Source: CounterPunch.org
Why Did Bush Invade Iraq?
The Secret War
BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
American soldiers have been fighting and dying in Iraq since 2003, and Americans do not know why.
All the reasons President Bush gave us for his war are false. Bush said he invaded Iraq “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.”
We now know that these were false claims. Disinformation about Iraq was produced by a special unit within the Pentagon run by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith. The unit operated outside the normal intelligence channels of the CIA and DIA. Its purpose was to create false intelligence to enable Bush to initiate war with Iraq.
Did President Bush know that the claims put into his speeches by his speechwriters was false?
Who instructed Bush’s speechwriters to incorporate known lies into the President’s speeches?
Why did Vice President Cheney, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and the Secretary of Defense all lie to the American people and to the entire world?
What is the real agenda?
Millions of Americans have come to their own conclusions about the reasons for Bush’s invasion: (1) Oil: the US government wants to hold on to power by expanding its control over oil, and Bush and Cheney want to reward their oil company cronies. (2) Military-security complex: Police agencies favor war as a means of expanding their power, and military industries favor war as a means of expanding their profits. (3) Neoconservative ideology: Neocons’ believe in “American exceptionalism” and claim that America’s virtue gives the US government the right and the obligation to impose US hegemony on the rest of the world, especially in the Middle East where independent Muslim states object to Israel’s theft of Palestine. (4) Karl Rove: Rove used the “war president” role to rescue Bush from attack by Democrats as an illegitimate president elected by one vote of the US Supreme Court. (5) American self-righteousness over 9/11 and lust for revenge.
All of these reasons came together to make a cruel war on an innocent people.
There may be other reasons about which we know not.
As it is now recognized that every reason for the war is false or illegitimate, the question is: why does Bush insist on persisting with a costly war, the express reasons for which are now known to be mistakes? There were no weapons of mass destruction, no connections to al Qaeda, and Bush has installed a puppet Iraqi government that cannot venture outside the heavily fortified and US protected “green zone.” The Iraqi government governs nothing.
War without cause is murder, not war.
That Bush persists with a war for which he can provide no legitimate reason indicates that there is a secret agenda that has not been shared with the American people. Are we experiencing the privatization of the US government by police agencies, the military-security complex, and the Israel Lobby?
That the American people and their elected representatives continue to tolerate a war that has killed and maimed thousands of their own soldiers, destroyed the infrastructure of a country,
killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and created 4 million refugees for no known reason raises serious questions about the morals of the American people.
Is the impotence of the peace movement due to the power of the Israel Lobby or have Americans become morally degenerate as commentators increasingly assert?
One indication would be the response of presidential candidates to the gratuitous and failed war. What we saw at the Republican presidential candidates’ debate on June 5 is inconsistent with the self-esteem of the American people. All of the leading Republican presidential candidates openly and nonchalantly endorsed using nuclear weapons against Iran unless Iran abandons its right to enrich uranium under the non-proliferation treaty, to which Iran is a signatory (unlike nuclear-armed Israel, India, and US puppet Pakistan).
What is moral degeneracy if it is not using nuclear weapons to murder masses of innocent civilians and spread deadly radioactivity over vast areas merely in order to force a country to do as we order? If this isn’t barbarism, what is barbarism?
Do the American people realize that the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination are monsters who want to murder people who have done us no harm?
After five years of war that has achieved no noble purpose, no valid aim, indeed, no aim at all except perhaps Osama bin Laden’s aim of stirring up uncontrollable strife in the Middle East, how can Republicans cheer for candidates who preach a wider war and the use of nuclear weapons against defenseless people?
Is the approval lavished on Republican presidential candidates, who are willing to use nuclear weapons as means of terrorizing Muslim peoples, an indication that the American people have morphed into inhuman monsters?
If not, what does it indicate? Ignorant fanaticism? Paranoia? Blind hatred? The belief that no one is of any value but Americans?
For six and one-half years the Bush Regime has relied on coercion, intimidation, war, and threats of war. Diplomacy and good will have been shunned. The regime’s blatant warmongering has resurrected the nuclear arms race. China and Russia regard America’s drive for world hegemony with great alarm. China has put nuclear ICBMs on mobile platforms to increase their survivability in event of an American attack. Russia has developed new multi-warhead ICBMs, which can penetrate any known missile defense, and new cruise missiles that Putin says will be targeted on Europe if the US persists in its aggressive military encirclement of Russia.
An administration that resurrects the threat of nuclear Armageddon so that its cronies in the military-security complex can become still richer is evil beyond compare.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Friday, June 08, 2007
Fidel Castro: "BUSH LIES AND CONS"
Reflections by the Commander in Chief
BUSH'S LIES AND CONS
by Fidel Castro Ruz
June 7, 2007
I don't like the idea of seeming to be a vengeful person, someone wishful to
relentlessly pursue an adversary. I had promised myself to wait a bit and
see how the contradictions between Bush and his European allies would unfold
on the vital subject of climate change. But George W. Bush went too far when
he made a declaration that we read in an AP piece last Friday. The President
of the United States stated that he would go to the Vatican "with a very
open mind and.ready to listen" to the Pope, and he assured that they share a
"common respect for human life and human dignity" and freedom.
"History has demonstrated that democracies don't go to war with each other
and therefore the best way to reinforce peace is to promote freedom," he
added.
"This will be the American leader's first visit to Pope Benedict XVI. His
last trip to Italy was in April 2005 for the funeral of Pope John Paul II",
the agency reported.
In one of my reflections I said that I wouldn't be the first or the last
person that Bush would order or authorize his agents to remove. Having seen
his unusual declaration, I think that if Bush had ever read any history
book, he would be aware that there, in Rome itself, an empire was born that
nourished the vocabulary of political language for almost two thousand
years; the Vatican City was also born there as time went by, after
Constantine's Edict of Milan which officially removed obstacles to the
practice of Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.
Historians tell us that the Caesar Nero who ordered the capital of the
empire to be set on fire was heard to exclaim in satisfaction while the
tragedy was in progress: "What a great poet is perishing!"
If only the historians were right! If only Bush were a poet! If only the
inhabitants of the planet were those belonging to those times! If only
nuclear, chemical, biological and mass destruction weapons did not exist!
Even though it was a sad occurrence, including the death of the poet, who
would be alarmed by a fire consuming what today would be just a great
village?
Evidently Rome is not yet included among the 60 or more dark corners of the
world that the United States military must be ready to pre-emptively attack,
as Bush proclaimed at West Point on June 1, 2002.
Bush would now like to con Pope Benedict XVI. The Iraq War doesn't exist, it
doesn't cost a cent, not one drop of blood has been spilled, nor have
hundreds of thousands of innocent people died as part of a shameless
bartering of lives for oil and gas, imposed by force of arms on the peoples
of the Third World. Nor does the danger of another war against Iran exist,
including possible tactical nuclear strikes to impose the same infamous
formula. We are all required to believe that Russia does not feel threatened
by a possible shower of annihilating and accurate nuclear missiles giving
rise to a new and ever more dangerous arms race.
Following the chronic course of his rude lies, we might well wonder: why did
Bush free an infamous, self-confessed terrorist like Posada Carriles on the
same day that the 45th anniversary of the imperialist defeat at the Bay of
Pigs was commemorated? Worse still, would he feel even a smidgen of pain
about the injustice of keeping 5 Cuban heroes prisoners, some serving two
life sentences, because they were informing their country about terrorist
plans? Banish the thought that Bush didn't know who funded the countless
assassination plots on Castro!
We have seen Bush making strange and disturbed grimaces while making
official speeches to United States senators and representatives, boasting
about the enemies he has had removed by issuing personal orders. He created
official torture centers in Abu Ghraib and at the Guantánamo Naval Base; his
agents, acting illegally, kidnapped people in many countries where CIA
planes would secretly fly in, with or without permission from the
corresponding authorities. Information would have to be extracted with
well-studied physical torture methods.
How could he possibly think that Pope Benedict XVI would share values with
him about respect for life, human dignity and freedom?
What does the Spanish language dictionary tell us?
Tall tale: an artfully disguised lie.
To con: to deceive, to hallucinate, taking advantage of someone's naiveté.
I promised brief reflections and I am keeping my word.
Fidel Castro Ruz
June 7, 2007
BUSH'S LIES AND CONS
by Fidel Castro Ruz
June 7, 2007
I don't like the idea of seeming to be a vengeful person, someone wishful to
relentlessly pursue an adversary. I had promised myself to wait a bit and
see how the contradictions between Bush and his European allies would unfold
on the vital subject of climate change. But George W. Bush went too far when
he made a declaration that we read in an AP piece last Friday. The President
of the United States stated that he would go to the Vatican "with a very
open mind and.ready to listen" to the Pope, and he assured that they share a
"common respect for human life and human dignity" and freedom.
