Posted on 10/04/2004 10:20:47 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
The US media still largely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” As a result, most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East. In fact they were one of the first countries to have spontaneous candlelight vigils after the 911 tragedy (see photo).
There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.
The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.
In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.
/312_G.jpg)
This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.
I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.
If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.
If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.
DoctorZin
Many nations helping Iran build missiles; U.S. sanctions 14 firms
U.S. officials said state-owned companies primarily from China but also from Belarus, North Korea, Russia and Ukraine have contributed to Iran's Shihab-3 intermediate missile program. They said the aid has been in the form of exports of missile components and expertise.
For the first time, officials said, a company in a NATO ally also sold missile and WMD components to Iran. That company was identified as being located in Spain.
On Sept. 29, the State Department imposed sanctions on 14 foreign firms and individuals regarding the sale of missile and WMD technology and equipment to Iran. Officials said seven of those sanctioned were from China.
So far, 23 foreign entities have been sanctioned under the Iran Nonproliferation Act, Middle East Newsline reported. The legislation was meant to halt the sale of cruise and ballistic missile equipment and expertise as well as WMD technology to Iran.
Officials acknowledge that sanctions have not stopped many of these companies from Iranian missile and WMD contracts. The Chinese state-owned North Industries Corp., or Norinco, has been sanctioned several times for selling missile and WMD components to Iran.
North Korea's Changgwang Sinyong Corp., a leading in missile proliferation in the Middle East, has also been sanctioned numerous times, including last week. Changgwang is the state arms export agency of Pyongyang.
No government was sanctioned despite the acknowledgement by officials that several of the companies cited by the State Department were state-owned.
Officials said the sanctions marked the most sweeping action by the State Department under the Iran Nonproliferation Act approved by Congress in 2000. They said the decision reflected concern by the Bush administration that Iran was rapidly completing its nuclear weapons as well as intermediate-range missile delivery systems.
"In many cases the imposition of successive sanctions, one on top of the other, the main effect is to extend the period of time that entity would be subject to sanctions for," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"But it is a requirement of law that we make these determinations, and impose sanctions. And somebody who has been doing something more recently deserves to suffer the consequences for a longer period of time."
Boucher did not identify the exports to Iran. He said the equipment comprised "items that have a potential of making a material contribution to weapons of mass destruction of cruise or ballistic missiles, items on U.S. national control lists for weapons of mass destruction or missile reasons."
Officials said the latest companies sanctioned reflected the range of suppliers to Iran's missile and WMD programs. In addition to the seven from China, the companies included two from India and one each from Belarus, Russia, North Korea, Spain and Ukraine. The sanctions were meant to prevent these companies or individuals from doing business with the U.S. government or buying U.S. advanced technology equipment for two years.
Spain's Telstar was also sanctioned under the latest decision by the State Department. Officials said Telstar was the first firm from a NATO ally to face such U.S. penalties under the Iran Nonproliferation Act.
WASHINGTON - The regime in Iran is rejecting Senator Kerry's proposal, floated last week in his debate with President Bush, to provide the mullahs with nuclear fuel in exchange for dismantling their atomic fuel cycle.
The spokesman for the foreign ministry in Tehran told reporters yesterday, "We have the technology and there is no need for us to beg from others." Entering such an agreement, the spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said, would be "irrational."
"What guarantees are there?" he said. "Will they supply us one day and then, if they want to, stop supplying us on another day?"
Mr. Kerry criticized the president in Thursday's debate for failing to give adequate support to an initiative by Britain, France, and Germany to persuade Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium.
In response to a question about whether sanctions and diplomacy can curb North Korea's and Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Massachusetts senator said: "I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing."
Iran's rejection of Mr. Kerry's proposal could undermine his campaign's central argument that America would be safer if he was president. In the debate with Mr. Bush on foreign policy, which many polls and pundits said Mr. Kerry won, the Democratic candidate repeatedly stressed that the president had poor judgment in foreign affairs, calling the Iraq war a mistake and deriding the White House's failure to conduct diplomacy effectively.
Mr. Kerry's proposal is similar in its dynamic to the 1994 Agreed Framework that Defense Secretary Perry signed with North Korea. Under that pact, Pyongyang agreed to end its enrichment of uranium, and in exchange America and the European Union agreed to help build two light-water nuclear reactors for North Korea and provide regular fuel shipments. In 2002, the North Koreans informed the State Department that they had been enriching uranium in sites that the regime's envoys said were not covered by the 1994 agreement.
Nonetheless, the Bush White House interpreted the information as a violation of the spirit of the accord and temporarily ended its limited contacts with the regime.
This is not the first time Mr. Kerry has criticized the president for failing to explore diplomatic openings with Iran. Last year, in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Kerry blasted the president for not pursuing Tehran's offer to send senior members of Al Qaeda to third countries in exchange for America's release of anti-Iran rebels captured in Iraq.
A Kerry adviser and fund-raiser, Hassan Nemazee, sued the founder of the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, Aryo Pirouznia, for defamation charges after Mr. Pirouznia charged that Mr. Nemazee, who is a New York investment banker, had illicit business and political contacts with the Islamic republic. Mr. Pirouznia has countersued Mr. Nemazee in federal district court in Dallas, on grounds that the Kerry adviser's lawsuit was frivolous.
Last month President Khatami announced that Iran would move forward in completing the nuclear fuel cycle after his government formally told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would no longer keep a pledge to suspend enrichment activities while the U.N. body continued to inspect previously undeclared centrifuges and laboratories.
American diplomats at the energy agency pushed last month to take Iran's transgressions to the U.N. Security Council, where the international body could consider penalties against Tehran. But the plan to take the matter to the Security Council was stymied after Britain, France, and Germany pushed to give Iran until the end of this month to clarify inspectors' remaining questions about whether its enrichment activities were intended to make nuclear weapons.
