Southwest Asia News Digest
Bush in Fantasyland: Iraq Unravelling; War Will Spread
President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi played "make-believe" Sept. 23, when they held a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden to put out the message that the situation in Iraq was improving, and that elections would be held on schedule in January. Their statements followed a month in which suicide bombings, attacks on British and American soldiers, and air bombardments of urban areas have been frequent occurrences throughout the country. Iraqis who have not suffered violence face their own horrors: Unemployment stands at over 50%, raw sewage fills the streets, and electricity blackouts last up to 14 hours a day.
Jordan's King Abdullah, speaking before talks in Paris on Sept. 28, stated that, "It seems impossible to me to organize indisputable elections in the chaos we see today. Only if the situation improved could an election be organized on schedule."
The King's view has been echoed by others involved in the region, including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and numerous military-intelligence analysts within the United States. Yet the Allawi government and Bush insist that elections will go ahead, after a massive bombing-purge campaign in the three provinces dominated by Sunnis. And they still receive the backing of nominal Democrats, like Joe Lieberman, who was ostentatiously kissed by the thuggish Allawi after the latter's speech to Congress last week.
Analysts reached by EIR stress that the Allawi-Bush scenario is programmed to create more chaos, if not outright civil war.
According to one well-placed Egyptian journalist, since August, the Bush Administration has been working secretly on a plan to pull out of Iraq sometime next year. The two-phase scheme, which was further pinned down during Allawi's visit to Washington, involves: 1) a massive U.S. military counterinsurgency offensive into the Sunni Triangle, to wipe out major centers of insurgency, in what will be tantamount to an ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population. Signs, according to the source, that this operation is already underway include this week's rescinding of the no-entry orders, under which American military patrols stayed out of certain Sunni towns and cities where tribal leaders had arranged security agreements with the insurgents. The bombing and other military operations against Falluja over the weekend are the most dramatic example of this shift. Also, the source added, the U.S. has also rescinded its ban on sales of heavy military equipment to Iraq. The objective, he said, is to create, as rapidly as possible, a six-division Iraqi Army (approximately 120,000 troops) to take over the crackdown.
2) Following the January elections, the new "sovereign" Iraqi government will ask the U.S. military to leave the country in a timely fashion, thus leaving behind whatever mess exists.
Briefed on this report, and on assessments from several leading American military analysts that Iraq is "lost," Lyndon LaRouche commented that this would be a far worse fiasco than the Nixon pullout from Saigon in 1973. This is the detonator of a charge that will have bloody repercussions throughout the Muslim world, and beyond, LaRouche said. Look, under these circumstances, for Sharon and the crazies in Israel to do something really berserk, like bomb Iran and Syria.
The only viable alternative to such an "Iraqization" scenario, remains the "LaRouche Doctrine for Southwest Asia." Issued last April, this Doctrine calls for the U.S. to offer its support to a security arrangement among four of Iraq's neighbors: Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Egyptas well as the Caucasus region. Without an agreement among these neighbors to provide security through economic cooperation in the region, and de facto recognize each other's sovereign existence, there is no hope for peace in Iraq, LaRouche emphasized.
There have been recent leaks from Bush Administration officials that Secretary of State Colin Powell will call a meeting bringing together these neighbors, plus the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to discuss humanitarian aid in the region. Yet this outlook runs 180 degrees contrary to the dominant Cheney-Rumsfeld policy of confrontation with Syria and/or Iran.
The confrontation policy has been proceeding apace, both on the matter of Iran's negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and on the question of Syria's relationship with terrorists in Israel or Iraq. So far, the Israelis have taken the lead, perhaps by arrangement with the neocons, with a very loud drumbeat for preemptive strikes against both Iran (for its nuclear reactor site), and Syria (for housing various Islamic militant groups).
Such a confrontation, of course, will only spread the rage against the U.S. and Israel, and the murderous chaos.
(This article by Nancy Spannaus originally appeared in The New Federalist Oct. 4.)
Rumsfeld Hunter-Killer Teams Implicated in Iraq Prisoner Deaths
Three members of a secret Navy SEAL team operating in Iraq, have been charged with abusing Iraqi detainees, two of whom died in American custody after being beaten. One detainee died at Abu Ghraib prison, and the other at a base near Mosul. This brings to seven the number of Navy Special Operations personnel who now face criminal charges in connection with the prisoner-torture and abuse scandal.
Both deaths involved Navy SEAL Team 7, which was conducting clandestine operations in Iraq in conjunction with the CIA, searching for so-called "high-value" insurgent and terrorist targets.
The description of these cases of abuse fit the special "hunter-killer" teams created by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in 2002, and which are a central feature of Seymour Hersh's new book, Chain of Command.