"History has demonstrated that democracies don't go to war with each other
and therefore the best way to reinforce peace is to promote freedom," he
added.
"This will be the American leader's first visit to Pope Benedict XVI. His
last trip to Italy was in April 2005 for the funeral of Pope John Paul II",
the agency reported.
In one of my reflections I said that I wouldn't be the first or the last
person that Bush would order or authorize his agents to remove. Having seen
his unusual declaration, I think that if Bush had ever read any history
book, he would be aware that there, in Rome itself, an empire was born that
nourished the vocabulary of political language for almost two thousand
years; the Vatican City was also born there as time went by, after
Constantine's Edict of Milan which officially removed obstacles to the
practice of Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.
Historians tell us that the Caesar Nero who ordered the capital of the
empire to be set on fire was heard to exclaim in satisfaction while the
tragedy was in progress: "What a great poet is perishing!"
If only the historians were right! If only Bush were a poet! If only the
inhabitants of the planet were those belonging to those times! If only
nuclear, chemical, biological and mass destruction weapons did not exist!
Even though it was a sad occurrence, including the death of the poet, who
would be alarmed by a fire consuming what today would be just a great
village?
Evidently Rome is not yet included among the 60 or more dark corners of the
world that the United States military must be ready to pre-emptively attack,
as Bush proclaimed at West Point on June 1, 2002.
Bush would now like to con Pope Benedict XVI. The Iraq War doesn't exist, it
doesn't cost a cent, not one drop of blood has been spilled, nor have
hundreds of thousands of innocent people died as part of a shameless
bartering of lives for oil and gas, imposed by force of arms on the peoples
of the Third World. Nor does the danger of another war against Iran exist,
including possible tactical nuclear strikes to impose the same infamous
formula. We are all required to believe that Russia does not feel threatened
by a possible shower of annihilating and accurate nuclear missiles giving
rise to a new and ever more dangerous arms race.
Following the chronic course of his rude lies, we might well wonder: why did
Bush free an infamous, self-confessed terrorist like Posada Carriles on the
same day that the 45th anniversary of the imperialist defeat at the Bay of
Pigs was commemorated? Worse still, would he feel even a smidgen of pain
about the injustice of keeping 5 Cuban heroes prisoners, some serving two
life sentences, because they were informing their country about terrorist
plans? Banish the thought that Bush didn't know who funded the countless
assassination plots on Castro!
We have seen Bush making strange and disturbed grimaces while making
official speeches to United States senators and representatives, boasting
about the enemies he has had removed by issuing personal orders. He created
official torture centers in Abu Ghraib and at the Guantánamo Naval Base; his
agents, acting illegally, kidnapped people in many countries where CIA
planes would secretly fly in, with or without permission from the
corresponding authorities. Information would have to be extracted with
well-studied physical torture methods.
How could he possibly think that Pope Benedict XVI would share values with
him about respect for life, human dignity and freedom?
What does the Spanish language dictionary tell us?
Tall tale: an artfully disguised lie.
To con: to deceive, to hallucinate, taking advantage of someone's naiveté.
I promised brief reflections and I am keeping my word.
Fidel Castro Ruz
June 7, 2007
President Bush Running Kidnapping Ring
Source: Opednews.com
June 7, 2007 at 02:21:39
Bush Running Kidnapping Ring; 39 More "Disappeared" Suspects Found
by Sherwood Ross
Let’s face it: we’ve got a president in the White House who is running an international kidnapping ring. Six human rights groups(HRG) today (June 6) named for the first time 39 more kidnap (they call them ‘disappeared’) victims of the Bush administration. Not only have Mr. Bush’s apparatchiks dumped the terrorist suspects in secret prisons but they abducted some of their wives and children, too. The sons of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, aged seven and nine, were kidnapped and tossed into an adult detention center for months “while U.S. agents questioned the children about their father’s whereabouts,” HRG said in a news release. And when Tanzanian national Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was seized in Gujarat, Pakistan, in July, 2004, his wife was kidnapped with him. Shades of Joe Stalin, notorious for abducting Soviet defectors in their foreign sancutaries!
“The duty of governments to protect people from acts of terrorism is not in question. But seizing men, women and even children, and placing people in secret locations deprived of the most basic safeguards for any detainees most definitely is,” said Claudio Cordone, a spokesperson for Amnesty International, one of the HRG involved in today’s revelations.
Adds Meg Satterthwaite, of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the NYU School of Law: “Since the end of Latin America’s dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of ‘disappearances’ as a fundamental violation of international law. Despite this universal condemnation, our research shows that the United States has tried to vanish both the people on this list and the rule of law… Enforced disappearances are illegal, regardless of who carries them out.”
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano dismissed the HRG report. He told Reuters the CIA acts in “strict accord with American law” and that its counter-terror initiatives are “subject to careful review and oversight.”
Operating secret prisons turns the kidnapped victims into ghost prisoners kept “off the books.” It prevents scrutiny by the public and the courts, “and leaves detainees vulnerable to abuses that include torture and other ill-treatment,” the HRG said. It also blocks the Red Cross from exercising its right of visitation. In the past, the CIA has denied the International Red Cross visitation to its prison in Kabul, Afghanistan. That’s hardly in accord with American law, as international treaties the U.S. has signed obligate Red Cross visits to prisoners. And, of course, none of the 39 disappeared have been brought to public trial, as required by U.S. law.
The organizations bringing the charges against the Bush administration are Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law(CHRGJ), Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve.
Last September, President Bush conceded his administration held prisoners in secret. It is unlikely he compared this practice to the foreign kidnappings that characterized Stalin’s Soviet regime, just as he undoubtedly failed to see the self-satire of his speech the other day calling upon Russia to act more like a democracy. But Vincent Warren, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, has a broader vision: “Our client Majid Khan was subjected to torture and abuse while in secret CIA detention for three years. His family didn’t know if he was alive, let alone where he was. ‘Ghost’ detention is incompatible with basic respect for human rights and the rule of law.”
If you think it’s ugly stuff for the White House to jail children, keep in mind the U.S. detains 800 Pakistani boys between 13 and 15, some of whom the Red Cross charges have been tortured. By the estimate of Human Rights First(HRF), as of April, 2005, at least 108 innocent (well, they were never tried, were they?) foreign detainees “perished” in U.S. custody.
Kidnapping by the CIA, which the Bush-Cheney regime is converting into a Soviet-style KGB, got its start under President Bill Clinton, who signed off on the first “extraordinary rendition” in 1996. The invasion of the body snatchers, though, made the jump into light speed under Mr. Bush. Right now, Italy has warrants out for the arrest of 22 CIA agents who four years ago abducted Milan resident cleric Hassan Osama Nasr, and flew him to Egypt to be tortured. HRG says the disappeared victims it identified were snatched in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.
Although Mr. Bush fibs “we don’t torture,” there have been verified reports to the contrary, particularly relating to the kidnap victims. Title 18 of the U.S. Code makes it a crime for an American to commit torture outside the U.S. The offense is punishable by fines and prison terms of up to 20 years, and if deaths result, the killers may be jailed for life or executed.
At least 20 high Bush administration officials authorized, and hundreds of U.S. military or other government employees participated in, crimes of torture against prisoners taken in the Middle East or scooped off the streets of Europe. This list begins with President Bush, for his arbitrary suspension February 8, 2002, of the Geneva Conventions that protect prisoners and includes top White House officials, Pentagon flag officers, CIA agents, and interrogators.
One very curious sentence leaps out of the new HRG report. It’s this: “Interviews with prisoners who have been released from secret CIA prisons indicate that low-level detainees have frequently been arrested far from any battlefield, and held in isolation for years without legal recourse or contact with their families or outside agencies.”
Put that together with the fact almost none of the captives at Guantanamo or in any of the other prisons have been brought to trial and it raises several questions: What if thousands of innocent men have been arrested to give the appearance of a vast “terrorist” conspiracy against America where none exists? What if, apart from Al-Qaida, the terrorists are just nationalists defending their turf when invaded? Otherwise, why hold these men in secret prisons? Is it to keep the public from hearing what they may say in court?
(Sherwood Ross is a free-lance reporter. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)
Sherwood Ross has worked in the civil rights movement and as a reporter for major dailies and wire services.
June 7, 2007 at 02:21:39
Bush Running Kidnapping Ring; 39 More "Disappeared" Suspects Found
by Sherwood Ross
Let’s face it: we’ve got a president in the White House who is running an international kidnapping ring. Six human rights groups(HRG) today (June 6) named for the first time 39 more kidnap (they call them ‘disappeared’) victims of the Bush administration. Not only have Mr. Bush’s apparatchiks dumped the terrorist suspects in secret prisons but they abducted some of their wives and children, too. The sons of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, aged seven and nine, were kidnapped and tossed into an adult detention center for months “while U.S. agents questioned the children about their father’s whereabouts,” HRG said in a news release. And when Tanzanian national Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was seized in Gujarat, Pakistan, in July, 2004, his wife was kidnapped with him. Shades of Joe Stalin, notorious for abducting Soviet defectors in their foreign sancutaries!
