CNN: Mystery surrounding Bush’s watch solved

Of course, the CNN would say that. They don`t wanna admit that the watch has been stolen. By the way, I don`t know how much money the cheering crowd got for being so cheering? May be they didn`t take enough money, so they just lift Bush`s watch.

Here`s the article published by Zionist CNN:

The mystery of President Bush’s missing watch has been solved.

After days of internet rumors and international reports that the president’s watch was stolen as he was mobbed by a crowd in Albania this weekend, the White House is setting the record straight.

Asked at Tuesday’s briefing if the presidents watched was lifted, spokesman Tony Snow answered, “No, it was not. It was placed in his pocket…the president put it in his pocket and it returned safely home.”

Snow says a careful review of video of the scene confirms no pilfering.

Snow also said there was no concern over the president’s safety as enthusiastic well wishers grabbed his hands and arms.

“What you had was an example of when captive nations come free,” he said.

Using the moment to allude to recent White House foreign policy decisions, he added, “They understand the role the United States has played through the decades, taking unpopular moves.”

Snow also said the crowd was “euphoric because we helped make them free….if there was a problem, the Secret Service would have dealt with it. Trust me.”

The CNN White House unit reports it is not unusual for the president to take off a watch or his cuff links before greeting a crowd at a rope-line, internationally or inside the U.S.

Bush in Albania (June 10,2007): Cheering Crowd Steals His Watch!!!

Watch the following video intently. First you`ll notice the watch visible around Bush`s wrist but after 1:20 it`s apparently gone.

Hey people, U.S. president`s watch is stolen in Albania.

But that`s not new. His mind`s already stolen by Zionists and Neoconservatives. So, a watch isn`t that bigga deal.

Also, here are some photos documenting that funny, laughable incident:

I wonder if they are going to blame Muslims for this!!!

British Cardinal calls on Muslims to fight for freedom

Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic leader has called on Muslims to join forces with the Church to fight for “genuine religious freedom”.

	The Cardinal said Muslims often felt misrepresented or misunderstood

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Church in England and Wales, said that since the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, public opinion had become suspicious of religion in general and of Islam in particular.

He said that religious communities were now vulnerable to restrictive laws which are being “made in a time of perceived crisis”.

It was now necessary, he said, for the followers of the two faiths to unite to uphold religious freedom as a “natural right of every human being to be respected by every government”.

Speaking to the Muslim Council of Wales at the University of Cardiff, he said: “There are times when we may all feel that we are not exactly muzzled or silenced, but we are most certainly not free to express our deeply held convictions, sometimes simply for reasons linked to so-called ‘political correctness’.

He said that although British authorities tended to treat religious communities with respect it was a difficult time for those involved in governing and policing society.

Muslims and Christians together had to fight against those who wished to “make sure religion had no public voice”, the cardinal said.

“The space for dialogue between our religions and our culture has to be a public one,” he added.

“In other words, religious communities need to be able to operate with a certain degree of autonomy. If politicians at national or local level – or even academics, for that matter – think they know what is best for religions, they will not act in our best interests, and could well be tempted to try to manipulate the ways we contribute to society.

“Nobody should be blind to the risk of basing decisions about religious groups on sociological or security-driven criteria.

“Of course we should not presume that people anywhere will respect us. We have to earn their respect and when we have it, we need to work to keep it.”

The conciliatory remarks of Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor come less than a year after a group of 100 radical Muslims gathered on the piazza of Westminster Cathedral to express their anger over Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the University of Regensburg, Germany, last September.

Anjem Choudray, one of the ringleaders, was later investigated by police for suggesting that the Pope should be executed because of his comments linking Islam to violence.

The protesters held up placards reading: “May Allah curse the Pope”, “Pope go to hell”, “Jesus is the slave of Allah”, “Jesus is the messenger of Islam” and “Trinity of evil: Bush, Blair and the Pope“.

US Baptists Warned About Islam, Atheism

Watergate figure Chuck Colson warned a gathering of Southern Baptist pastors Sunday night against what he described as two dire threats: the deadly marriage of Islam and fascism and a new, militant atheism growing in popularity in the West.Colson, a former Nixon “hatchet man” who became a born-again Christian and founded an evangelical ministry to prisoners, called on Christians to do a better job of explaining their religion’s worldview.

