading member of the LaRouche Youth Movement, and is part of an ongoing LYM project, inaugurating the "Second Arab Renaissance."

Al-Wasat includes a short introduction to the speech, inviting readers to read the full transcript of the question-and-answer dialogue with LaRouche on the website of Executive Intelligence Review.

On Jan. 18, the same translation was published in the Syrian daily newsletter All4Syria, which is sent by a group of university professors to the Syrian intelligentsia within the country and abroad, and to government institutions and political parties. The translation is also available on the Arabic LaRouche website: www.nysol.se/arabic.

Lautenberg: Cancel All Halliburton's Contracts in Iraq

Halliburton Corp. has reported "irregularities" to Pentagon auditors and criminal investigators, spokeswoman Wendy Hall said, after the Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 23 that two employees of the company's KBR unit accepted up to $6 million in kickbacks from an unnamed Kuwaiti firm, in return for awarding the lucrative contract to help supply U.S. troops in Iraq. Randy Harl, president and CEO of KBR, said it has repaid the Army $6.3 million to cover the "improper payments to one or two former KBR employees," described in the Journal article. The press release issued by Halliburton, on Jan. 23, does not disclose when the KBR employees left the company—meaning, it could have been in recent days or weeks.

The Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service, a branch of the office of the Inspector General (IG), has launched a separate criminal probe into findings that KBR and a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia Marketing Co., overcharged by $61 million for fuel deliveries.

Moreover, several anonymous whistle blowers have come forward in recent weeks with detailed allegations of KBR wrongdoing in Kuwait, the Journal reported, including accusations of paybacks from firms that received subcontracting work from KBR, according to U.S. officials and Congressional sources. These allegations are being investigated by the Pentagon's IG office.

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) demanded that "All of Halliburton's contracts with the government need to be terminated." The acknowledgement of alleged kickbacks, he said, "is a fatal blow" ... to the Administration's ability to defend these contracts."

Lautenberg had previously charged that Halliburton was padding contracts (see "Cheney's Halliburton Becomes the 'Enron' of War Profiteers," EIW, Dec. 23, 2003).

Nations Back Palestine in Hearing Against Israeli Wall

The Palestinian National Authority has launched a diplomatic offensive to enlist as many nations as possible to testify against Israel's "apartheid wall" at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, the PNA website said Jan. 20. At the request of the UN General Assembly, the ICJ will open hearings Feb. 23 on the legal consequences, under international law, of the apartheid wall, which has seized Palestinian lands, and destroyed crops and properties, in violation of the law.

The Court set a Jan. 30 deadline for the submission of written statements relevant to that hearing, and the PNA is mobilizing worldwide, to demonstrate the international condemnation of the wall. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia met with more than a dozen foreign diplomats Jan. 20, to urge them to speak out against Israel's grab for more territory, by building the wall between the West Bank and Israel. "We ask the entire world to restrain the Israeli madness of expansion.... This is a wall of annexation and expansion, not for security."

Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Nabil Sha'th visited Moscow Jan. 20, to request the Russian government testify against the wall. Sha'th had met with the Russian peace envoy in the Middle East, Alexander Kalugin, on Jan. 17. Quoting an aide who attended the meeting, the PNA website reported that the talks with Kalugin "were fruitful, and the latter invited Dr. Sha'th to visit Moscow and explain the current situation" in the occupied territories to the Russian leadership.

The head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's political department, Farouq Al Qaddoumi, announced that lawyers from the United States and Europe will join the Palestinian side in the ICJ pleadings, and are expected to convene at the end of January. Quaddoumi arrived in Qatar on Jan. 17, as part of a tour of Arab capitals, with the mission of mobilizing the participation of the Arab states in the ICJ hearings.

Saudi Minister Calls for New Arab Peace Initiative

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faysal wrote in his daily commentary that Saudi Arabia "seeks to start another Arab initiative in the United Nations in order to revive the peace process, in cooperation with the Europeans, aiming to disrupt the construction of the Israeli Apartheid Wall in the West Bank," the London-based Al Hayat newspaper reported on Jan. 20.