“The duty of governments to protect people from acts of terrorism is not in question. But seizing men, women and even children, and placing people in secret locations deprived of the most basic safeguards for any detainees most definitely is,” said Claudio Cordone, a spokesperson for Amnesty International, one of the HRG involved in today’s revelations.
Adds Meg Satterthwaite, of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the NYU School of Law: “Since the end of Latin America’s dirty wars, the world has rejected the use of ‘disappearances’ as a fundamental violation of international law. Despite this universal condemnation, our research shows that the United States has tried to vanish both the people on this list and the rule of law… Enforced disappearances are illegal, regardless of who carries them out.”
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano dismissed the HRG report. He told Reuters the CIA acts in “strict accord with American law” and that its counter-terror initiatives are “subject to careful review and oversight.”
Operating secret prisons turns the kidnapped victims into ghost prisoners kept “off the books.” It prevents scrutiny by the public and the courts, “and leaves detainees vulnerable to abuses that include torture and other ill-treatment,” the HRG said. It also blocks the Red Cross from exercising its right of visitation. In the past, the CIA has denied the International Red Cross visitation to its prison in Kabul, Afghanistan. That’s hardly in accord with American law, as international treaties the U.S. has signed obligate Red Cross visits to prisoners. And, of course, none of the 39 disappeared have been brought to public trial, as required by U.S. law.
The organizations bringing the charges against the Bush administration are Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law(CHRGJ), Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve.
Last September, President Bush conceded his administration held prisoners in secret. It is unlikely he compared this practice to the foreign kidnappings that characterized Stalin’s Soviet regime, just as he undoubtedly failed to see the self-satire of his speech the other day calling upon Russia to act more like a democracy. But Vincent Warren, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, has a broader vision: “Our client Majid Khan was subjected to torture and abuse while in secret CIA detention for three years. His family didn’t know if he was alive, let alone where he was. ‘Ghost’ detention is incompatible with basic respect for human rights and the rule of law.”
If you think it’s ugly stuff for the White House to jail children, keep in mind the U.S. detains 800 Pakistani boys between 13 and 15, some of whom the Red Cross charges have been tortured. By the estimate of Human Rights First(HRF), as of April, 2005, at least 108 innocent (well, they were never tried, were they?) foreign detainees “perished” in U.S. custody.
Kidnapping by the CIA, which the Bush-Cheney regime is converting into a Soviet-style KGB, got its start under President Bill Clinton, who signed off on the first “extraordinary rendition” in 1996. The invasion of the body snatchers, though, made the jump into light speed under Mr. Bush. Right now, Italy has warrants out for the arrest of 22 CIA agents who four years ago abducted Milan resident cleric Hassan Osama Nasr, and flew him to Egypt to be tortured. HRG says the disappeared victims it identified were snatched in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.
Although Mr. Bush fibs “we don’t torture,” there have been verified reports to the contrary, particularly relating to the kidnap victims. Title 18 of the U.S. Code makes it a crime for an American to commit torture outside the U.S. The offense is punishable by fines and prison terms of up to 20 years, and if deaths result, the killers may be jailed for life or executed.
At least 20 high Bush administration officials authorized, and hundreds of U.S. military or other government employees participated in, crimes of torture against prisoners taken in the Middle East or scooped off the streets of Europe. This list begins with President Bush, for his arbitrary suspension February 8, 2002, of the Geneva Conventions that protect prisoners and includes top White House officials, Pentagon flag officers, CIA agents, and interrogators.
One very curious sentence leaps out of the new HRG report. It’s this: “Interviews with prisoners who have been released from secret CIA prisons indicate that low-level detainees have frequently been arrested far from any battlefield, and held in isolation for years without legal recourse or contact with their families or outside agencies.”
Put that together with the fact almost none of the captives at Guantanamo or in any of the other prisons have been brought to trial and it raises several questions: What if thousands of innocent men have been arrested to give the appearance of a vast “terrorist” conspiracy against America where none exists? What if, apart from Al-Qaida, the terrorists are just nationalists defending their turf when invaded? Otherwise, why hold these men in secret prisons? Is it to keep the public from hearing what they may say in court?
(Sherwood Ross is a free-lance reporter. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)
Sherwood Ross has worked in the civil rights movement and as a reporter for major dailies and wire services.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Saudi Prince Bandar received hundreds of millions of pounds in arms deal
Source: BBC, / June 2007
Saudi prince 'received arms cash'
BBC investigation
A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.
The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.
Prince Bandar "categorically" denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times.
The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.
Sir Raymond Lygo, a former chief executive of BAE, told the BBC's World Business Report that there had been "nothing untoward" about the arms deal.
"I was the one who won the contract," he said. "I don't know anything about him (the prince) at all. I would have remembered that name."
When asked about the secret payments, Sir Lygo said that it was not going on when the deal was signed.
"I would have known if it was going on at the time. I was not aware of it, so as far as I am concerned it was not occuring.
"Yes, we paid agents. Nothing illegal about that. It was absolutely in accordance with the law at the time... there was nothing untoward about the deal whatsoever."
Private plane
The investigation found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE Systems from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.
There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy or official government accounts... and the accounts of the royal family
David Caruso
American bank investigator
The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.
David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government.
He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family."
Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years".
"Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added.
Investigation stopped
According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services".
They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD.
Prince Bandar was Saudi ambassador to the US for 20 years.
It remains unclear whether the payments were actually illegal - a point which depends in part on whether they continued after 2001, when the UK made bribery of foreign officials an offence.
The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.
The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.
Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to comment on the Panorama allegations.
But he said that if the SFO investigation into BAE had not been dropped, it would have led to "the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship and the loss of thousands of British jobs".
The SFO's inquiry is thought to have angered Saudi Arabia, to the point where there was a risk that BAE could lose a contract to sell the new Typhoon fighter to Riyadh.
Prince Bandar, who is the son of the Saudi defence minister, served for 20 years as US ambassador and is now head of the country's national security council.
Panorama reporter Jane Corbin explained that the payments were Saudi public money, channelled through BAE and the MoD, back to the Prince.
The SFO had been trying to establish whether they were illegal when the investigation was stopped, she added.
She believed the payments would thrust the issue back into the public domain and raise a number of questions.
'Bad for business'
Labour MP Roger Berry, head of the House of Commons committee which investigates strategic export controls, told the BBC that the allegations must be properly investigated.
If there was evidence of bribery or corruption in arms deals since 2001 - when the UK signed the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention - then that would be a criminal offence, he said.
He added: "It's bad for British business, apart from anything else, if allegations of bribery popping around aren't investigated."
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said that if ministers in either the present or previous governments were involved there should be a "major parliamentary inquiry".
"It seems to me very clear that this issue has got to be re-opened," Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.
"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it."
Saudi prince 'received arms cash'
BBC investigation
A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.
The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.
Prince Bandar "categorically" denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times.
The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.
Sir Raymond Lygo, a former chief executive of BAE, told the BBC's World Business Report that there had been "nothing untoward" about the arms deal.
"I was the one who won the contract," he said. "I don't know anything about him (the prince) at all. I would have remembered that name."
When asked about the secret payments, Sir Lygo said that it was not going on when the deal was signed.
"I would have known if it was going on at the time. I was not aware of it, so as far as I am concerned it was not occuring.
"Yes, we paid agents. Nothing illegal about that. It was absolutely in accordance with the law at the time... there was nothing untoward about the deal whatsoever."
Private plane
The investigation found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE Systems from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.
There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy or official government accounts... and the accounts of the royal family
David Caruso
American bank investigator
The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.
David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government.
He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family."
Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years".
"Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added.
Investigation stopped
According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services".
They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD.
Prince Bandar was Saudi ambassador to the US for 20 years.
It remains unclear whether the payments were actually illegal - a point which depends in part on whether they continued after 2001, when the UK made bribery of foreign officials an offence.
The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.
The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.
Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to comment on the Panorama allegations.
But he said that if the SFO investigation into BAE had not been dropped, it would have led to "the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship and the loss of thousands of British jobs".
The SFO's inquiry is thought to have angered Saudi Arabia, to the point where there was a risk that BAE could lose a contract to sell the new Typhoon fighter to Riyadh.
Prince Bandar, who is the son of the Saudi defence minister, served for 20 years as US ambassador and is now head of the country's national security council.