Colson, 75, spoke at a conference that precedes the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, which begins here Tuesday.

At one point, Colson said “Islam is a vicious, evil … “ and then before finishing the sentence, said, “Islamo-fascism is evil incarnate.”

“Islamists,” Colson said, “are very different. We will die for what we believe. They will kill for what they believe.”

“The problem isn’t terrorism,” Colson said. “The problem is an ideology that is mixed with fascism … We are in a long war, a long struggle.”

Comments about Islam have generated controversy at past Southern Baptist meetings. In 2002, a former Southern Baptist Convention president, the Rev. Jerry Vines, called Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, a “demon-possessed pedophile.”

The second threat, Colson said, was evident in the popularity of several best-selling books espousing atheism by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others.

“This is a virulent strain of atheism which seeks to destroy our belief system,” Colson said.

Colson also dismissed a burgeoning movement known as “the emergent church” – popular among younger Baptists and other evangelicals – as “abandoning the search for truth” in favor of “conversations in coffee shops.” He instead pointed to the success of booming Third World Churches, which Colson said adhere to “pure orthodox truth.”

Colson, White House counsel for President Nixon, pleaded no contest to obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal. He started Prison Fellowship in 1976.

Southern Baptists form the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, with 16.3 million members.

11,000 UK Army Deserters Over Iraq

 

Up to 11,000 British soldiers have deserted the Army fearing they could be deployed in violence-racked Iraq amid a steady rise in the number of soldiers going Absent Without Leave (AWOL) in the occupied country, British Ministry of Defense figures show.“This represents a continuous and possibly worsening problem,” Liam Fox, the shadow defense secretary, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday, June 11.

Figures released by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) under the Freedom of Information Act contradict government public insistence that desertion has been declining, the paper said.

The figures show that more than 11,000 soldiers deserted the army since the start of the Iraq invasion in 2003.

And there is a steady rise in desertions. In 2007, the number of British soldiers who remain AWOL stood at 283, up from 279 in 2006, 157 for 2005 and 135 from 2004.

“It is clear that support mechanisms are not functioning properly and if this represents a lack of resources then it must be addressed immediately by the government,” said Fox.

The MoD, however, said most of the soldiers going AWOL reported domestic circumstances rather than a desire to avoid serving in violence-racked Iraq.

“Anecdotal evidence suggests that most AWOL is caused by domestic circumstances rather than wishing to avoid military service,” said a spokesman.

There were suggestions that soldiers were going AWOL after tours in Iraq because the Army does not take their mental problems seriously.

One of the soldiers who fled his regiment in Iraq to begin a new life with his girlfriend killed himself in front of her and her two children last month.

A US Army survey found earlier this month increasing rates of mental health problems for troops on extended or multiple deployments in Iraq.

It showed that 20% of soldiers and 15% of marines suffered from acute depression, anxiety or stress.

Pre-Invasion Advice

Separately, the head of the Royal Navy at the time of the Iraq invasion reportedly sought private legal advice about the legality of the US-led invasion.

“Admiral (Sir Alan) West approached lawyers … on whether the impending action over Iraq was justified,” a senior military source told The Independent.

West had feared that the Navy and Royal Marines personnel might end up facing war crimes charges in relation to their duties in Iraq.

“There was genuine unease and it was the duty of the chiefs of staff, as the head of the services, to get clarification about whether they would be in breach of international law,” said the source.

“There was also a degree of worry about the independence or otherwise of the government legal advice.

“He (West) and the other service chiefs did not walk blindly into Iraq, they asked all the questions they could under the circumstances and with the ever-present caveat that they could not stray into the field of politics.”

Few days ahead of the US invasion, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, wrote a note confirming the supposed legality of the war.

Staunchly backed by Britain, the US invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the grounds that it was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and had links to Al-Qaeda.

A congressional report later concluded the Bush administration was “dead wrong” on the MWD claim and that Iraq had no link with Al-Qaeda.