In an interview published yesterday, the American undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, John Bolton, told the German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag that for now, America was not prepared to take military action against Iranian centrifuges, but he stressed that America had not ruled it out.
Mr. Bolton also criticized the German government for sending a trade mission last week to Tehran. "I can only speak from the American perspective," he said. "We do not trade with countries that seek to breach international nuclear agreements."
The tensions over the Iranian nuclear program come as exile organizations report a new round of clashes between the government and protesters. The Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran reports that protests over the weekend turned violent in Tehran, Esfahan, Hamadan, Ardebil, Shiraz, Kermanshah, Ahwaz, Falavarjan, Oroomiah, and Yazd, in response to firing by Iranian militiamen at protests last week. The latest unrest was sparked in part by the collapse of a state fund for the veterans of foreign wars.
"This is an international conference like any other. We are going to participate," government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh replied when asked if there was a possibility of direct talks there with US officials.
"There is not yet any special plan for the sidelines of the conference," he added.
Iran announced on Sunday that it intended to take part in the US-proposed meeting, with the foreign ministry here saying the Islamic republic "welcomes all initiatives that favour stability in Iraq."
Egypt's foreign ministry announced on Saturday it will host the international conference during the last week of November, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said it appeared that all of the parties invited to attend would do so.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell unveiled plans for the conference amid mounting expressions of skepticism among world leaders that the security situation in Iraq would permit nationwide elections to go ahead as promised by the end of January.
Powell also said he had no objection to the presence of Iran. The two countries cut off diplomatic relations in 1980, and US President George W Bush had lumped the clerical regime into an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The United States and the Iraqi interim government are hoping the meeting will bring Iraq's neighbours on board in efforts to help stabilise the country, which remains wracked by violence.
 Print Friendly Format E-Mail this to a Friend |
||||
| By Marina Malenic | ||||
| Published 10/5/2004 12:08:48 AM |
||||
|
||||
WASHINGTON -- Iran might have opened an insurgency front in Yemen in an effort to weaken U.S. influence in the region.
A new report by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation said Yemen regarded the recent insurgency by former parliamentarian and Shi'ite cleric Al Houthi as backed and financed by Iran. In September, Al Houthi was killed by the Yemeni military and the three-month insurgency was declared over.
"In the midst of growing political tensions between Iran and the United States, a Shi'ite rebellion in the remote mountains of northwest Yemen has created suspicions that Iran may be attempting to open a new anti-American front to weaken U.S. efforts in the region," the report said.
The report said Iran has long been helping Shi'ite insurgents, who could have also received assistance from Shi'ite communities in (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council states. Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have the largest Shi'ite communities in the GCC.
Thank you for all your efforts.
PM: Iran is running Arab agents in Israel |
 |
||
|
|||
| By The Associated Press | |||
|
|||
|
|||
|
Iran is using Islamic religious organizations in Israel as a cover to run Israeli Arab agents in the country, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday. He did not elaborate. |
|||
|
Sharon's accusation came amid Israel's increasingly vocal concern over Iran's nuclear development program, which, Jerusalem says, is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying it is intended for electricity generation. |
|||
It always seems a little strange to have an Irish-Catholic talking about Yom Ha Shoah. I had an unusual education in the Holocaust. When I was working for the Attorney General, I was assigned to do the classified research about the Holocaust, so I went underground to a little town called Suitland, Maryland, right outside Washington, D.C., and that's where the U.S. government buries its secrets -- literally. There are twenty vaults underground and each vault is one acre in size. Anyone see the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? The last scene of that movie is what the underground vaults are really like, only not as organized as they are in the movie. And in those underground vaults I discovered something horrible. I learned that many of the Nazis that I had been assigned to prosecute were on the CIA payroll, but the CIA didn't know they were Nazis because the British Intelligence Service had lied to them. What the British Intelligence Service didn't know was that their liar was Kim Philby, the Soviet communist double agent -- a little scandal of the Cold War. But our State Department swept it all under the rug and allowed the Nazis to stay in America until I was stupid enough to go public with it. What do you do when you want to go public with a story like this one? You call up “60 Minutes.” We had a great time. Mike Wallace gave me 30 minutes on his show. For a long time, it was the longest segment that "60 Minutes" ever did. When the episode about Nazis in America went on the air back in 1982, it caused a minor national uproar. Congress demanded hearings, Mike Wallace got the Emmy award, and my family got the death threats. It was a great trip. Then a funny thing happened. Over the last 25 years, every retired spy in the U.S. and Canada and England all wanted me to be their lawyer, for free of course. So I had 500 clients, they paid me $1 apiece. So I am the worst paid lawyer in America, but among the better employed. Let me give you an example. This year a friend of mine from the CIA, named Bob Baer wrote a very good book about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, it's called Sleeping with the Devil. I read the book and I got about a third of the way through and I stopped. Bob was writing how when he worked for the CIA how bad the files were. He said, for example, the files for the Muslim Brotherhood were almost nothing. There were just a few newspaper clippings. I called Bob up and said, “Bob, that's wrong. The CIA has enormous files on the Muslim Brotherhood, volumes of them. I know because I read them a quarter of a century ago.” He said, “What do you mean?” Here's how you can find all of the missing secrets about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and you can do this, too. I said, “Bob, go to your computer and type in two words into the search part. Type the word “Banna,” B-a-n-n-a. He said, “Yeah.” Type in “Nazi.” Bob typed the two words in, and out came 30 to 40 articles from around the world. He read them and called me back and said, “Oh my gosh, what have we done?” What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al-Qaeda. Here's how the story began. In the 1920's