Posted on 01/07/2005 1:28:31 AM PST by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Rice Is Said to Pick Trade Negotiator as Deputy
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: January 7, 2005
ASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - Moving to assemble a pragmatic team as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice has selected Robert B. Zoellick, the administration's top trade negotiator, as her deputy and is considering two veteran diplomats with reputations as moderates for the No. 3 job, administration officials said on Thursday.
The officials said that the under secretary of state for political affairs, the third-ranking post at the department that is reserved for a member of the foreign service bureaucracy, would probably be either R. Nicholas Burns, the ambassador to NATO, or Eric Edelman, the ambassador to Turkey.
John R. Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and international security, is expected to leave his current job but not to take a senior job with Ms. Rice. Mr. Bolton is one of the administration's leading conservatives, an advocate of tough policies toward Iran and North Korea and on the general issue of nuclear arms proliferation.
It was not clear whether Mr. Bolton would stay in the administration. Some officials said there had been speculation he might go to Vice President Dick Cheney's staff. Others, however, said he had no such plan.
Although Ms. Rice's appointment as secretary of state was announced nearly two months ago, and by some accounts she has known that she would get the job for many more months, the process of selecting a team at the State Department has been slow.
Ms. Rice's successor as national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, has also been slow to select his own team, in part because it is not clear which of the current officials at the White House will move to the State Department.
For example, administration officials said Elliott Abrams, who oversees the Arab-Israeli peace process at the White House, will continue to be involved in that work, but whether he stays at the White House or becomes a State Department official has not been decided, various officials said.
Administration officials say that Ms. Rice's slowness in assembling a team reflects her methodical approach. For several weeks, she has also been making the rounds at the State Department, meeting with top officials there, including the heads of the major bureaus and divisions.
"She's working her way through the building and made a favorable impression so far," an administration official remarked, adding that Ms. Rice's objective has been threefold: to prepare for her confirmation hearings, scheduled for the week of Jan. 17, to introduce herself to people and to audition people for future jobs.
Another official said the team seemed so far to be composed of pragmatists, without anyone identified with a strong ideological bent. Conservatives, for instance, had lobbied for Mr. Bolton to be selected as Ms. Rice's deputy, but she rebuffed them.
Mr. Bolton's supporters were also pushing for him to be deputy national security adviser under Mr. Hadley, but that job is said to be likely to be filled by a current or retired senior military officer, someone who could manage the staff and leave Mr. Hadley free to help advise Mr. Bush.
Mr. Bolton is expected to leave his job as under secretary and to be replaced by Robert G. Joseph, who until recently was Ms. Rice's assistant for arms control at the White House, administration officials said.
In a separate development, President Bush is expected to name Stephen Friedman, a former investment banker who until recently served as the chief coordinator at the White House for economic policy, as chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
The board, composed of unpaid intelligence experts, was headed until now by Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under the first President Bush.
Mr. Scowcroft and the rest of the board were asked to resign en masse, and it is not clear who among them will be reappointed.
Mr. Scowcroft's departure as chairman of the board has prompted some in the administration to suggest that he was being punished for his increasingly public criticism of the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2002 and how the war has been conducted since then.
Mr. Zoellick served under the first President Bush's secretary of state, James A. Baker III, and built a reputation as a pragmatic and skillful diplomat. As the United States trade representative, Mr. Zoellick has won praise for negotiating difficult deals.
Only a month ago, Mr. Zoellick was said to be a leading choice for president of the World Bank, but Ms. Rice's interest in him as her deputy overrode the possibility of that job, administration officials said.
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Rice's deputy signals less confrontational US foreign policy
Bah! right now in the WOT we need to be more agressive! Could this get any worse?
Hard - Line State Dept. Official to Quit - Sources
By REUTERS
Published: January 6, 2005
Filed at 4:12 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a leading hard-liner on nuclear nonproliferation who has raised hackles among America's allies as well as its adversaries, is expected to quit the Bush administration, sources said on Thursday.
His departure may signal a shift in U.S. diplomacy to a less confrontational approach as President Bush begins a second term in which he has pledged to reach out to allies estranged by the Iraq War and other policies.