Inquiry Rejected

Meanwhile, Britain’s future prime minister Gordon Brown on Monday rejected a call for a new investigation into the government’s handling of the US-led war in Iraq.

Brown, the finance minister who is set to succeed Tony Blair at the end of the month, outlined his objections on a visit to Iraq, as opposition Conservatives asked lawmakers to endorse an inquiry, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The wrong time to even consider an inquiry is when you have got to give all your effort to supporting the troops on the ground,” Brown told Sky News from Baghdad.

“There are times to consider these things, but the right thing to do at the moment is to give the full support and the full force of government behind the troops on the ground,” Brown said.

But William Hague of the Conservatives rejected this as he asked the House of Commons to back an investigative hearing with the power to summon officials and military commanders for questioning.

“It is not true that our troops would be demoralized or our enemies would take heart if we took the trouble to find out what has gone wrong,” Hague told lawmakers.

“In a democratic society, the examination of successes and failures is a sign of strength, not of weakness,” said Hague, his party’s spokesman on foreign affairs.

Hague told BBC radio earlier that lessons had to be learned from Iraq for Britain’s growing military commitment in Afghanistan, especially before memories fade and e-mail records disappear.

Hague’s call is expected to be voted down by the Labour-dominated House of Commons later on Monday.

Last October the government defeated an opposition motion demanding a similar inquiry.

Brown, who will succeed Blair on June 27, has not indicated any plans to radically change Britain’s policy on Iraq.

But he admitted that mistakes have been made in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

The government has pledged to withdraw this year about 1,600 troops from a force of 7,100 soldiers deployed in Iraq. Some 150 British troops have been killed in Iraq since the March 2003 US-led invasion.

Why an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified

 

By Norman Finkelstein

EDITORs’ NOTE: (Last year) in early January Kristin Halvorsen, Norwegian Finance Minister and leader of the Left Socialist Party (a member of the current three-party governmental coalition), expressed her personal and party support for a Norwegian boycott of Israeli goods and services. Almost immediately the Israeli ambassador to Norway protested and Condoleezza Rice threatened Norway with “serious political consequences” if Halvorsen’s statement represented the policy of the current government. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre then dashed off a letter to Rice (addressed “Dear Condi”), assuring her that the Left Socialist Party’s position on a economic boycott of Israel “has never been and will never be” the policy of the Norwegian government. For her part Halvorsen distanced herself from her previous statements, as top leaders of the foreign affairs department criticized her and drew parallels between a boycott of Israeli goods and the Nazi boycott of Jewish shops. Finklestein’s piece was published in Norway’s most influential newspaper Aftenposten.

The recent proposal that Norway boycott Israeli goods has provoked passionate debate. In my view, a rational examination of this issue would pose two questions:

1) Do Israeli human rights violations warrant an economic boycott? and

2) Can such a boycott make a meaningful contribution toward ending these violations? I would argue that both these questions should be answered in the affirmative.

Although the subject of many reports by human rights organizations, Israel’s real human rights record in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is generally not well known abroad. This is primarily due to the formidable public relations industry of Israel’s defenders as well as the effectiveness of their tactics of intimidation, such as labeling critics of Israeli policy anti-Semitic.

Yet, it is an incontestable fact that Israel has committed a broad range of human rights violations, many rising to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity. These include:

Illegal Killings.

Whereas Palestinian suicide attacks targeting Israeli civilians have garnered much media attention, Israel’s quantitatively worse record of killing non-combatants is less well known. According to the most recent figures of the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem), 3,386 Palestinians have been killed since September 2000, of whom 1,008 were identified as combatants, as opposed to 992 Israelis killed, of whom 309 were combatants. This means that three times more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed and up to three times more Palestinian civilians than Israeli civilians. Israel’s defenders maintain that there’s a difference between targeting civilians and inadvertently killing them. B’Tselem disputes this:

“[W]hen so many civilians have been killed and wounded, the lack of intent makes no difference. Israel remains responsible.” Furthermore, Amnesty International reports that “many” Palestinians have not been accidentally killed but “deliberately targeted,” while the award-winning New York Times journalist Chris Hedges reports that Israeli soldiers “entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”

Torture.