there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930's, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence. The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt. When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria. The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man -- The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the “Handjar” Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa -- grand dreams. At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service. Then a horrible thing happened. Instead of prosecuting the Nazis -- the Muslim Brotherhood -- the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood. Britain was not alone. The French intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel. What the British did then, they sold the Arab Nazis to the predecessor of what became the CIA. It may sound stupid; it may sound evil, but it did happen. The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim Brotherhood on our payroll. But the Egyptians became nervous. Nasser ordered all of the Muslim Brotherhood out of Egypt or be imprisoned, and we would execute them all. During the 1950's, the CIA evacuated the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia. Now when they arrived in Saudi Arabia, some of the leading lights of the Muslim Brotherhood like Azzam, became the teachers in the Madrasas, the religious schools. And there they combined the doctrines of Nazism with this weird Islamic cult, Wahhabiism. Everyone thinks that Islam is this fanatical religion, but it is not. They think that Islam -- the Saudi version of Islam -- is typical, but it's not. The Wahhabi cult was condemned as a heresy more than 60 times by the Muslim nations. But when the Saudis got wealthy, they bought a lot of silence. This is a very harsh cult. The Wahhabiism was only practiced by two nations, the Taliban and Saudi Arabia. That's how extreme it is. It really has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a very peaceful and tolerant religion. It has always had good relationships with the Jews for the first thousand years of its existence. For the Saudis, there was a ruler in charge of Saudi Arabia, and they were the new home of the Muslim Brotherhood, and fascism and extremism were mingled in these schools. And there was a young student who paid attention - - and Azzam's student was named Osama Bin Ladin. Osama Bin Ladin was taught by the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood who had emigrated to Saudi Arabia. In 1979 the CIA decided to take the Arab Nazis out of cold storage. The Russians had invaded Afghanistan, so we told the Saudis that we would fund them if they would bring all of the Arab Nazis together and ship them off to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. We had to rename them. We couldn't call them the Muslim Brotherhood because that was too sensitive a name. Its Nazi cast was too known. So we called them the Maktab al Khidimat il Mujahideen, the MAK. And the CIA lied to Congress and said they didn't know who was on the payroll in Afghanistan, except the Saudis. But it was not true. A small section CIA knew perfectly well that we had once again hired the Arab Nazis and that we were using them to fight our secret wars. Azzam and his assistant, Osama Bin Ladin, rose to some prominence from 1979 to '89, and they won the war. They drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. Our CIA said, “We won, let's go home!” and we left this army of Arab fascists in the field of Afghanistan. Saudis didn't want to come back. Saudis started paying bribes to Osama Bin Ladin and his followers to stay out of Saudi Arabia. Now the MAK split in half. Azzam was mysteriously assassinated apparently by Osama Bin Ladin himself. The radical group -- the most radical of the merge of the Arab fascists and religious extremists -- Osama called that al Qaeda. But to this day there are branches of the Muslim Brotherhood all through al Qaeda. Osama Bin Ladin's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, came from the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the results of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There are many flavors and branches, but they are all Muslim Brotherhoods. There is one in Israel. The organization you know as “Hammas” is actually a secret chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. When Israel assassinated Sheik Yassin a month ago, the Muslim Brotherhood published his obituary in a Cairo newspaper in Arabic and revealed that he was actually the secret leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. So the Muslim Brotherhood became this poison that spread throughout the Middle East and on 9/11, it began to spread around the world. I know this sounds like some sort of a sick fantasy, but go to your computer and type in the words “Banna,” B-a-n-n-a and the word “Nazi,” N-a-z-i, and you will see all of the articles come up. Those are all the pieces of information that the CIA was trying to hide from its employees. It did not want them to know the awful past. So, in 1984, when I was exposing European Nazis on the CIA payroll, at the same time they were trying to hide from Congress the fact that they had Arab Nazis back on the payroll to fight the Russians -- a stupid and corrupt program. So, when Bob Baer studied his files, he was just stunned. A whole generation: the current CIA people know nothing about this. And believe me, the current generation CIA are good and decent Americans and I like them a lot. They're trying to do a good job, but part of their problem is their files have been shredded. All of these secrets have to come out. So, of course, my clients in the intelligence community said, “Well, what are you doing?” They gave me an example. They said, “Here's how the Saudis finance these groups. The Saudis have established a group of charities on a street in Virginia. It's 555 Grove St., Herndon, Virginia.” So I said, “OK the Saudis are terrorists, so what?” These charities fund Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda. The Saudis are getting tax deductions for terrorism. They have set up front groups so all the terrorists groups in the U.S. and the front groups get the Saudi money as a charitable donation. I said, “You're kidding me.” Nope. And they told me that right near where I lived in Tampa, Florida was one of the leading terrorists in the world. There were these two professors at the University of South Florida. One had just left -- and he was now in Syria -- and he was the world head of Islamic Jihad. His number two, the head of Islamic Jihad in the Western Hemisphere, was Dr. Sami al-Arian, who is still employed as a professor at the University of South Florida. You've got to be kidding. This can't be true. Yes, these guys are raising money all across America and shipping it to Syria to go down to Palestine, the Palestinian areas, and hire suicide bombers to kill Jews. They sent me the videotapes. There was Professor al-Arian on stage and one of his friends gets up and says, “Now, who will give me $500 to kill a Jew? There are people standing by in Jerusalem who will go out in the street and stab a Jew with a knife, but we need $500.” And he said, “All of this money will go to the Islamic committee for Palestine.” And that is the front group in the United States for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. So I had all my friends in the FBI and CIA send in these files. I said, “Why haven't you prosecuted this guy? You've known about him since 1989.” “We'd love to. We've tried to prosecute him but we were told we couldn't touch him because he gets all of his money from the Saudis, and we are all under orders not to do