Bolton, an outspoken and controversial policymaker, often provoked strong negative reactions from European allies and was identified more with the sticks than the carrots of U.S. diplomacy when dealing with countries like North Korea and Iran.
He had hoped for a promotion in Bush's second term, perhaps to deputy secretary of state, but the word went out that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick would get the No. 2 spot under Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state designate.
``My understanding is that Mr. Bolton will move to the private sector,'' said one source, a friend who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He gave no further details, but Bolton's expected departure was confirmed by another government source and a Republican with close ties to the administration.
A spokesman for Bolton declined to comment.
Gary Schmitt, head of the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank, said ``conservatives are certainly not going to like losing Bolton.'' But he interpreted the move as evidence that Rice ``wants people she knows working for her.''
Bolton aggressively pursued an agenda that included extreme skepticism in negotiations with North Korea and Iran on nuclear weapons issues. But even critics gave him credit for a security initiative that encouraged governments to crack down on trafficking in weapons of mass destruction by intercepting and seizing suspect cargoes.
He also led the fight against U.S. involvement with the International Criminal Court, negotiating agreements with scores of countries to ensure that American troops in their territory could not be subjected to the court's jurisdiction.
Robert Joseph, who retired as the National Security Council's top nonproliferation official several months ago, was expected to replace Bolton as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, the sources said.
Chirac warns Iran to stick to nuclear pledge
PARIS (AFP) Jan 06, 2005French President Jacques Chirac warned Iran to stick to its pledge to European powers to suspend nuclear activities, saying that adherence would give it access to legitimate technology.
"In terms of the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Iran's case show the path to take," he told an annual New Year's meeting of foreign ambassadors in Paris.
"Countries which respect their international obligations in terms on non-proliferation and show proof of the peaceful nature of their activities should be able to benefit from technologies that are allowed under international rules," he said.
"But no weakness can be shown to those who renege on their commitments," he said.
Iran froze its uranium enrichment programme on November 22 after long negotiations with France, Britain and Germany.
Several states, particularly the United States, fear Iranian nuclear activities are geared towards producing a nuclear arsenal.
Iran: Journalists Receive Death Threats After Testifying
06 Jan 2005 16:15:10 GMTSource: Human Rights Watch
(New York, January 6, 2005) -- After testifying to a presidential commission about their torture during detention, a group of Iranian journalists have received death threats from judicial officials under Tehran chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch is extremely concerned about the safety of the journalists, whose testimony to a presidential commission, tasked with investigating mistreatment of detainees, provided detailed information on their torture and mistreatment while they were detained, without being charged, by secret squads operating under the authority of the judiciary."We want the Iranian government to know that the world is watching what happens to these young journalists. The Iranian government is responsible for their safety," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. "The Iranian authorities should be protecting citizens who testify before presidential commissions instead of sending them death threats."
On December 25, Hanif Mazroi, Massoud Ghoreishi, Fereshteh Ghazi, Arash Naderpour and Mahbobeh Abasgholizadeh-all of whom are journalists detained by the government-testified about their detention before the presidential commission. Fereshteh Ghazi provided details of her treatment by interrogators, including severe beatings that resulted in a broken nose during one interrogation session. The detainees were kept under lengthy solitary confinement in a secret detention center and were repeatedly subjected to psychological and physical torture.
On January 1 two other former detainees, Omid Memarian and Ruzbeh Mir Ebrahimi, also appeared in front of the commission. In their testimonies, as made public by commission member Mohammad Ali Abtahi, they confirmed details of their torture.
Since their appearances before the commission, Saeed Mortazavi, chief prosecutor of Tehran, has threatened each of these former detainees with lengthy prison sentences and harm to their family members, as punishment for their testimony. Mortazavi continues to issue numerous subpoenas for the journalists without specifying charges. His operatives also harass the journalists by phone on a daily basis. On January 3, Mortazavi held a press conference denying any mistreatment of detainees and threatening to prosecute the former detainees for "allegations against security forces and prison officials that are politically motivated."
The journalists' testimonies exposed Mortazavi's role in authorizing their torture to extract confessions and in compelling them to appear on television to deny their mistreatment while under detention.