“From 1967,” Amnesty reports, “the Israeli security services have routinely tortured Palestinian political suspects in the Occupied Territories.” B’Tselem found that eighty-five percent of Palestinians interrogated by Israeli security services were subjected to “methods constituting torture,” while already a decade ago Human Rights Watch estimated that “the number of Palestinians tortured or severely ill-treated” was “in the tens of thousands ­ a number that becomes especially significant when it is remembered that the universe of adult and adolescent male Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is under three-quarters of one million.” In 1987 Israel became “the only country in the world to have effectively legalized torture” (Amnesty). Although the Israeli Supreme Court seemed to ban torture in a 1999 decision, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel reported in 2003 that Israeli security forces continued to apply torture in a “methodical and routine” fashion. A 2001 B’Tselem study documented that Israeli security forces often applied “severe torture” to “Palestinian minors.”

House demolitions.

“Israel has implemented a policy of mass demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories,” B’Tselem reports, and since September 2000 “has destroyed some 4,170 Palestinian homes.” Until just recently Israel routinely resorted to house demolitions as a form of collective punishment. According to Middle East Watch, apart from Israel, the only other country in the world that used such a draconian punishment was Iraq under Saddam Hussein. In addition, Israel has demolished thousands of “illegal” homes that Palestinians built because of Israel’s refusal to provide building permits. The motive behind destroying these homes, according to Amnesty, has been to maximize the area available for Jewish settlers: “Palestinians are targeted for no other reason than they are Palestinians.” Finally, Israel has destroyed hundred of homes on security pretexts, yet a Human Rights Watch report on Gaza found that “the pattern of destructionstrongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat.” Amnesty likewise found that “Israel’s extensive destruction of homes and properties throughout the West Bank and Gazais not justified by military necessity,” and that “Some of these acts of destruction amount to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes.”

Apart from the sheer magnitude of its human rights violations, the uniqueness of Israeli policies merits notice. “Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality,” B’Tselem has concluded. “This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa.” If singling out South Africa for an international economic boycott was defensible, it would seem equally defensible to single out Israel’s occupation, which uniquely resembles the apartheid regime.

Although an economic boycott can be justified on moral grounds, the question remains whether diplomacy might be more effectively employed instead. The documentary record in this regard, however, is not encouraging. The basic terms for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict are embodied in U.N. resolution 242 and subsequent U.N. resolutions, which call for a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state in these areas in exchange for recognition of Israel’s right to live in peace and security with its neighbors. Each year the overwhelming majority of member States of the United Nations vote in favor of this two-state settlement, and each year Israel and the United States (and a few South Pacific islands) oppose it. Similarly, in March 2002 all twenty-two member States of the Arab League proposed this two-state settlement as well as “normal relations with Israel.” Israel ignored the proposal.

Not only has Israel stubbornly rejected this two-state settlement, but the policies it is currently pursuing will abort any possibility of a viable Palestinian state. While world attention has been riveted by Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, Sara Roy of Harvard University observes that the “Gaza Disengagement Plan is, at heart, an instrument for Israel’s continued annexation of West Bank land and the physical integration of that land into Israel.” In particular Israel has been constructing a wall deep inside the West Bank that will annex the most productive land and water resources as well as East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian life. It will also effectively sever the West Bank in two. Although Israel initially claimed that it was building the wall to fight terrorism, the consensus among human rights organizations is that it is really a land grab to annex illegal Jewish settlements into Israel. Recently Israel’s Justice Minister frankly acknowledged that the wall will serve as “the future border of the state of Israel.”

The current policies of the Israeli government will lead either to endless bloodshed or the dismemberment of Palestine. “It remains virtually impossible to conceive of a Palestinian state without its capital in Jerusalem,” the respected Crisis Group recently concluded, and accordingly Israeli policies in the West Bank “are at war with any viable two-state solution and will not bolster Israel’s security; in fact, they will undermine it, weakening Palestinian pragmatistsand sowing the seeds of growing radicalization.”