anything to embarrass the Saudi government.” I said, “I don't mind embarrassing them.” You know what I did? I donated money to the charity that was the terrorist fund, because under Florida law, that gave me the right to sue the charity to find out where my money was going. It was hilarious. In early March, 2002, I drafted a long lawsuit exposing Professor Sami al-Arian, naming all the crimes he'd committed, all the bombings in Israel, the fundraising in America with terrorism. I mentioned how his money got to him from the Saudis and how the Saudis had convinced our government not to prosecute him for political reasons. Because of my high-level security clearances, everything I write is sort of classified material and has to be sent back to the government before publication, for censorship. So I sent my long lawsuit complaint to the CIA, and they loved it. They said, “Oh, great. We don't like the Saudis either. Go sue them.” Three days later two FBI Agents showed up at my door, saying, “You know, there are only 21 people in the U.S. government that knew some of this information, and now you're 22. How did you find out?” I said, “I'm sorry, I can't tell you, attorney-client privilege.” That's why my clients pay me $1.00 each. The day before I went to file the lawsuit, I got a frantic phone call from the United States Department of Justice. They said, “John, please don't file the lawsuit tomorrow. We really are going to raid these Saudi charities. We're going to close them down. Just give us more time.” “Oh yeah, you're going to raid them. That's what you told me in January - - and again in February, and now it's March. You want more time? I'll give you until 4:00 o'clock tomorrow. I'm filing my complaint at 10:00 a.m., so that at 4:00 p.m., I'm going to release the address of the Saudi charities. Back tomorrow. I filed my lawsuit at 10:00 o'clock, and told the press I was going to hold something back for a little bit. At 10:15, the U.S. government launched Operation Greenquest, a massive raid on all the Saudi charities in homes and businesses, and in one hour we shut down the entire Saudi money-laundering network in America. From March 20, 2002 to the present, the government has found more and more evidence seized in those archives on that single raid that day. The evidence was so compelling that Professor al-Arian is no longer giving his speeches. He is now in federal prison awaiting trial. His accomplice, Hammoudeh, has also been indicted. Some 32 different people have been indicted in the United States as a direct result of these efforts. But not the Saudis -- not the Saudis. NEVER AGAIN.
A month after I filed my lawsuit against al-Arian, I did it: I caused some trouble. I invited some 40 of the top trial lawyers in America to come down to St. Petersburg, Florida. Boy, did I have a deal for them. I wanted them to put up millions of dollars of their own money -- I'm poor, I had no money to give them -- but I wanted to do something for America.
These are lawyers like Ron Motley that had won billions of dollars in their lawsuits against the tobacco industry and the asbestos industry. I said, “What I want you to do is look at the evidence I've collected. It's the same Saudi banks and charities that funded Sami al-Arian that also funded al Qaeda.” I said, “I want you to bring a class action in Federal Court in Washington on behalf of everyone who died on Sept. 11th. I'm going to work for free and collect all the evidence, introduce you to the experts, provide all the exhibits and documents . . . and we have to do this for America.”
The lawyers studied all the documents I collected, and on August 15, 2002, they filed the largest class-action lawsuit in American history in the Federal District Court in Washington D.C., asking for one trillion dollars damages against the Saudis. The lawsuit said essentially that all these Saudi banks had one thing in common. They were bribing Osama bin Ladin 300 million dollars a year to stay out of Saudi Arabia and go blow up someone else.
Well, on 9/11, we found out we were someone else, and the Saudis had to pay for their negligence. So that lawsuit is coming along very well.
And more and more people in the CIA and FBI are sort of using me as a back channel to get our information. So, believe it or not, they've actually given me my own TV show now on Sunday mornings on FOX TV nationwide. I'm on at 11:20 eastern standard time. And ABC Radio has given me a national radio program, but I'm on at 10:30 at night and it's past your bedtime.
What I've become in my old age is a teacher. Twenty-five years ago I was a lot younger, a lot thinner, but now every day I get 500 to 1,000 e-mails from honest men and women around the world from the intelligence community.
And we have to end the evil in this world. We have to recognize that al Qaeda simply didn't spring up on its own. The evil route was Nazism. The al Qaeda Doctrine is the same as the Arab Nazis held. They hated Jews, they hate democracy, and they hate Westerners for Western culture. Al Qaeda is nothing more than the religious expression of Arab Fascism. We allowed this branch of the Nazi trunk to survive, to flourish, and it has come back to haunt us.
We must do a better job. Look at these children. They are our legacy. If we are to keep our children safe, we must teach them the lessons of the past. Every generation should know what these candles mean. Not only that one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the world really happened, but the evil that caused it -- Nazism -- survived because we didn't fight hard enough. We didn't finish the job.
But we must tell our children that in every generation the men and women of America have stood side by side with our Jewish, Christian, and Moslem brothers. We have risen up together against hatred. America is united now.
We will win the war on terror, and we will finish the job that these soldiers and survivors started more than a half-century ago. We must set the standard that to teach a child to hate is the worst form of child abuse. We must work together to end racism in our children's lifetime. We must teach our children to remember the Holocaust and be proud, so proud of those who survived and inspired us with their courage. In their name, in their honor, let us go forward and fight together.
Donald Rumsfeld has admitted for the first time that he has seen no "hard evidence" linking Saddam Hussein with the al Qaeda network, it emerged today.
In front of an audience in New York, Mr Rumsfeld said that intelligence about the connections between Saddam and Osama bin Laden had changed in the past year in a most "amazing way".
He added: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."
Mr Bush's justification for war after the September 11 attacks was based on proving Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he was a supporter of terrorism.
Mr Rumsfeld had spoken of credible information about a link in the past and, fearing further ammunition against Mr Bush in the election campaign, the Pentagon issued a statement disclaiming the comment only hours later.
Mr Rumsfeld said his off-the-cuff remark had been "regrettably misunderstood", adding that there had been ties between al Qaeda and Iraq since September 2002 .
The defence secretary also contradicted himself on weapons of mass destruction.
During the session at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Mr Rumsfeld said flatly that intelligence about such weapons before the invasion was faulty.
"It turns out that we have not found weapons of mass destruction," he said.