Panorama reporter Jane Corbin explained that the payments were Saudi public money, channelled through BAE and the MoD, back to the Prince.
The SFO had been trying to establish whether they were illegal when the investigation was stopped, she added.
She believed the payments would thrust the issue back into the public domain and raise a number of questions.
'Bad for business'
Labour MP Roger Berry, head of the House of Commons committee which investigates strategic export controls, told the BBC that the allegations must be properly investigated.
If there was evidence of bribery or corruption in arms deals since 2001 - when the UK signed the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention - then that would be a criminal offence, he said.
He added: "It's bad for British business, apart from anything else, if allegations of bribery popping around aren't investigated."
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said that if ministers in either the present or previous governments were involved there should be a "major parliamentary inquiry".
"It seems to me very clear that this issue has got to be re-opened," Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.
"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it."
As part of CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program
Source: WSWS,
As part of CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program
Boeing subsidiary accused of profiting from torture
By David Walsh
1 June 2007
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit May 30 accusing Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing, of providing flight services that enabled the CIA to transport suspects illegally to locations where they were brutally tortured. The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of three men, Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel and Ahmed Agiza, who have suffered nightmarish fates at the hands of one or more intelligence service. All three men remain incarcerated.
At a New York City press conference, ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner commented, “This is the first time we are accusing a blue-chip American company of profiting from torture.” A lawyer for Binyam Mohamed, Clive Stafford Smith, a co-counsel on the suit, told the media, “Corporations should expect to get sued where they are making blood money off the suffering of others.” According to the lawsuit, Jeppesen has provided flight and logistical support for at least 15 aircraft (belonging to CIA front companies) that have made a total of 70 rendition flights.
The ACLU argues that Jeppesen knew or reasonably should have known that the countries to which it was delivering shackled human beings were guilty of routinely torturing or abusing detainees. The company, notes an ACLU fact sheet, furnished flight crews with flight planning services including itinerary, route, weather, and fuel planning; took responsibility for the preparation of flight plans; facilitated customs clearance and arrangements for ground transportation, catering, and hotel accommodation for aircraft crew upon landing; and provided physical security for aircraft and crew.
As vital as any of these services, “Jeppesen’s role as coordinator with virtually all public and private third parties has permitted the CIA to conduct its illegal activities below the radar of public scrutiny and beyond the reach of the rule of law. In short, without the assistance of Jeppesen and other corporations, the US extraordinary rendition program could not have gotten off the ground.”
“Extraordinary rendition” is a term the American ruling elite has introduced into the world’s political lexicon. Under this criminal program, the CIA and other US government agencies seize and transfer foreign nationals to countries where torture is commonplace or to secret US-run facilities on foreign soil where similar conditions prevail. The program has been in effect since at least the early 1990s during the Clinton administration, according to the ACLU complaint, but the September 11 terrorist attacks provided the pretext for its vast expansion.
The civil suit was filed, in San Jose, California, under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789, according to which noncitizens can bring suit against the US government or a US company for abuses they suffered resulting from activities in a foreign country.
Jeppesen, which Boeing purchased in 2000, is a major provider of aviation logistical and travel services. According to Italian investigative journalist Claudio Gatti, “Before the CIA began extraordinary renditions, companies like Jeppesen were in the business of enabling wealthy people to fly smoothly around the globe. After Sept. 11, 2001, according to human rights organizations and European investigating commissions, new customers appeared—charter companies operating planes on behalf of the CIA.”
In January 2007, following a 10-month inquiry, the European Parliament concluded that between 2001 and 2005 flights involving aircraft directly or indirectly operated by the CIA were used to carry out the “extraordinary renditions” of Mohamed, Britel, Agiza and others. According to the European Parliament report, the publicly available flight data proves “the existence of a widespread, methodical practice of ‘extraordinary rendition,’ following precise rules and carried out by certain US secret services.”
In October 2006 the New Yorker magazine published an article by Jane Mayer, “The C.I.A.’s Travel Agent,” which charged that Jeppesen planned such flights for the CIA. It cited the comment of a former Jeppesen employee who reported that during an internal corporate meeting, Bob Overby, managing director of Jeppesen International Travel Planning, told his listeners, “We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights—you know, the torture flights. Let’s face it, some of these flights end up that way.”
Mayer’s piece continued, “The former employee said that another executive told him, ‘We do the spook flights.’ He was told that two of the company’s trip planners were specially designated to handle renditions.... He recalled Overby saying, ‘It certainly pays well. They’—the C.I.A.—‘spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.’”
The ACLU also announced that it was petitioning the US Supreme Court to review the case of Khaled El-Masri, an innocent German citizen who was another victim of the rendition program. El-Masri was mistakenly kidnapped and tortured by the CIA. His lawsuit against former agency director George Tenet and 10 CIA employees was dismissed in March 2007 by a US appeals court after the government claimed that moving forward with the case might endanger “state secrets.”
The cases of Mohamed, Britel and Agiza
Binyam Mohamed, born in Ethiopia, came to the UK in 1994 with his family and sought political asylum. He remained in Britain seven years while his application was pending. In 2001 he traveled to Afghanistan to escape personal problems in London. When the US invaded Afghanistan, he left the country for Pakistan, where he was arrested on April 10, 2002, on immigration charges.
Removed to a detention center by Pakistani officials, he was interrogated by FBI and British intelligence agents. He remained in custody in Pakistan, where he was abused and accused of being a high-ranking Al Qaeda member.
The ACLU complaint recounts that in July 2002 Mohamed was taken to a military airport near Islamabad and turned over “to the exclusive custody and control of US officials.” Several Americans dressed in black, wearing masks, stripped Mohamed of all his clothes. He was dressed in a tracksuit, blindfolded and shackled and placed on an airplane, which landed in Rabat, Morocco. Between July 2002 and January 2004, Mohamed was “detained, interrogated, and tortured at a series of detention facilities in Morocco.”
He was routinely beaten, suffering broken bones. “His clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis. A hot stinging liquid was then poured into open wounds on his penis where he had been cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death.” At one point, he was placed in a damp, moldy room with open sewage for a month.
Significantly, Mohamed was told that “the US wanted a story from him” and that he had to prepare to testify against individuals then in US custody, including Jose Padilla, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn Sheikh Libi.
After 18 months of hell in Morocco, Mohamed was sent to Afghanistan and taken to a US-run facility, “commonly known as the ‘Dark Prison.’” For four months, he was tortured and abused, including being hung from a pole in his cell, in this location. “At one point, a group of American agents dressed from head to toe in black came to him with a story. He was told that ‘Washington’ wanted him to recount how he had stolen parts for what they called a ‘dirty bomb’ and how he had built it with Jose Padilla in New York.”
He was later transferred to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan where he was made to write a 20-page statement detailing his supposed relationship with Padilla, “how they went to Afghanistan together, and how they planned to go to the United States to detonate a dirty bomb.” Apparently, this fabrication proved too flimsy even for the CIA and the US military, because the ‘dirty bomb’ charges were dropped against Padilla. Eventually, Mohamed was flown to Guantánamo, where he remains.
An Italian citizen of Moroccan descent, Abou Elkassim Britel, fell victim to “extraordinary rendition” after traveling to Pakistan in 2001 in connection with the translation of Islamic books and texts from Arabic into Italian. He was arrested in March 2002 by Pakistani officials and held at a facility in Lahore. Britel requested that he be afforded representation and assistance from the Italian embassy, a request that was denied. Pakistani interrogators beat him, sometimes with a cricket bat, and accused him of being a “terrorist fighter.” He too was hung from the walls of his cell. Eventually, he gave way and “confessed” to terrorist activities.
Britel was also eventually transferred by US agents to Morocco where he was severely tortured between May 2002 and February 2003, at which point he was released. However, while attempting to return to Italy in May 2003, Britel was again arrested by Moroccan officials, tortured once more in custody and eventually tried for terrorist activities. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, later reduced to nine years. He remains imprisoned in a Casablanca prison.
Eighty-seven members of the Italian parliament have petitioned the president of Morocco to have Britel pardoned and immediately returned to Italy. “To date these efforts have been unsuccessful,” according to the ACLU complaint.
A six-year criminal investigation in Italy culminated in September 2006 in the dismissal of all charges by an examining judge, who found no evidence linking Britel to “any criminal, let alone terrorist-related, activity.”
Ahmed Agiza is an Egyptian citizen, a pharmacist by trade and father of five children. As long ago as 1982 he fell afoul of the Egyptian authorities who suspected that his cousin had been involved in the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Tortured and interrogated in custody, Agiza was later released, but continued to be harassed by the security police. In 1991 he filed a damages action against the government, which provoked more harassment and abuse, including the arrest of his lawyers.