Recalling the U.N. Charter principle that it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, the International Court of Justice declared in a landmark 2004 opinion that Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the wall being built to annex them to Israel were illegal under international law. It called on Israel to cease construction of the wall, dismantle those parts already completed and compensate Palestinians for damages. Crucially, it also stressed the legal responsibilities of the international community:

all States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem. They are also under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction. It is also for all States, while respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, to see to it that any impediment, resulting from the construction of the wall, to the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end.

A subsequent U.N. General Assembly resolution supporting the World Court opinion passed overwhelmingly. However, the Israeli government ignored the Court’s opinion, continuing construction at a rapid pace, while Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the wall was legal.

Due to the obstructionist tactics of the United States, the United Nations has not been able to effectively confront Israel’s illegal practices. Indeed, although it is true that the U.N. keeps Israel to a double standard, it’s exactly the reverse of the one Israel’s defenders allege: Israel is held not to a higher but lower standard than other member States. A study by Marc Weller of Cambridge University comparing Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory with comparable situations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, East Timor, occupied Kuwait and Iraq, and Rwanda found that Israel has enjoyed “virtual immunity” from enforcement measures such as an arms embargo and economic sanctions typically adopted by the U.N. against member States condemned for identical violations of international law.

Due in part to an aggressive campaign accusing Europe of a “new anti-Semitism,” the European Union has also failed in its legal obligation to enforce international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Although the claim of a “new anti-Semitism” has no basis in fact (all the evidence points to a lessening of anti-Semitism in Europe), the EU has reacted by appeasing Israel. It has even suppressed publication of one of its own reports, because the authors ­ like the Crisis Group and many others ­ concluded that due to Israeli policies the “prospects for a two-state solution with east Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine are receding.”

The moral burden to avert the impending catastrophe must now be borne by individual states that are prepared to respect their obligations under international law and by individual men and women of conscience. In a courageous initiative American-based Human Rights Watch recently called on the U.S. government to reduce significantly its financial aid to Israel until Israel terminates its illegal policies in the West Bank. An economic boycott would seem to be an equally judicious undertaking. A nonviolent tactic the purpose of which is to achieve a just and lasting settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot legitimately be called anti-Semitic. Indeed, the real enemies of Jews are those who debase the memory of Jewish suffering by equating principled opposition to Israel’s illegal and immoral policies with anti-Semitism.

P.S. The above article was published in January 18,2006. So the numbers mentioned above are based on that period of time.

Killing the Patient: U.S. Purposely Trains Both Sides of Civil War to Throw Iraq in Chaos so U.S. Forces can stay there forever

 

By Brian Katulis

When U.S. Army Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey testifies this week before the House Armed Services Committee, members of Congress should ask tough questions about Iraq’s security forces, particularly their allegiance and motivation. 

The reason: Increasingly it appears the United States is training and arming different sides of Iraq’s multiple civil wars rather than creating a national army and police force willing and able to protect the nation’s fragmented political leadership.

The United States has poured more than $20 billion into building an Iraqi national army and police force designed to defend a government that simply cannot forge the key political compromises necessary to unite their own country. The so-called “surge” of U.S. forces, alongside stepped up training of the Iraqi army and police, is supposed to create the political “space” necessary for the country’s squabbling political leaders to reach these compromises, yet that’s not happening.

Why? Most of Iraq’s violence is related to a vicious struggle for power that only has a political solution. Training and skills building are not the fundamental issue for Iraq’s security forces. In fact many of Iraqi security forces have more training than hundreds of U.S. soldiers being deployed as part of this surge. Their problems are motivation and allegiance.

Undeterred, the Bush administration’s still-stay-the-course strategy calls for stepped up training of Iraq’s security forces while selectively removing sectarian militias in and around Baghdad. The United States and Iraq plan to spend an additional $14 billion on Iraq’s security forces this year, with $5 billion coming from U.S. taxpayers and $9 billion from Iraq’s budget, according to Lieutenant General Dempsey.

As that money is spent, the Iraqi army by end of 2007 will grow from 10 to 12 divisions and will have 170,700 soldiers—nearly 35,000 more than at the end of 2006. Iraq’s police force, including national, local, and border patrol units, will grow from 192,000 at the end of last year to 198,600 at the end of 2007. Impressive—except for the fact that many of these soldiers and police boast loyalties to different sectarian or ethnic leaders rather than to their national leaders.