"Why the intelligence proved wrong I'm not in a position to say, but the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail." A day earlier in a
television interview in the United States, Mr Rumsfeld had said he believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction before the war, and the truth may unfold over months or years.
"I believe they were there, and I'm surprised we have not found them yet," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"He has either hidden them so well or moved them somewhere else, or decided to destroy them .. . in event of a conflict but kept the capability of developing them rapidly."
Mr Rumsfeld said " everyone believed" Saddam had the weapons before the war.
"Even the people at the UN who voted the other way acknowledged the fact that he had filed a fraudulent declaration," he said.
In response to other questions, Mr Rumsfeld said Iran was engaged in "a lot of meddling" in Iraq, and Syria has been "notably unhelpful" by refusing to release frozen Iraqi assets and by allowing foreign terrorist movements across its border with Iraq.
He added that he does not expect civil war in Iraq and highlighted the recent retaking of the former insurgent stronghold of Samarra as evidence of progress in stabilising the country before elections in January.
| No. 990-04 | |
| IMMEDIATE RELEASE | October 4, 2004 |
A question I answered today at an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations regarding ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq regrettably was misunderstood.
I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
This assessment was based upon points provided to me by then CIA Director George Tenet to describe the CIA's understanding of the Al Qaeda-Iraq relationship.
Today at the Council, I even noted that "when I'm in Washington, I pull out a piece of paper and say 'I don't know, because I'm not in that business, but I'll tell you what the CIA thinks,' and I read it."
The CIA conclusions in that paper, which I discussed in a news conference as far back as September, 2002, note that:
* We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.
* We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade, and of possible chemical and biological agent training.
* We have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq.
* We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
* We do have one report indicating that Iraq provided unspecified training relating to chemical and/or biological matters for al Qaeda members.
I should also note that the 9/11 Commission report described linkages between Al Qaeda and Iraq as well.
| WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Iran might have opened an insurgency front in Yemen in an effort to weaken U.S. influence in the region. A new report by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation said Yemen regarded the recent insurgency by former parliamentarian and Shi'ite cleric Al Houthi as backed and financed by Iran. In September, Al Houthi was killed by the Yemeni military and the three-month insurgency was declared over. "In the midst of growing political tensions between Iran and the United States, a Shi'ite rebellion in the remote mountains of northwest Yemen has created suspicions that Iran may be attempting to open a new anti-American front to weaken U.S. efforts in the region," the report said. The report said Iran has long been helping Shi'ite insurgents, who could have also received assistance from Shi'ite communities in Gulf Cooperation Council states. Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have the largest Shi'ite communities in the GCC. |
[Excerpt]
Tuesday, October 5, 2004 Posted: 7:37 AM EDT (1137 GMT)
 |
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's missiles can now hit targets as far away as 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), a senior figure has been quoted as saying.
"Today we have the power to fire missiles to a range of 2,000 kilometers," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted influential former President Hashemi Rafsanjani as saying.
"Iran is determined to improve its military capabilities," Rafsanjani told staff at the Aerospace Research Institute in Tehran.
"Experts know that a country that possesses this can obtain all subsequent stages" in missile production, he said.
A missile with a range of 2,000 km would be capable of striking Israel and parts of southeastern Europe.
"Today, we possess the basic technology to produce and launch satellites," Rafsanjani added.
Iran recently announced plans to launch its own satellite into space next year.
In August, Iran said it had successfully test fired an improved version of its medium-range Shahab-3 missile.
The old version of the Shahab-3 was believed to have a range of about 1,300 km (810 miles), making it capable of reaching Israel and various U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
Iran says its missiles are for purely defensive purposes and would be used to counter a possible Israeli strike against its nuclear facilities.
Iran fiercely denies U.S. and Israeli accusations that it is building nuclear weapons.
In August, Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said Tehran was working to improve the Shahab-3's range and accuracy in response to efforts by Israel to upgrade its missile system, AP reported.
Rafsanjani said the Iranian missile program grew out of the 1980-88 war, AP reported.
"We started thinking of producing missiles when we were attacked by missiles," he said. ...
October 05, 2004, 9:24 a.m.
In last week's presidential debate, John Kerry complained that the U.S. should have offered Iran's mullahs lightly enriched uranium to "test" whether they "were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes." Although his suggestion seemed odd — Iran, after all, is suspected of trying to enrich uranium to make bombs — it has so far received scant attention. But closer look at the idea should set off alarm bells.
Under almost any scenario, implementing Kerry's proposal would not only bring Iran closer to having a bomb, it would also help Iran get a large arsenal — two things the U.S. and its allies are rightly eager to prevent.
Many people, of course, would like to believe that the security risks presented by Iran's nearly completed light-water power reactor at Bushehr are manageable. The key challenge, they argue, is to get Tehran to forgo commercially producing the weapons-usable reactor fuels — enriched uranium and separated plutonium — that Iranian officials insist they have the right to make in order to fuel Bushehr.
One would do well to challenge this assertion, which Iran's mullahs base on a cynical manipulation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's (NPT) endorsement of peaceful nuclear energy. The NPT is designed to prevent nations from acquiring nuclear weapons. Nowhere does it mention either enrichment or reprocessing, and rightly so: These nuclear activities are grossly uneconomical for nations like Iran and can bring states within days of having a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Rather than confront Iran on these points, Kerry's campaign has already ceded them. His website actually maintains that the NPT allows such activities and that, as such, new deals such as the one he proposes for Iran are necessary and desirable not just for Tehran, but for North Korea and other would-be bomb makers as well. Such looseness with the NPT is worrisome. What's worse is that Kerry's proposed fix — offering states such as Iran fresh reactor fuel in exchange for assurances that they will hand over their plutonium-laden spent fuel and forgo enrichment and reprocessing — is spring-loaded to compound our proliferation worries.