He fled Egypt, and, after a time in Iran, attempted to make his way to Canada. During a stopover in Sweden, he and his family decided to seek asylum there. In 2001, the Swedish government determined that although Agiza had demonstrated a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to Egypt, he should be expelled from the country on national security grounds. This decision was based on evidence, which Agiza was not permitted to see, provided by the US government.
The Swedish security services made a deal with the CIA (or some other US intelligence agency) that they would hand Agiza over to the Americans who, in turn, would secretly transport him to Egypt. And this, in fact, is what occurred in May 2005.
Once in Egypt, Agiza was severely tortured by the security services. He was kept in solitary confinement in “a squalid cell measuring little more than two square meters, without windows, heat, or light” and routinely subjected to electric shock treatment.
The complaint explains: “Mr. Agiza was stripped naked and strapped to a wet mattress. Electrodes were then applied to his ear lobes, nipples, and genitals, so that an extremely strong electric current could be introduced causing his body to rise and fall. A doctor was present throughout to ensure that he did not die from torture. When the sessions ended, the same doctor would apply cream to his body where the electrodes had been so as to prevent scarring and minimize visible signs of the torture. Mr. Agiza was also made to stand under a cold shower to prevent bruising.”
In April 2004 Agiza was given a six-hour military trial after which he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for membership in an Islamic organization banned under Egyptian law. Without explanation, the sentence was later reduced to 15 years. He remains, in dangerously poor health, in an Egyptian prison.
As part of CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program
Boeing subsidiary accused of profiting from torture
By David Walsh
1 June 2007
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit May 30 accusing Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing, of providing flight services that enabled the CIA to transport suspects illegally to locations where they were brutally tortured. The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of three men, Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel and Ahmed Agiza, who have suffered nightmarish fates at the hands of one or more intelligence service. All three men remain incarcerated.
At a New York City press conference, ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner commented, “This is the first time we are accusing a blue-chip American company of profiting from torture.” A lawyer for Binyam Mohamed, Clive Stafford Smith, a co-counsel on the suit, told the media, “Corporations should expect to get sued where they are making blood money off the suffering of others.” According to the lawsuit, Jeppesen has provided flight and logistical support for at least 15 aircraft (belonging to CIA front companies) that have made a total of 70 rendition flights.
The ACLU argues that Jeppesen knew or reasonably should have known that the countries to which it was delivering shackled human beings were guilty of routinely torturing or abusing detainees. The company, notes an ACLU fact sheet, furnished flight crews with flight planning services including itinerary, route, weather, and fuel planning; took responsibility for the preparation of flight plans; facilitated customs clearance and arrangements for ground transportation, catering, and hotel accommodation for aircraft crew upon landing; and provided physical security for aircraft and crew.
As vital as any of these services, “Jeppesen’s role as coordinator with virtually all public and private third parties has permitted the CIA to conduct its illegal activities below the radar of public scrutiny and beyond the reach of the rule of law. In short, without the assistance of Jeppesen and other corporations, the US extraordinary rendition program could not have gotten off the ground.”
“Extraordinary rendition” is a term the American ruling elite has introduced into the world’s political lexicon. Under this criminal program, the CIA and other US government agencies seize and transfer foreign nationals to countries where torture is commonplace or to secret US-run facilities on foreign soil where similar conditions prevail. The program has been in effect since at least the early 1990s during the Clinton administration, according to the ACLU complaint, but the September 11 terrorist attacks provided the pretext for its vast expansion.
The civil suit was filed, in San Jose, California, under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789, according to which noncitizens can bring suit against the US government or a US company for abuses they suffered resulting from activities in a foreign country.
Jeppesen, which Boeing purchased in 2000, is a major provider of aviation logistical and travel services. According to Italian investigative journalist Claudio Gatti, “Before the CIA began extraordinary renditions, companies like Jeppesen were in the business of enabling wealthy people to fly smoothly around the globe. After Sept. 11, 2001, according to human rights organizations and European investigating commissions, new customers appeared—charter companies operating planes on behalf of the CIA.”
In January 2007, following a 10-month inquiry, the European Parliament concluded that between 2001 and 2005 flights involving aircraft directly or indirectly operated by the CIA were used to carry out the “extraordinary renditions” of Mohamed, Britel, Agiza and others. According to the European Parliament report, the publicly available flight data proves “the existence of a widespread, methodical practice of ‘extraordinary rendition,’ following precise rules and carried out by certain US secret services.”
In October 2006 the New Yorker magazine published an article by Jane Mayer, “The C.I.A.’s Travel Agent,” which charged that Jeppesen planned such flights for the CIA. It cited the comment of a former Jeppesen employee who reported that during an internal corporate meeting, Bob Overby, managing director of Jeppesen International Travel Planning, told his listeners, “We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights—you know, the torture flights. Let’s face it, some of these flights end up that way.”
Mayer’s piece continued, “The former employee said that another executive told him, ‘We do the spook flights.’ He was told that two of the company’s trip planners were specially designated to handle renditions.... He recalled Overby saying, ‘It certainly pays well. They’—the C.I.A.—‘spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.’”
The ACLU also announced that it was petitioning the US Supreme Court to review the case of Khaled El-Masri, an innocent German citizen who was another victim of the rendition program. El-Masri was mistakenly kidnapped and tortured by the CIA. His lawsuit against former agency director George Tenet and 10 CIA employees was dismissed in March 2007 by a US appeals court after the government claimed that moving forward with the case might endanger “state secrets.”
The cases of Mohamed, Britel and Agiza
Binyam Mohamed, born in Ethiopia, came to the UK in 1994 with his family and sought political asylum. He remained in Britain seven years while his application was pending. In 2001 he traveled to Afghanistan to escape personal problems in London. When the US invaded Afghanistan, he left the country for Pakistan, where he was arrested on April 10, 2002, on immigration charges.
Removed to a detention center by Pakistani officials, he was interrogated by FBI and British intelligence agents. He remained in custody in Pakistan, where he was abused and accused of being a high-ranking Al Qaeda member.
The ACLU complaint recounts that in July 2002 Mohamed was taken to a military airport near Islamabad and turned over “to the exclusive custody and control of US officials.” Several Americans dressed in black, wearing masks, stripped Mohamed of all his clothes. He was dressed in a tracksuit, blindfolded and shackled and placed on an airplane, which landed in Rabat, Morocco. Between July 2002 and January 2004, Mohamed was “detained, interrogated, and tortured at a series of detention facilities in Morocco.”
He was routinely beaten, suffering broken bones. “His clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis. A hot stinging liquid was then poured into open wounds on his penis where he had been cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death.” At one point, he was placed in a damp, moldy room with open sewage for a month.
Significantly, Mohamed was told that “the US wanted a story from him” and that he had to prepare to testify against individuals then in US custody, including Jose Padilla, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn Sheikh Libi.
After 18 months of hell in Morocco, Mohamed was sent to Afghanistan and taken to a US-run facility, “commonly known as the ‘Dark Prison.’” For four months, he was tortured and abused, including being hung from a pole in his cell, in this location. “At one point, a group of American agents dressed from head to toe in black came to him with a story. He was told that ‘Washington’ wanted him to recount how he had stolen parts for what they called a ‘dirty bomb’ and how he had built it with Jose Padilla in New York.”
He was later transferred to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan where he was made to write a 20-page statement detailing his supposed relationship with Padilla, “how they went to Afghanistan together, and how they planned to go to the United States to detonate a dirty bomb.” Apparently, this fabrication proved too flimsy even for the CIA and the US military, because the ‘dirty bomb’ charges were dropped against Padilla. Eventually, Mohamed was flown to Guantánamo, where he remains.
An Italian citizen of Moroccan descent, Abou Elkassim Britel, fell victim to “extraordinary rendition” after traveling to Pakistan in 2001 in connection with the translation of Islamic books and texts from Arabic into Italian. He was arrested in March 2002 by Pakistani officials and held at a facility in Lahore. Britel requested that he be afforded representation and assistance from the Italian embassy, a request that was denied. Pakistani interrogators beat him, sometimes with a cricket bat, and accused him of being a “terrorist fighter.” He too was hung from the walls of his cell. Eventually, he gave way and “confessed” to terrorist activities.
Britel was also eventually transferred by US agents to Morocco where he was severely tortured between May 2002 and February 2003, at which point he was released. However, while attempting to return to Italy in May 2003, Britel was again arrested by Moroccan officials, tortured once more in custody and eventually tried for terrorist activities. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, later reduced to nine years. He remains imprisoned in a Casablanca prison.
Eighty-seven members of the Italian parliament have petitioned the president of Morocco to have Britel pardoned and immediately returned to Italy. “To date these efforts have been unsuccessful,” according to the ACLU complaint.
A six-year criminal investigation in Italy culminated in September 2006 in the dismissal of all charges by an examining judge, who found no evidence linking Britel to “any criminal, let alone terrorist-related, activity.”