The unconditional training of national Iraqi security forces risks making Iraq’s civil war even bloodier and more vicious than it already is today. It also increases the dangers that these weapons might one day be turned against the United States and its allies in the region. U.S. military assistance is going to some of the closest allies of America’s greatest adversary in the Middle East—Iran. The Shi’a-dominated Iraqi national army and security forces could quite quickly turn their weapons against American troops and allies in the region.

Nor has the changing composition and growth of Iraqi security forces led to a decrease in violence. Sectarian and ethnic divisions have been on full display in the actions of Iraqi security forces over the past year. In March 2007, Shiite police in Tal Afar killed several dozen Sunnis following a bombing that left more 150 Iraqis (largely Shiites) dead. Iraqi police went on a rampage in the Sunni district of Al-Wahada, dragging innocent civilians into the streets and slaughtering them. Officials in the U.S. military have accused the Fifth Iraqi Army Division operating in Diyala province of engaging in blatant sectarian bias and violence, using Iraqi state resources in a sectarian cleansing campaign.[3]

Furthermore, despite recent purges, the Badr Organization, the Shiite militia with of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has extensively infiltrated the National Police, units of which have perpetrated sectarian violence and formed death squads against Sunnis. The head of Iraqi police in Dhi Qhar province, General Abdul Hussein Al Saffe, said he could not trust one in three of his own officers, but he could not fire the ones he did not trust because they had political protection.[5]

Similarly, the Facilities Protection Service, which is tasked with protecting Iraqi government buildings and facilities, is widely recognized as a source of funding and jobs for Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The involvement of the FPS in death squad activity is widely alleged, yet General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, discussed plans for using FPS units as part of the Baghdad Security plan.

Iraqi police have also been involved in high profile attacks and abductions that have some connection to Iraq’s sectarian divisions. Last November, for instance, kidnappers wearing Iraqi police uniforms conducted a mass abduction at Iraq’s ministry of higher education in Baghdad.  Iraqis wearing police commando uniforms kidnapped a group of British contractors at the ministry of finance in Baghdad in late May 2007.

Militia infiltration of Iraq’s security forces is so bad in some places that American soldiers sometimes do not know whether to trust their Iraqi counterparts. “We don’t trust ‘em,” said 1st Lt. Steve Taylor, serving at a joint Iraqi-American security station in Sulakh. “There’s no way to know who’s good and who’s bad, so we have to assume they’re all bad, unfortunately.” In the Ameel neighborhood of Baghdad, the local commander of Iraqi national police has been replaced three times since March because of ties to militias or insurgent groups. In some instances, American soldiers have been killed by Iraqi security forces that they were actually training.

This dangerous disconnect between continued security-sector assistance and the lack of political consensus among Iraq’s civilian leadership means that the United States may in fact be arming up different factions that will make Iraq’s civil war even bloodier in the years to come.  What’s not in doubt is this: all this training contributes very little to the success of the “surge.”

The Pentagon continues to use vague criteria for assessing whether or not Iraqi units are “in the lead” as the surge unfolds. The Pentagon has refused to supply either the House Armed Services Committee or the Government Accountability Office with its readiness assessments of Iraqi units.[13] Multiple reports indicate that Iraqi forces will not go on combat missions without American forces.[14] Absenteeism is also a large problem, particularly for the Iraqi Army. At least a third of the Iraqi Army—almost 50,000 troops—is on leave at any given time.[15]

The central problem today in Iraq is that too many Iraqi leaders are hedging their bets, not fully supporting their own government by maintaining an independent power base with militias or seeking to carve out greater autonomy by seeking control of the country’s security forces. Even if the national-level security forces of Iraq were free of sectarianism and absenteeism and operated competently, Iraq’s political leaders would still be unlikely to use them in a non-sectarian manner.

Unfortunately, the current Iraqi government does not seem to be up to this task, given the composition of its coalition, which includes several militia-linked Shiite political parties. Current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki—if given free rein—would likely focus military efforts on Sunni insurgents and not disarm Shiite militias who are part of his political base.[16] This only serves to reinforce sectarian conflict in the country, not resolve it.