First, as a string of nuclear-intelligence surprises have demonstrated with Libya, North and South Korea, Algeria, Iraq, and Iran, assuming you can verify a nation's NPT pledges is a sure-fire prescription for embarrassment. Despite intensified U.S. and allied intelligence efforts and the much-improved inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), states' covert efforts to produce weapons-usable plutonium and uranium have proceeded for years without being discovered. With recent revelations that the father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program developed and sold key nuclear-weapons technology and hardware for years through entities from over 30 countries, the threat that additional states might succeed at covert nuclear activities has only increased.
Second and directly related to this point, it is a mistake to assume, as Kerry does, that light-water reactors are sufficiently "proliferation resistant" to be entrusted to virtually anyone (including Iran and North Korea) so long as there are no accompanying commercial enrichment or reprocessing activities.
Last week, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, which I direct, released a two-year study, "A Fresh Examination of the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors," authored by three national authorities on power reactors, atomic-weapons design, and nuclear chemistry. A key conclusion of this report is that a country can reduce the level of effort needed to produce a bomb five-fold simply by using fresh light-water-reactor fuel rather than natural uranium to feed its uranium-enrichment plants.
In Iran's case, this is significant. Earlier this year, Tehran was reported to be assembling the parts necessary to build 1,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges. We don't know whether it has completed these machines or where they all might be. Assuming for argument's sake that the work was done and that the machines were hidden away, even a five-fold reduction in its production effort would mean Iran could have its first bomb not sometime in early 2006 but this year in time for Christmas.
Could Iran divert fresh fuel for this purpose? The short answer is yes. About enough fresh fuel to make 30 crude bombs' worth of weapons uranium is normally must be kept at the ready at a reactor site for safety reasons. IAEA inspectors, meanwhile, account for this fuel only once every twelve months. One could surely keep better tabs on the fuel than this, but even if one did and detected a diversion, the question would remain: What would one do?
As for Kerry's other idea of taking back spent fuel from the power reactor to keep Iran from extracting the weapons-usable plutonium it contains, this too ignores several stubborn facts. For starters, spent fuel is so radioactive when it first leaves the reactor that it's dangerous to move it over long distances until after it has had some months to cool off in wet storage ponds. During this cooling period, however, a country could divert the material to strip out the plutonium locally without undue hazard if it did so quickly. Because the IAEA only examines its spent-fuel-inspection camera footage every three months, there's a good chance Iran could pinch the fuel without being found out.
What's worse, even if the diversion was detected, it would almost certainly come too late. As the aforementioned study makes clear, a nation could secretly build a small reprocessing plant and have it ready to make the first bomb's worth of plutonium only a few days after receiving its first delivery of spent fuel. According to published nuclear-industry and national-laboratory design studies, relatively high-output reprocessing plants could be built in a space as small as 65 square feet. As for the quality of the plutonium these plants could extract, it would be nearly weapons-grade and could be relied on to build bombs as destructive as that dropped on Hiroshima. Finally, and perhaps most chilling, after the first 15 months of operation, Iran would have enough spent fuel from Bushehr to produce nearly 60 of these weapons.
What does all this suggest? Letting Iran keep its light-water reactor and giving it fresh reactor fuel might well smoke out Tehran's nuclear intentions but only at the risk of accelerating its bomb project. Certainly, if giving Iran a leg up in covertly making bomb material is the kind of "sound judgment" Kerry believes our next president should exercise, we are all in for a rough ride. Bush, in contrast, believes we should get the U.N. Security Council to censure Iran so Bushehr is not completed. This idea seems far less flashy, but unlike Kerry's proposal it gets to the real problem, which is not any uncertainty regarding Iran's peaceful intentions but rather its clear bent for bombs. This is where any sound policy must start.
— Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C., and editor of Checking Iran's Nuclear Ambitions with Patrick Clawson.
October 04, 2004, 8:53 p.m.
President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry referred to the United Nations 17 times during their debate last Thursday on American foreign policy. Kerry's references outnumbered the president's more than 2 to 1. The senator's attitude? The U.N. is the centerpiece of any definition of America's strategic interests.
Kerry put U.N. centrality this way: "You don't help yourself with other nations...when you refuse to deal at length with the United Nations." Speaking of Iraq, "at length" meant "We needed to go to the U.N. The president needed the authority to use force...." Any use by a president of the option of a "preemptive strike" must be done "in a way...that passes the global test where...you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."
So what world is Kerry talking about? The presidential debate took place just as the General Assembly wound up its two-week opening session on September 30. At the session, dozens of world leaders told the U.N. what would pass a global test in their minds. Let's listen in.
On terrorism:
President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika: "[T]errorism...excludes the legitimate struggle of peoples against foreign occupation." Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon, Issam Fares: " National liberation is legitimate, terrorism is reprehensible." Ditto numerous other Arab ministers.
On nuclear non-proliferation: Prime Minister of Malaysia, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Chairman of the 100+ members of the Non-Aligned Movement): "We also note with great concern the increasing tendencies to link the fight against terrorism with the campaign against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Developing countries suffer as a result of restrictions imposed on access to peaceful uses of technology...." Foreign Minister of Iran, Kamal Kharrazi: "[P]revent[ing] the proliferation of nuclear weapons...must be done...in a comprehensive and non-discriminatory manner.... We insist on our right to technology for peaceful purposes...." Ambassador of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Choe Su Hon: "[O]ur army and people...are...pushing ahead with their struggle to build a...powerful state with...devotion to the socialist cause....The nuclear deterrent of the DPRK constitutes a legitimate self-defensive measure...."
On the genocide in Sudan: Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria, Farouk Al-Shara: "We view with satisfaction the positions and measures adopted by the government of the Sudan to address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur." Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yemen, Abubakr Al-Qirbi: "[T]here was no hard evidence of massacres [in Sudan].... [A]ll external parties must...refrain from interference in the domestic affairs of the Sudan."