Ahmed Agiza is an Egyptian citizen, a pharmacist by trade and father of five children. As long ago as 1982 he fell afoul of the Egyptian authorities who suspected that his cousin had been involved in the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Tortured and interrogated in custody, Agiza was later released, but continued to be harassed by the security police. In 1991 he filed a damages action against the government, which provoked more harassment and abuse, including the arrest of his lawyers.
He fled Egypt, and, after a time in Iran, attempted to make his way to Canada. During a stopover in Sweden, he and his family decided to seek asylum there. In 2001, the Swedish government determined that although Agiza had demonstrated a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to Egypt, he should be expelled from the country on national security grounds. This decision was based on evidence, which Agiza was not permitted to see, provided by the US government.
The Swedish security services made a deal with the CIA (or some other US intelligence agency) that they would hand Agiza over to the Americans who, in turn, would secretly transport him to Egypt. And this, in fact, is what occurred in May 2005.
Once in Egypt, Agiza was severely tortured by the security services. He was kept in solitary confinement in “a squalid cell measuring little more than two square meters, without windows, heat, or light” and routinely subjected to electric shock treatment.
The complaint explains: “Mr. Agiza was stripped naked and strapped to a wet mattress. Electrodes were then applied to his ear lobes, nipples, and genitals, so that an extremely strong electric current could be introduced causing his body to rise and fall. A doctor was present throughout to ensure that he did not die from torture. When the sessions ended, the same doctor would apply cream to his body where the electrodes had been so as to prevent scarring and minimize visible signs of the torture. Mr. Agiza was also made to stand under a cold shower to prevent bruising.”
In April 2004 Agiza was given a six-hour military trial after which he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for membership in an Islamic organization banned under Egyptian law. Without explanation, the sentence was later reduced to 15 years. He remains, in dangerously poor health, in an Egyptian prison.
The challenges to American militarism after defeat in Iraq
Source: New Socialist
The occupation of Iraq and challenges to US imperialism
by HAROLD LAVENDAR
Will the US empire be able to successfully dominate the globe in the future? Or are we witnessing a decline in US power as it is drawn deeper into the Iraqi quagmire?
Today the Pentagon controls the most expensive, most technologically advanced and most destructive military arsenal in the world and the Bush administration has accelerated the unilateral use of this power to effect regime change in Iraq.
The US conquest of Baghdad in spring 2003 was a high-water mark in US imperialism’s exercise of unlimited power. But little more than a year later, premature celebrations have given way to fretful sobriety.
A limited, but real, debate within US ruling circles questions what has gone wrong in Iraq and how to fix the problem. But both Republicans and Democrats share a commitment to US global domination, and neither support pulling out of Iraq. Thus the US election was never going to fundamentally change things.
The brief US triumph in Iraq masked military, political and economic problems for US imperialism.
The US has an overwhelming advantage in terms of weaponry and powers of destruction. However, US forces cannot control the situation in Iraq. Despite the massive deployment of troops there (approximately 160,000), many in the Pentagon feel that that number is too low to stabilize the situation.
During the war of conquest, US casualties (unlike Iraqi) were remarkably low. They have steadily mounted during the extended war of occupation. The US military lost many strategic advantages and is now engaged in a dangerous mission in a hostile land.
Some of the tactics used by armed insurgents in Iraq, such as suicide bombers, car bombs, kidnappings and executions (although highly unsettling) have been effective in shattering the illusions of a safe, secure and stable Iraq under benign US tutelage.
US occupation of Iraq has generated a powerful backlash, a mixture of nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. The goals of much, if not all, of the emerging Iraqi opposition and insurgency are neither left nor secular. However, the armed revolt appears capable of inspiring large numbers of people with both the hatred and conviction to fight and die to resist US imperialism.
In response, Pentagon planners are preparing to escalate the war in Iraq after the US election. The current inability of the US military to surpress Iraqi resistance will require intensified use of military firepower and reinforcements. The number of troops in Iraq will probably be increased, while the threat of a renewed military draft hangs over US youth if this (and future wars) begin to suck up troops and lives.
The reality of occupation is beginning to sink in for the US government. To be able to win the war, the new administration in Washington will need to win political battles inside Iraq, internationally and within the US.
The US won the war in conquering Iraq. But during the period of military occupation, it lost the peace. This led to a shift in tactics. While employing brutal force to crush the insurgency, Washington is also now seeking to hide its controlling hand behind an Iraqi flag.
At the end of June, power was formally transferred to a new Iraqi government. A fresh pro-US face, Iyad Allawi, was brought in as interim prime minister. However, his authority has not been widely or popularly respected, and the insurgency is growing. The elections scheduled for January 2004 are supposed to make Iraq a “democratic country” and give credibility to the occupation. Meanwhile, Allawi is being paraded before the US congress and the UN as the savior of Iraqi “democracy.” However, he is not a big fan of democratic rights and, in fact, plans to utilize martial law to smash the growing insurgency.
As part of the “transfer of power,”⇣the US wants the Iraqi regime to take more responsibility for repression. However, to date the policy has not succeeded. Some 100,000 security and police recruits are being trained, with efforts to double that by the end of 2005. But fighting capacity remains low and recruits for future state repression and terror are themselves subjected to terror tactics. As a result, there is no security to reconstruct and reorient the economy. The oil industry, with which the US expects to finance the new regime, is in disrepair and regularly sabotaged.
Since the US occupation and the beginning of the Allawi regime, living conditions in Iraq have dramatically worsened. Basic services such as electricity have not been fully re-established. Unemployment has soared dramatically under the occupation, prices have risen and, for the large majority, living standards have declined and become much more precarious. This mass despair, in turn, is a fertile recruiting ground for armed groups and religious fundamentalists. All the ingredients are present for an intense power struggle and a descent into further violence and civil war which will impede US aspirations in the region.
John Kerry correctly pointed out that Bush’s “more of the same” would not resolve the situation in Iraq. Dismissing Bush’s coalition of the willing, Kerry pointed out that the US is currently taking 90 per cent of coalition casualties and paying 90 per cent of the costs. However, Kerry’s solution to rebuild US alliances, further involve the UN and get others to share the burden of Iraq was as illusory as Bush’s stay-the-course rhetoric.
Quick, decisive victory in Iraq would have enabled the US to leverage its military superiority and willingness to use force into political domination. The US would get the reconstruction contracts, the dominant position in a neoliberal opening of the Middle East, secure oil supplies and leverage to break OPEC’s ability to control prices, etc. And it would be better positioned to strong-arm other nations in trade negotiations. Whether the US can still accomplish these things remains to be seen.
But as the US becomes entrapped in Iraq, most countries are increasingly reluctant to come to the US’s aid. Bush has been campaigning hard for the forgiveness of the Iraqi foreign debt. It is a blatant attempt to transfer war costs from the US to other nations. France and Germany, acting out of their own self-interest, refused.
The number of countries willing to send troops, furthermore, is shrinking. Involvement in an expanding war means casualties. Meanwhile there is no security for a UN or international relief agency presence and kidnappings are mounting, which discourages relief efforts.
Underlying the reluctance to support the US occupation is politics.
The global anti-war movement reached unprecedented size prior to the war. Although it lost some momentum during the war, it has helped to question the war and shape public opinion around the world, which has opposed the war. Unless mass perception changes, very few countries are likely to step up to the plate.
Take Canada. The Liberals have acted on corporate pressure to improve relations with the US. Examples include military deployments in Afghanistan and Haiti, tightened national security and immigration and refugee policy, plans to boost the military, moves towards joining US weaponization of space and Paul Martin’s promotion of UN forces for humanitarian interventions. Regardless of Canada’s attempt to align itself with US interests, sending Canadian troops to Iraq is not in the cards.
But Bush will continue to wage war. Iraq is a highly strategic countrywith huge oil reserves. Oil is a vital commodity in the global economy. The American ruling class is unlikely to walk away voluntarily.
The Pentagon is far from defeated if it enjoys the active or passive support of a sizable majority of the US population for its war efforts. This is not impossible if the politics of fear prevail. Concern for homeland against the forces of darkness, if unchallenged, could feed racism, xenophobia, support for aggression abroad and increased repression at home.
Only the re-emergence of an independent and mobilized anti-war movement in the US can prevent the US from becoming more deeply embroiled in this war.
The current over-extension of US power may bring some temporary comfort to others. It does make it less likely Bush will jump to invade other countries in the Middle East or intervene directly in Latin America. And there could be further resistance to trade blocs dominated by US corporate interests, from the FTAA to the WTO.