The United States must seriously consider phasing out its training of Iraq’s national security forces and place strict limits on further arming and equipping Iraq’s forces. Spending billions of dollars to arm Iraq’s security forces without political consensus among Iraq’s leaders puts the cart before the horse and comes with significant risks to U.S. national security interests. The medicine of continued training and arming of Iraq’s security force may actual end up killing the patient—and will certainly end up killing Americans too.

As an alternative, the United States should explore working with the international community to help Iraqi local and regional authorities build professional police and intelligence services aimed at creating greater stability in local and regional communities where power is devolving. Such a move—taken in tandem with the phased redeployment of U.S. military forces out of Iraq over the next 12 months alongside the strategic reset of select military units, intelligence operatives and diplomatic personnel within Iraq—would allow the United States to support those Iraqis who share with us a common enemy in Al Qaida-inspired terrorist networks.

The Center for American Progress later this month will publish a detailed paper outlining how the strategic reboot of our military, intelligence and diplomatic power in the Middle East offers the best way for America to reclaim control of our own destiny in the region and return to the central task of fighting and killing those responsible for 9/11 who dream of attacking American soil once again.

[1] “Stabilizing Iraq: Factors Impeding the Development of Capable Iraqi Security Forces,” United States Government Accountability Office, March 13, 2007.

[2] “Iraq admits police behind sectarian massacre,” Mujahid Mohammed, Associated Press, March 29, 2007; and “Iraq Says Truck Bomb in North Killed 152,” Alissa J. Rubin, The New York Times, April 1, 2007.

[3] “Sectarian Rifts Foretell Pitfalls of Iraqi Troops’ Taking Control,” Richard A. Oppel, Jr., The New York Times, November 12, 2006;, “Death in Diyala: A Salute for His Wounded, a Last Touch for His Dead,” Richard A. Oppel, Jr , The New York Times, April 2, 2007; “Iraqi Army division deepens discord,” Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers, December 2, 2006

[4] “The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, U.S. Army Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement for the Record, November 15, 2006;  “Reforming the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Police, and Facilities Protection Service,” Robert Perito, United States Institute for Peace Briefing, February 2007;  Stabilizing Iraq: Factors Impeding the Development of Capable Iraqi Security Forces,  Government Accountability Office, March 13, 2007;  “Why Iraq’s Police Are A Menace,” Chris Allbritton Time.com, March 20, 2006;

[5] “Iraqi police are disloyal,” BBC News, March 21, 2007.

[6] The Iraq Study Group Report, James Baker and Lee Hamilton (Washington: US Institute of Peace, 2006).

[7] “Official: Guard Force Is Behind Death Squads,” Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post, October 14, 2006; “Inside Iraq’s Mutant Security Agency,” Scott Johnson, Newsweek, April 24, 2006. 

[8] “U.S. Plan for Iraqi Force Surprises Senator,” Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, January 27, 2007.

[9] “Iraqi police cannot control crime,” Mark Tran, The Guardian, May 30, 2007.

[10] “U.S.-Iraqi joint teams lack a key weapon: trust,” David Zucchino, The Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2007.

[11] “Commanders Say Push in Baghdad is Short of Goal,” David S. Cloud and Damien Cave, The New York Times, June 4, 2007.

[12] “Soldiers Detail a Mission Gone Wrong,” Scott Gold, The Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2006.

[13]“Pentagon is asked for report on Iraqi readiness,” Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 3, 2007; Stabilizing Iraq: Factors Impeding the Development of Capable Iraqi Security Forces,  Government Accountability Office, March 13, 2007

[14] “Baghdad Plan Has Elusive Targets,” Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post, February 26, 2007; “In a New Joint U.S.-Iraqi Patrol, the Americans Go First,” Damien Cave and James Glanz, The New York Times, January 25, 2007.

[15] “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” March 2007 Department of Defense Report to Congress in accordance with the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2007.

 Premier Wants U.S. Forces to Target Sunni Insurgents,” Susdaran Raghavan, The Washington Post, December 20, 2006;  “Maliki Stresses Urgency In Arming Iraqi Forces,” Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post, January 18, 2007.