On advancing human rights protection and democracy: Foreign Minister of China, Li Zhaoxing: "[I]t is imperative to...promote greater democracy in international relations...China will...safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity, brook no interference in its internal affairs...." Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe: "Zimbabwe will...welcome to [its sixth parliamentary] elections those observers whose sole and undivided purpose will be to observe the process and not to meddle in the politics of the country.... [T]he West should spare us their lessons on human rights." Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Nizar Obaid Madani: "[W]e believe that the process of helping developing nations to initiate political and economic reforms should not be imposed or dictated from without.... Of course there is much that the advanced countries can provide in this process, especially in the areas of investments...."
On identifying the villains: Foreign Minister of Cuba, Felipe Pérez Roque: "We, as non-aligned countries, will have to entrench ourselves in defending the United Nations Charter.... The powerful collude to divide us." Foreign Minister of Iran, Kamal Kharrazi: " Israel...[is] the single greatest threat to regional and global peace and security."
On the role of the U.N.: Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe: "[T]he UN Charter remains the only most sacred document and proponent of the relations of our Nations.... Foreign Minister of France, Michel Barnier: "[T]he U.N. remains the one irreplaceable, legitimate framework for harnessing...mobilization and translating it into collective action.... The Organization...has a natural vocation to be at the center of counter-terrorism measures.... The U.N., through its legitimacy and ever-increasing effectiveness, must be the instrument of the universal conscience of which it remains the crucible."
Let's sum up the rules of the U.N. game as set out by its most ardent fans from France to Cuba over September's festivities:
(1) Democracy is the governing principle between countries (read outvoting the United States), regardless of the rights of actual inhabitants.
(2) International measures to insist on democracy within states constitute unacceptable interference in a state's internal affairs.
(3) Nuclear non-proliferation is O.K. in theory provided it won't be put into practice until Israel and the United States are weapons-free, and any pressure in the meantime is oppression of developing countries.
(4) The only acceptable contributions of developed countries to the affairs of developing countries are cash donations.
(5) Terrorism is defined as harming one's friends, so Israelis are fair game.
(6) Israel is the greatest threat to world peace.
(7) Sudan should be commended for its role in reducing the spontaneous humanitarian crisis within its borders and anything but minute numbers of friendly neighboring forces would be an illegitimate interference in Sudanese sovereignty.
(8) The U.N. is the centerpiece of all legitimate international action concerning peace, security, self-defense, and the war against terrorism.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan works well at the top of this heap. He opened this year's Assembly by drawing moral parallels between the ongoing acts of unrepentant terrorists in the name of religion and the isolated acts of American soldiers condemned and punished by their countrymen. Annan said: "[W]e see civilians massacred in cold blood and...non-combatants...taken hostage and put to death in the most barbarous fashion. At the same time, we have seen Iraqi prisoners disgracefully abused." In his address, Annan named only one country in the world as violating international law through the "excessive use of force." You guessed it: Israel.
Into this toxic mix came President Bush with a message as honest as it was different. While the secretary general never once mentioned "democracy," "free speech," "political parties," "free press," "trade unions," "independent courts," every one of these was central to the president's address to the General Assembly. Announced the president in a statement which should have warmed tender hearts from Turtle Bay to Massachusetts: "For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations."
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, in his speech to the Assembly a few days later, asked: "Today, 60 years after this organization came into being, we must ask ourselves: What are we united for and what are we united against?"
The answer is: not terrorism, not the immediate threat of nuclear proliferation from Iran or North Korea, not the recognition of genocide or the action necessary to stop it, not the limits of sovereignty, not the requisites of democracy, not what constitutes a human-rights violation, and not the identity of the violators.
Senator Kerry would take American foreign policy on a new road. In his words: "...with other nations...you have to earn [their] respect. And I think we have a lot of earning back to do."
American voters could not have a clearer choice: groveling for the respect of nations whose values we do not share or helping reformers build a community of peaceful, democratic nations, with or without the "United" Nations.
— Anne Bayefsky is an international lawyer and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
 |
||
|
||
|
October 05, 2004, 9:30 a.m.
Months before the liberation of Iraq I wrote that we were about to have our great national debate on the war against the terror masters, and it was going to be the wrong debate. Wrong because it was going to focus obsessively on Iraq, thereby making it impossible to raise the fundamental strategic issues. Alas, that forecast was correct, and we're still stuck in the strategic quagmire we created. Up to our throats. So let's try again to get it right.
Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. President Bush's original analysis was correct, as was his strategy: We must not distinguish between the terrorists and their national supporters. Hence we need different strategies for different enemies, but we need to defeat all of them.
Afghanistan was the classic example, because the Taliban regime was at once home to, and sponsor of, al Qaeda. Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, and we responded against the terrorist organization and against the regime that supported it. Once the Taliban had been destroyed, and al Qaeda had been shattered, President Bush launched a political strategy: support the creation of a free Afghanistan, implant the basic institutions of democratic civil society, work toward free elections so that Afghans could freely govern themselves.
Call it democratic revolution.
That was supposed to be the model for the rest of the war, and it was the right strategy. Use military force where necessary, against both the terrorists and the sponsoring regimes, and support democratic revolution. The whole region understood that strategy, and you could see the consequences. There were pro-democracy demonstrations, even in the most unexpected places, such as Damascus and Riyadh, where none had been seen in human memory. In Iran, where the democratic opposition had shown its passion for several years, the tempo increased. And all the terror masters, in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, and Riyadh, trembled, fearing that their moment of power and glory was about to pass.
The president clearly understood both the stakes and the opportunity. The "Axis of Evil" was — and is — very real, as the tyrants of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea knew full well. There is now abundant evidence of the close cooperation among them, and with their Libyan, Syrian and Pakistani friends, ranging from nuclear projects to other weapons of mass destruction, and to vital support (sometimes in tandem, sometimes separately) to the terror network.