However, the problems of the world are not reducible to the excessive power of US imperialism. Without the emergence and strengthening of alternatives to global capital nothing will change for the better. The existence of rival centers of power, such as a more assertive and independently-minded European Union, does not guarantee a peaceful world. Previous struggles for dominance among imperialist powers led to World Wars I and II.
The budding shift in the world situation may present new opportunities but also dangers. ★
Harold Lavender is an editor of New Socialist magazine.
The occupation of Iraq and challenges to US imperialism
by HAROLD LAVENDAR
Will the US empire be able to successfully dominate the globe in the future? Or are we witnessing a decline in US power as it is drawn deeper into the Iraqi quagmire?
Today the Pentagon controls the most expensive, most technologically advanced and most destructive military arsenal in the world and the Bush administration has accelerated the unilateral use of this power to effect regime change in Iraq.
The US conquest of Baghdad in spring 2003 was a high-water mark in US imperialism’s exercise of unlimited power. But little more than a year later, premature celebrations have given way to fretful sobriety.
A limited, but real, debate within US ruling circles questions what has gone wrong in Iraq and how to fix the problem. But both Republicans and Democrats share a commitment to US global domination, and neither support pulling out of Iraq. Thus the US election was never going to fundamentally change things.
The brief US triumph in Iraq masked military, political and economic problems for US imperialism.
The US has an overwhelming advantage in terms of weaponry and powers of destruction. However, US forces cannot control the situation in Iraq. Despite the massive deployment of troops there (approximately 160,000), many in the Pentagon feel that that number is too low to stabilize the situation.
During the war of conquest, US casualties (unlike Iraqi) were remarkably low. They have steadily mounted during the extended war of occupation. The US military lost many strategic advantages and is now engaged in a dangerous mission in a hostile land.
Some of the tactics used by armed insurgents in Iraq, such as suicide bombers, car bombs, kidnappings and executions (although highly unsettling) have been effective in shattering the illusions of a safe, secure and stable Iraq under benign US tutelage.
US occupation of Iraq has generated a powerful backlash, a mixture of nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. The goals of much, if not all, of the emerging Iraqi opposition and insurgency are neither left nor secular. However, the armed revolt appears capable of inspiring large numbers of people with both the hatred and conviction to fight and die to resist US imperialism.
In response, Pentagon planners are preparing to escalate the war in Iraq after the US election. The current inability of the US military to surpress Iraqi resistance will require intensified use of military firepower and reinforcements. The number of troops in Iraq will probably be increased, while the threat of a renewed military draft hangs over US youth if this (and future wars) begin to suck up troops and lives.
The reality of occupation is beginning to sink in for the US government. To be able to win the war, the new administration in Washington will need to win political battles inside Iraq, internationally and within the US.
The US won the war in conquering Iraq. But during the period of military occupation, it lost the peace. This led to a shift in tactics. While employing brutal force to crush the insurgency, Washington is also now seeking to hide its controlling hand behind an Iraqi flag.
At the end of June, power was formally transferred to a new Iraqi government. A fresh pro-US face, Iyad Allawi, was brought in as interim prime minister. However, his authority has not been widely or popularly respected, and the insurgency is growing. The elections scheduled for January 2004 are supposed to make Iraq a “democratic country” and give credibility to the occupation. Meanwhile, Allawi is being paraded before the US congress and the UN as the savior of Iraqi “democracy.” However, he is not a big fan of democratic rights and, in fact, plans to utilize martial law to smash the growing insurgency.
As part of the “transfer of power,”⇣the US wants the Iraqi regime to take more responsibility for repression. However, to date the policy has not succeeded. Some 100,000 security and police recruits are being trained, with efforts to double that by the end of 2005. But fighting capacity remains low and recruits for future state repression and terror are themselves subjected to terror tactics. As a result, there is no security to reconstruct and reorient the economy. The oil industry, with which the US expects to finance the new regime, is in disrepair and regularly sabotaged.
Since the US occupation and the beginning of the Allawi regime, living conditions in Iraq have dramatically worsened. Basic services such as electricity have not been fully re-established. Unemployment has soared dramatically under the occupation, prices have risen and, for the large majority, living standards have declined and become much more precarious. This mass despair, in turn, is a fertile recruiting ground for armed groups and religious fundamentalists. All the ingredients are present for an intense power struggle and a descent into further violence and civil war which will impede US aspirations in the region.
John Kerry correctly pointed out that Bush’s “more of the same” would not resolve the situation in Iraq. Dismissing Bush’s coalition of the willing, Kerry pointed out that the US is currently taking 90 per cent of coalition casualties and paying 90 per cent of the costs. However, Kerry’s solution to rebuild US alliances, further involve the UN and get others to share the burden of Iraq was as illusory as Bush’s stay-the-course rhetoric.
Quick, decisive victory in Iraq would have enabled the US to leverage its military superiority and willingness to use force into political domination. The US would get the reconstruction contracts, the dominant position in a neoliberal opening of the Middle East, secure oil supplies and leverage to break OPEC’s ability to control prices, etc. And it would be better positioned to strong-arm other nations in trade negotiations. Whether the US can still accomplish these things remains to be seen.
But as the US becomes entrapped in Iraq, most countries are increasingly reluctant to come to the US’s aid. Bush has been campaigning hard for the forgiveness of the Iraqi foreign debt. It is a blatant attempt to transfer war costs from the US to other nations. France and Germany, acting out of their own self-interest, refused.
The number of countries willing to send troops, furthermore, is shrinking. Involvement in an expanding war means casualties. Meanwhile there is no security for a UN or international relief agency presence and kidnappings are mounting, which discourages relief efforts.
Underlying the reluctance to support the US occupation is politics.
The global anti-war movement reached unprecedented size prior to the war. Although it lost some momentum during the war, it has helped to question the war and shape public opinion around the world, which has opposed the war. Unless mass perception changes, very few countries are likely to step up to the plate.
Take Canada. The Liberals have acted on corporate pressure to improve relations with the US. Examples include military deployments in Afghanistan and Haiti, tightened national security and immigration and refugee policy, plans to boost the military, moves towards joining US weaponization of space and Paul Martin’s promotion of UN forces for humanitarian interventions. Regardless of Canada’s attempt to align itself with US interests, sending Canadian troops to Iraq is not in the cards.
But Bush will continue to wage war. Iraq is a highly strategic countrywith huge oil reserves. Oil is a vital commodity in the global economy. The American ruling class is unlikely to walk away voluntarily.
The Pentagon is far from defeated if it enjoys the active or passive support of a sizable majority of the US population for its war efforts. This is not impossible if the politics of fear prevail. Concern for homeland against the forces of darkness, if unchallenged, could feed racism, xenophobia, support for aggression abroad and increased repression at home.
Only the re-emergence of an independent and mobilized anti-war movement in the US can prevent the US from becoming more deeply embroiled in this war.
The current over-extension of US power may bring some temporary comfort to others. It does make it less likely Bush will jump to invade other countries in the Middle East or intervene directly in Latin America. And there could be further resistance to trade blocs dominated by US corporate interests, from the FTAA to the WTO.
However, the problems of the world are not reducible to the excessive power of US imperialism. Without the emergence and strengthening of alternatives to global capital nothing will change for the better. The existence of rival centers of power, such as a more assertive and independently-minded European Union, does not guarantee a peaceful world. Previous struggles for dominance among imperialist powers led to World Wars I and II.
The budding shift in the world situation may present new opportunities but also dangers. ★
Harold Lavender is an editor of New Socialist magazine.
America Is Secretly Destabilising Iran
Source: CounterPunch, June 6, 2007
US foments Strife and Spurns Overtures
Countdown to War on Iran
By ALAIN GRESH
Silently, stealthily, unseen by cameras, the war on Iran has already begun. Many sources confirm that the United States, bent on destabilising the Islamic Republic, has increased its aid to armed movements among the Azeri, Baluchi, Arab and Kurdish ethnic minorities that make up about 40% of the Iranian population. ABC News reported in April that the US had secretly assisted the Baluchi group Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), responsible for a recent attack in which some 20 members of the Revolutionary Guard were killed. According to an American Foundation report (1), US commandos have operated inside Iran since 2004.
President George Bush categorised Iran, along with North Korea and Iraq, as the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address in January 2002. Then in June 2003 he said the US and its allies should make it clear that they "would not tolerate" the construction of a nuclear weapon in Iran.
It is worth recalling the context in which these statements were made. President Mohammed Khatami had repeatedly called for "dialogue among civilisations". Tehran had actively supported the US in Afghanistan, providing many contacts that Washington had used to facilitate the overthrow of the Taliban regime. At a meeting in Geneva on 2 May 2003 between Javad Zaraf, the Iranian ambassador, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan, the Tehran government submitted a proposal to the White House for general negotiations on weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and security, and economic cooperation (2). The Islamic Republic said it was ready to support the Arab peace initiative tabled at the Beirut summit in 2002 and help to transform the Lebanese Hizbullah into a political party. Tehran signed the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty on 18 December 2003, which considerably strengthens the supervisory powers of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but which only a few countries have ratified.