In Iraq, these military Special Operations Forces and CIA paramilitary operatives were combined in Task Force 20, which was visited by Guantanamo Commander Gen. Geoffrey Miller on his infamous trip to Iraq in 2003 to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib prison. More background on this is found in an article in the torture scandal in the Sept. 24 EIR.
U.S. Pressuring To Remove ElBaradei from IAEA
A new board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, was to meet on Sept. 27 in Vienna to set procedures for electing a new director-general. The current chief, Mohammad ElBaradei, had earlier this month thrown his hat into the ring for a third term, but is opposed by the United States.
The U.S. claims that it "supports" the position of the Geneva group of top ten contributors to the UN, that heads of the international organization should not serve more than two terms. The U.S. is the largest contributor.
The U.S. pointed out that its "policy has nothing to do with the director-general's qualifications...." However, it is widely known that Mohammad ElBaradei is strongly disliked by U.S. neocons for two reasons: reports indicate they believe that ElBaradei is "coaching" Tehran on how to hide its uranium-enrichment program. Second, in March 2003, ElBaradei exposed at the UN Security Council that the documents that supposedly proved that Iraq was trying to buy uranium "yellow cake" from Niger, were a crude fraud.
Veteran Journalist Warns of Perpetual War Under Bush
"If George W. Bush is re-elected, we will have war without end," warned Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps. Thomas was lambasted for her remarks by the Moonie-owned Washington Times Sept. 27, in a blurb entitled "Helen bares all." Thomas, who has been working the White House since the days of John F. Kennedy, had been the UPI White House correspondent until a few years ago when the Times bought up UPI, at which point Thomas resigned her position.
Although well into her 80s, Thomas is still doing her White House stint, now for the Hearst newspapers. Bush, she said, "has made us the most despised nation in the world.... We should have never invaded Iraq. It will be a long time before we get our honor back." She scolded her press colleagues "because they have rolled over and played dead."
Israeli 'Courage To Refuse' Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
The Courage to Refuse movement of Israeli Army reservists who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The two founders of the movement, Captain David Zonshein and Arik Diamant, were named as the candidates.
"Our candidacy is a victory for those who love Israel, and a victory for Zionist values and the Israeli spirit, which have championed an uncompromising battle defending the State of Israel alongside protecting human life, human rights, and honor," Zonshein said.
"We see this as a victory for real Zionism, based on the principles of freedom, justice, and peace", said Daimant. "Particularly in these times, when the right-wing settlers announced their refusal to evacuate settlements, our candidacy marks a line between refusal to take part in actions that oppose Jewish and international law and ethics, and refusal of settlers, whose sole purpose is the perpetuation of control over another nation."
New Zealand, Washington Probe Israeli Spying
New Zealand deported two Mossad agents after they had been convicted of trying to acquire a New Zealand passport illegally, reported the Israeli paper Ha'aretz on Sept. 29. The two, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara, had served half of their six-month sentences, and also had to donate $50,000 each to charities, as agreed in a plea bargain. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, however, did not lift the diplomatic sanctions she ordered against Israel because of Israel's refusal to accept responsibility. "The ball remains in Israel's court," Clark said in a statement.
The New Zealand case is the second international spy scandal involving Israel. On Sept. 29, the prestigious London publication, Jane's Foreign Report, wrote that the FBI is continuing a "broad" investigation to uncover Israeli espionage in the U.S. Pentagon.
The Jane's story, entitled "A Mole called Mega," reveals that the Larry Franklin spy scandal "has rekindled suspicions," long held by the FBI and others in Washington, "that Israel systematically spies on its strategic ally and benefactor."
Jane's notes that the probe goes way beyond the question of one lone analyst passing secrets to Israel. "Shortly before George Tenet retired as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June, he alleged that an Israeli agent was operating in Washington," Jane's reports, adding that, although Tenet was challenged to identify the agent, he did not do so. "For years, the FBI has been convinced that there is at least one high-level Israeli mole in Washington," Jane's writes.
The story also notes that there is "growing unease in some quarters in Washington about the influence that Israel's right wing has in the Bush Administration through the pro-Likud neo-conservatives, largely in the Pentagon," and through AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and WINEP (the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.)
Iraq Reconstruction Money Diverted to U.S. Banks
One of the provisions in the continuing resolution passed by the Congress, on Sept. 29, would transfer $360 million from the $18.6 billion passed last year for Iraq reconstruction to, instead, relief of U.S. banks owed money by Iraq, the Washington Post reported Sept. 30. This is in addition to nearly $2 billion transferred from reconstruction accounts to security.
Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee chairman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz) explained that this "debt forgiveness" "provides former Secretary of State James Baker with the tools for upcoming debt negotiations in the Paris Club this fall. It would enable the U.S. to forgive nearly $4 billion of debt owed by Iraq, thus spurring vastly greater amounts of debt forgiveness by Iraq's other creditors."
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