The terror masters also knew that their greatest threat came from their own people, who were disgusted at the oppressive and corrupt dictatorships, and who saw the United States as the source of their imminent liberation.
Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. President Bush's original analysis was correct, as was his strategy: We must not distinguish between the terrorists and their national supporters. Hence we need different strategies for different enemies, but we need to defeat all of them.
Afghanistan was the classic example, because the Taliban regime was at once home to, and sponsor of, al Qaeda. Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, and we responded against the terrorist organization and against the regime that supported it. Once the Taliban had been destroyed, and al Qaeda had been shattered, President Bush launched a political strategy: support the creation of a free Afghanistan, implant the basic institutions of democratic civil society, work toward free elections so that Afghans could freely govern themselves.
Call it democratic revolution.
That was supposed to be the model for the rest of the war, and it was the right strategy. Use military force where necessary, against both the terrorists and the sponsoring regimes, and support democratic revolution. The whole region understood that strategy, and you could see the consequences. There were pro-democracy demonstrations, even in the most unexpected places, such as Damascus and Riyadh, where none had been seen in human memory. In Iran, where the democratic opposition had shown its passion for several years, the tempo increased. And all the terror masters, in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, and Riyadh, trembled, fearing that their moment of power and glory was about to pass.
The president clearly understood both the stakes and the opportunity. The "Axis of Evil" was — and is — very real, as the tyrants of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea knew full well. There is now abundant evidence of the close cooperation among them, and with their Libyan, Syrian and Pakistani friends, ranging from nuclear projects to other weapons of mass destruction, and to vital support (sometimes in tandem, sometimes separately) to the terror network.
The terror masters also knew that their greatest threat came from their own people, who were disgusted at the oppressive and corrupt dictatorships, and who saw the United States as the source of their imminent liberation.
Again, the president described the situation well: Time was not on our side, for delay would enable our enemies to regroup and plan for the next challenge. I kept imploring "faster, please," because it was luminously clear that the terror masters were planning for the battle of Iraq. They publicly announced that they would attempt to do in post-liberation Iraq what they had previously accomplished in Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s: Use a combination of terror, kidnapping, and political/religious agitation to break our will, drive us out, and expand their own power.
The terror masters could not possibly stand by and permit an easy triumph in Iraq, for that would seal their own doom. For them, the battle of Iraq was an existential conflict, the ultimate zero-sum game. If we won, they died. But, blinded by our obsession with Iraq, we did not see it. For once, the president's intuition failed him. This failure to recognize the enormity of the stakes, and hence the intensity of the coming assault, was heartbreaking, for us and the other members of the Coalition, and for the Iraqi people. It was the ultimate intelligence failure, a pure failure of vision.
Had we seen the war for what it was, we would not have started with Iraq, but with Iran, the mother of modern Islamic terrorism, the creator of Hezbollah, the ally of al Qaeda, the sponsor of Zarqawi, the longtime sponsor of Fatah, and the backbone of Hamas. So clear was Iran's major role in the terror universe that the Department of State, along with the CIA one of the most conflict-averse agencies of the American government, branded the Islamic Republic the world's number one terror sponsor. As it still does.
Moreover, the Islamic Republic was uniquely vulnerable to democratic revolution, for, by the mullahs' own accounting, no less than seventy percent of the Iranian people hated the clerical fascist regime in Tehran, and hundreds of thousands of young Iranians had shown a disposition to challenge their oppressors in the streets of the major cities. Had we supported them then and there, in the immediate aftermath of Afghanistan, when the entire region was swept by political tremors of great magnitude, the evil regime might well have fallen, thereby delivering an enormous blow to the jihadis all over the world. I do not think we would have needed a single bomb or a single bullet.
So be it. God created profoundly fallible creatures on this earth, and human history is mostly the story of error and accident. There are many battles ahead, and we may yet engage on the full battlefield. One thing is certain: There will be no peace in Iraq so long as the terror masters rule in Damascus, Riyadh, and Tehran. Those who attended closed discussions with the Iraqi defense minister a week ago heard a long list of evidence and cries of outrage against the murderous mullahcracy next door, and even though the leaders of the West — sadly including some of our own — continue to pretend that diplomacy may yet settle things in the Middle East, they cannot possibly believe it. This is a fight to the finish, still a zero-sum game.
The main problem remains the failure of vision, never more evident than in the first presidential debate. The president dismissed the question about Iran by talking only about the nuclear "issue," while Senator Kerry, incredibly, restated his belief that the same policy that failed to deter North Korea would somehow work with the Iranians. The president knows who the Iranians are, while the senator is an active appeaser. But neither was inclined to deal with the central issue, which is that the Iranians, the Syrians, and the Saudis are killing our men and women in Iraq, and we are playing defense, which is a sucker's game.
In the past week, the Iranian people have again taken to the streets in every major city in the country. The chatterers pay no heed, because there is only one zero-sum game that interests them, which is the election, and the election is about Iraq, or so they say.
Except that it isn't, really. It's about the war. The real war, the regional war, the war they are waging against us even if we refuse to acknowledge it.
Faster, damnit.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen is Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
| Iran expands ties with World Bank |
|
Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - ©2004 IranMania.com |
|
LONDON, Oct 5 (IranMania) - “Regarding Iran’s high economic growth in the recent years, the World Bank may tend to develop its ties with us.” According to Mehr News Agency (MNA), Safdar Hosseini, the Iranian Minister of Economy and Finance, who is in Washington to attend World Bank/IMF Autumn Meetings, met there with World Bank’s Christian Portman, vice president MENA (Middle East& North Africa Affairs). Hosseini also said that the Bank’s initial approval to grant a loan for the reconstruction project in Bam might be considered as a hint that it will join Iran for other similar events. “We seek the World Bank to help us, especially in our construction projects,” the minister stated. On his part, Portman said that his office will support future economic ties with Iran. |
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