Military plan against Iran is ready

By YAAKOV KATZ

Predicting that Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon within three years and claiming to have a strike plan in place, senior American military officers have told The Jerusalem Post they support President George W. Bush’s stance to do everything necessary to stop the Islamic Republic’s race for nuclear power. Bush has repeatedly said the United States would not allow Iran to “go nuclear.”A high-ranking American military officer told the Post that senior officers in the US armed forces had thrown their support behind Bush and believed that additional steps needed to be taken to stop Iran.

Predictions within the US military are that Bush will do what is needed to stop Teheran before he leaves office in 2009, including possibly launching a military strike against its nuclear facilities.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said the US should consider a military strike against Iran over its support of Iraqi insurgents.

“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” he said. “And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”

According to a high-ranking American military officer, the US Navy and Air Force would play the primary roles in any military action taken against Iran. One idea under consideration is a naval blockade designed to cut off Iran’s oil exports.

The officer said that if the US government or the UN Security Council decided on this course of action, the US Navy would most probably not block the Strait of Hormuz – a step that would definitely draw an Iranian military response – but would patrol farther out and turn away tankers on their way to load oil.

On Sunday, the Israel Air Force held joint exercises with visiting US pilots, but IDF sources dismissed speculation that the drills were connected to an attack on Iran.

The US officer said that perhaps even more dangerous to Israel and the Western world than Iranian nukes was the possibility that a terrorists cell associated with al-Qaida or global jihad would acquire a highly radioactive “dirty bomb” or a vial of deadly chemical or biological agents. The officer said al-Qaida was gaining a strong foothold in the Middle East and that Israel was being surrounded by global jihad elements in Lebanon, Jordan and Sinai.

“Iran is a state-sponsored type of terrorism that can be dealt with,” he said, adding that it was far more difficult to strike at the source of an isolated terrorist cell.

To combat this threat, the US Navy has come up with a plan for a “1,000-ship navy” – a transnational network composed of navies from around the world that would raise awareness of maritime threats and more effectively thwart sea-based terrorism and the illicit transfer of arms by sea.

“The idea is to allow free trade and to prevent criminal and terror activity at sea,” the officer said.

A smaller-scale example of the US Navy’s vision is NATO’s Active Endeavor antiterrorism operation based in Naples. Israel plans to send an officer to be stationed there in the coming months. NATO launched Operation Active Endeavor in wake of 9/11 and has succeeded in bringing together a number of Mediterranean countries to work together in Naples to share information on naval terrorism and suspicious vessels in the region.

Court rules US can’t detain enemy combatants without charges

The normally conservative 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the US can’t detain enemy combatants without filing charges, in a case involving “an immigrant [the US] believes is an al-Qaida sleeper agent.”

“In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn’t strip Ali al-Marri of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court,” Associated Press reports. “It ruled the government must allow him to be released from military detention.”

The court panel said that “to uphold such extraordinary power would effectively undermine all of the freedoms recognized by the Constitution,” and sanctioning “such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the constitution – and the country.”

Excerpts from AP article:

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Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Ill., where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to study for a master’s degree.

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Al-Marri’s lawyers argued that the Military Commissions Act, passed last fall to establish military trials after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, doesn’t repeal the writ of habeas corpus – defendants’ traditional right to challenge their detention.

Baghdad morgue overflowing with bodies in courtyard

On Sunday, CNN showed bodies laid out in an Iraq courtyard for wailing relatives to reclaim, reporting that “for over a year, there’s been little or no room in Baghdad’s morgues.”

The “surge” plan did appear to be reducing sectarian killings in March and April, as the militias laid low, but now, as reported by the Washington Post in late May, the number of murders is nearly back to pre-surge levels. Almost 750 bodies were found last month, many of them showing signs of torture.

An Iraqi police colonel explained to CNN that “the killings will continue as long as the security forces remain on the outskirts of neighborhoods. Few Iraqi police dare to enter inside the most dangerous areas.”

The US military describes the increase in murders as a “spike,” saying that overall levels of violence are lower since the surge. However, the report concludes, with “only a quarter of the capital under control, it’s difficult to see how increased troops on the ground will consistently reduce sectarian violence.”