"The hastened construction of the wall in the West Bank during the U.S. election year, and the huge Palestinian dispossession to nearby Arab states caused by it," will turn the matter into "an Arab problem, so the situation does not bear more delays," Al Faysal said. "The purpose behind the Saudi diplomatic moves and any Arab activity" must be to disrupt any Israeli unilateral measures, and start an Arab-European initiative in the UN to revive the peace process. Al Faysal also called for dealing actively with the U.S. to encourage opposition to the construction of the Israeli wall.

Russia, France: International Conference on Iraq Needed

Meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominque de Villepin in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told a news conference that it is "necessary" to have a sovereign government in Iraq by June 30, 2004, according Reuters Jan. 23.

Ivanov said that Russia seeks to take a more active role in the reconstruction process, but only after "the formation in Iraq of a real, independent, and democratic government." In this regard, he said, "It would be very important to hold an international conference to examine all aspects of an Iraqi settlement, work out a program which could receive key international support, and examine regional stability in a broader sense."

De Villepin supported such a conference as a way to "bring together all countries in the region and in the world community to deal with all difficult issues." France, he said, was ready to provide help, "with a sovereign Iraqi government."

Commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ivanov said Russia "intends to hold consultations with Tel Aviv in order to get compliance" to resume the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue under the auspices of the Road Map. Ivanov added, "Moscow and Paris have identical stances on the Middle East settlement," reported Itar-Tass on Jan. 23.

Rumsfeld's Plans To Strike Lebanon Targets Exposed

Jane's Intelligence Digest reported Jan. 23 that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "is considering plans to expand the global war on terrorism with multi-pronged attacks against suspected militant bases in countries such as Lebanon and Somalia." Jane's noted that an attack in Somalia would have little consequence, but, "Sending U.S. special forces into Lebanon—and in particular an area like the Bekaa Valley (which is virtually Syrian territory) and where the bulk of Damascus's military forces in Lebanon are deployed ... would almost certainly involve a confrontation with Syrian troops."

However, says Jane's, the confrontation with Syria may be the objective, since the Bush Administration "considers Damascus a prime candidate for 'regime change,' " and is committed to a doctrine of "preemptive war." What Jane's omits about this Syrian war plan—the covert coordination between Rumsfeld's neo-conservative cabal in the Pentagon and the office of Dick Cheney, and the government of Ariel Sharon—is the subject an article in this week's InDepth.

President Assad Willing To Talk Peace With Sharon

Syrian President Bashar Assad told the Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that he is willing to make peace with any Israel government, even that of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Israeli paper Ha'aretz reported Jan. 23.

"The Europeans tell us they don't think Sharon will attain peace, but ... we don't think that internal changes in Israel are a prerequisite for us to return our lands. Our goal is to reach a peace based on principles set forth at the Madrid peace conference and during previous negotiations."

Iranian President Khatami Featured Speaker at Davos

The featuring of Iranian President Mohammed Khatami speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 22, is extremely significant, Middle East observers told EIR. Khatami said that "Military might may perhaps bring transient security, but the gap between this type of security is the difference between a security based on armed peace, and peace based on compassion and friendship toward humanity."

Khatami was also well received at a press conference, answering a broad range of reporters' questions. In one reply, he "vehemently denied" that Iran had tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or had imported nuclear material from North Korea or elsewhere. Iran had signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), and the additional protocol, he emphasized, and has a right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Bush's Middle East actions have "failed to have any success," said Khatami.

"[Bush] attacked Afghanistan—where is bin Laden now? And has the threat of al-Qaeda gone?

"The U.S. invaded Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction—where are those weapons? The public was deceived by the U.S.," he charged, adding, "In Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani asks for direct and democratic elections, but the occupiers, who say they came to bring democracy, block the elections." He said there had never been conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq. He stressed Iran's position: "We have always said: one man, one vote in Iraq."

Asked whether he would seek a dialogue with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in Davos this week, he said no, adding that the prerequisite for dialogue was "mutual respect." He said he "hoped" the "changes we have witnessed in the U.S. tone are not tactical" ones.

As to why Iran refuses to recognize Israel, he said that Tehran has "a moral debate with Israel and the world which is that occupation does not bring legitimacy." But he added, "We do not intervene in the affairs of others, and we respect the decisions of the Palestinian people, whatever their decisions be."

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