"The brave testimony of these young journalists has reaffirmed evidence of Mortazavi's leading role in the torture of detainees," said Whitson. "It's high time for the Iranian government to investigate Mortazavi's abuses and bring him to justice."
Saeed Mortazavi has spearheaded the judiciary's attack on press freedoms since the current crackdown began in 2000. He is responsible for the closure of numerous newspapers, as well as the arrests and prosecution of journalists, which is detailed in the recent Human Right Watch report on Iran, "Like the Dead in their Coffins."
Iran's MPs turning to fashion...
TEHRAN: Deputies in Iran's conservative-run parliament have begun preparing designs for what will be a new national costume aimed at stemming the encroachment of Western fashion, a top MP said yesterday.
Emad Afroogh, head of the Majlis cultural commission, said MPs have been "meeting designers to come up with an interesting variety of affordable, nationally inspired designs that will also respond to modern needs".
He said the commission hoped to eventually incorporate the designs into a new bill offering guidelines on dress that "redefine Iranian identity while respecting religious and cultural red lines.
"People will not be forc-ed to wear these clothes," he asserted, but nevertheless said the new designs "will certainly be appealing".
US fears Iran has `covert' nukes
AFP - World News
Jan 6, 2005TEHRAN - Ending a lengthy standoff, UN inspectors are to visit an Iranian facility where the US claims Tehran is simulating testing of atomic weapons, UN atomic energy chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Wednesday.
"We expect to visit Parchin within the next days or a few weeks," ElBaradei told AFP, referring to the huge complex 30km southeast of Tehran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headed by ElBaradei has been seeking access to Parchin since July. Tehran has strongly denied carrying out any nuclear-related work at the site.
A senior US official told AFP that the Iranians may be working on testing "high-explosive shaped charges with an inert core of depleted uranium" at Parchin as a sort of dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is strictly civilian and peaceful and that it is not developing atomic weapons.
But the US wants the IAEA to take Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions for what Washington says is a covert nuclear weapons program.
ElBaradei says the "jury is still out" on whether Tehran's program is peaceful or not.
Parchin is an example of a so-called "transparency visit," where the IAEA is going beyond its mandate under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to check to see if nuclear materials have been diverted away from peaceful use.
There could very well be no nuclear material at Parchin, since the concern there is of weapons simulation testing. The other problem is that Parchin is a military site, to which access is more difficult.
Still, ElBaradei said that where there is suspicion of weapons work, there is also a suspicion of nuclear materials.
"If you do not have nuclear materials, you do not have a nuclear weapon," he said.
ElBaradei also said Iran is so far honoring its pledge to suspend uranium enrichment, and should finish processing the raw uranium it was allowed to do by February.
Iran is making a uranium powder that is a key first step in the enrichment process that can make nuclear weapons but it is not in violation of a nuclear freeze agreed with the European Union.
Iran and the EU embarked in December on negotiations towards a long-term agreement to give Tehran trade, technology and security aid and guarantees in return for it taking steps, such as suspending enrichment, to reassure the international community that its nuclear program is strictly peaceful.
In other comments, ElBaradei warned the US against spying on the IAEA, saying it would be a blow to "multilateralism and the United Nations system as we know it."
The Washington Post reported in December that US President George W. Bush's administration had listened in on phone calls between ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, seeking ammunition to oust him as head of the IAEA.
The US wants ElBaradei to be replaced at the Vienna-based agency believing he is not being tough enough on Iran, diplomats said.
ElBaradei said he had only read the press reports and knew no more about the reported eavesdropping but "if you tamper with our independence, you really tamper with the whole fabric of multilateralism and the United Nations system as we know it."
Questioned about reports that the IAEA is looking into exploratory moves by Egypt on making nuclear fuel that could be used for atomic bombs, ElBaradei said people should be careful to distinguish between what can be technical failures to comply with international safeguards and actual weapons programs.
"Should we discover at any time that there is a proliferation concern or implications of a weapons program, we will obviously promptly report this to the board," he said, referring to the IAEA's board of governors while refusing to comment specifically on Egypt.
Bump!
See also, Duranty, Walter; Blair, Jayson.
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