The US administration swept all these overtures aside since its only objective is to overthrow the mullahs. To create the conditions for military intervention, it constantly brandishes "the nuclear threat". Year after year US administrations have produced alarmist reports, always proved wrong. In January 1995 the director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said Iran could have the bomb by 2003, while the US defence secretary, William Perry, predicted it would have the bomb by 2000. These forecasts were repeated by Israel's Shimon Peres a year later. Yet last month, despite Iran's progress in uranium enrichment, the IAEA considered that it would be four to six years before Tehran had the capability to produce the bomb.
What is the truth? Since the 1960s, long before the Islamic revolution, Iran has sought to develop nuclear power in preparation for the post-oil era. Technological developments have made it easier to pass from civil to military applications once the processes have been mastered. Have Tehran's leaders decided to do so? There is no evidence that they have. Is there a risk that they may? Yes, there is, for obvious reasons.
During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein's regime, in breach of every international treaty, used chemical weapons against Iran, but there was no outcry in the US, or in France, against these weapons of mass destruction, which had a traumatic effect on the Iranian people. US troops are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran is surrounded by a network of foreign military bases. Two neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Israel, have nuclear weapons. No Iranian political leader could fail to be aware of this situation.
How to prevent escalation?
So how is Tehran to be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, a move that would start a new arms race in a region that is already highly unstable and deal a fatal blow to the non-proliferation treaty? Contrary to common assumptions, the main obstacle is not Tehran's determination to enrich uranium. Iran has a right to do so under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but it has always said it was prepared to impose voluntary restrictions on that right and to agree to increased IAEA inspections to prevent any possible use of enriched uranium for military purposes.
The Islamic Republic's fundamental concern lies elsewhere. Witness the agreement signed on 14 November 2004 with France, Britain and Germany, under which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment temporarily on the understanding that a long-term agreement would "provide firm commitments on security issues". Washington refused to give any such commitments and Iran resumed its enrichment programme.
The European Union chose not to pursue an independent line but to follow Washington's lead. The new proposals produced by the five members of the Security Council and Germany in June 2006 contained no guarantee of non-intervention in Iranian affairs. In Tehran's reply to the proposals, delivered in August, it again "suggest[ed] that the western parties who want to participate in the negotiation team announce on behalf of their own and other European countries, to set aside the policy of intimidation, pressure and sanctions against Iran". Only if such a commitment was made could negotiations be resumed.
If not, escalation is inevitable. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president in June 2005 has not made dialogue any easier, given his taste for provocative statements, particularly about the Holocaust and Israel. But Iran is a big country rich in history and there is more to it than its president. There is much tension within the government and Ahmadinejad had severe setbacks both in the local elections and in elections to the Assembly of Experts in December 2006. There are substantial challenges, economic and social, and forceful demands for more freedom, especially among women and young people. Iranians refuse to be regimented and the only strong card the regime has to win their loyalty is nationalism, a refusal to accept the kind of foreign interference suffered throughout the 20th century.
Despite the disaster in Iraq, there is no indication that Bush has given up the idea of attacking Iran. This is part of his vision of a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism", an ideological war that can end only in complete victory. The demonisation of Iran, aggravated by the attitude of its president, is part of this strategy and may culminate in yet another military venture. That would be a disaster, not only for Iran and the Arab world, but for western, especially European, relations with the Middle East.
Translated by Barbara Wilson
Alain Gresh is editor of Le Monde diplomatique and a specialist on the Middle East
(1) Sam Gardiner, "The End of the 'Summer of diplomacy': Assessing US Military Options on Iran" (in .pdf), Century Foundation Report, Washington, 2006.
(2) See Gareth Porter, "Burnt Offering", The American Prospect, Washington, June 2006.
This article first appeared in the excellent monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com The full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique and CounterPunch will feature one or two articles from LMD every month.
All rights reserved © 1997-2007 Le Monde diplomatique.
US foments Strife and Spurns Overtures
Countdown to War on Iran
By ALAIN GRESH
Silently, stealthily, unseen by cameras, the war on Iran has already begun. Many sources confirm that the United States, bent on destabilising the Islamic Republic, has increased its aid to armed movements among the Azeri, Baluchi, Arab and Kurdish ethnic minorities that make up about 40% of the Iranian population. ABC News reported in April that the US had secretly assisted the Baluchi group Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), responsible for a recent attack in which some 20 members of the Revolutionary Guard were killed. According to an American Foundation report (1), US commandos have operated inside Iran since 2004.
President George Bush categorised Iran, along with North Korea and Iraq, as the "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address in January 2002. Then in June 2003 he said the US and its allies should make it clear that they "would not tolerate" the construction of a nuclear weapon in Iran.
It is worth recalling the context in which these statements were made. President Mohammed Khatami had repeatedly called for "dialogue among civilisations". Tehran had actively supported the US in Afghanistan, providing many contacts that Washington had used to facilitate the overthrow of the Taliban regime. At a meeting in Geneva on 2 May 2003 between Javad Zaraf, the Iranian ambassador, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan, the Tehran government submitted a proposal to the White House for general negotiations on weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and security, and economic cooperation (2). The Islamic Republic said it was ready to support the Arab peace initiative tabled at the Beirut summit in 2002 and help to transform the Lebanese Hizbullah into a political party. Tehran signed the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty on 18 December 2003, which considerably strengthens the supervisory powers of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but which only a few countries have ratified.
The US administration swept all these overtures aside since its only objective is to overthrow the mullahs. To create the conditions for military intervention, it constantly brandishes "the nuclear threat". Year after year US administrations have produced alarmist reports, always proved wrong. In January 1995 the director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said Iran could have the bomb by 2003, while the US defence secretary, William Perry, predicted it would have the bomb by 2000. These forecasts were repeated by Israel's Shimon Peres a year later. Yet last month, despite Iran's progress in uranium enrichment, the IAEA considered that it would be four to six years before Tehran had the capability to produce the bomb.
What is the truth? Since the 1960s, long before the Islamic revolution, Iran has sought to develop nuclear power in preparation for the post-oil era. Technological developments have made it easier to pass from civil to military applications once the processes have been mastered. Have Tehran's leaders decided to do so? There is no evidence that they have. Is there a risk that they may? Yes, there is, for obvious reasons.
During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein's regime, in breach of every international treaty, used chemical weapons against Iran, but there was no outcry in the US, or in France, against these weapons of mass destruction, which had a traumatic effect on the Iranian people. US troops are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran is surrounded by a network of foreign military bases. Two neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Israel, have nuclear weapons. No Iranian political leader could fail to be aware of this situation.
How to prevent escalation?
So how is Tehran to be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, a move that would start a new arms race in a region that is already highly unstable and deal a fatal blow to the non-proliferation treaty? Contrary to common assumptions, the main obstacle is not Tehran's determination to enrich uranium. Iran has a right to do so under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but it has always said it was prepared to impose voluntary restrictions on that right and to agree to increased IAEA inspections to prevent any possible use of enriched uranium for military purposes.
The Islamic Republic's fundamental concern lies elsewhere. Witness the agreement signed on 14 November 2004 with France, Britain and Germany, under which Iran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment temporarily on the understanding that a long-term agreement would "provide firm commitments on security issues". Washington refused to give any such commitments and Iran resumed its enrichment programme.
The European Union chose not to pursue an independent line but to follow Washington's lead. The new proposals produced by the five members of the Security Council and Germany in June 2006 contained no guarantee of non-intervention in Iranian affairs. In Tehran's reply to the proposals, delivered in August, it again "suggest[ed] that the western parties who want to participate in the negotiation team announce on behalf of their own and other European countries, to set aside the policy of intimidation, pressure and sanctions against Iran". Only if such a commitment was made could negotiations be resumed.
If not, escalation is inevitable. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president in June 2005 has not made dialogue any easier, given his taste for provocative statements, particularly about the Holocaust and Israel. But Iran is a big country rich in history and there is more to it than its president. There is much tension within the government and Ahmadinejad had severe setbacks both in the local elections and in elections to the Assembly of Experts in December 2006. There are substantial challenges, economic and social, and forceful demands for more freedom, especially among women and young people. Iranians refuse to be regimented and the only strong card the regime has to win their loyalty is nationalism, a refusal to accept the kind of foreign interference suffered throughout the 20th century.
Despite the disaster in Iraq, there is no indication that Bush has given up the idea of attacking Iran. This is part of his vision of a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism", an ideological war that can end only in complete victory. The demonisation of Iran, aggravated by the attitude of its president, is part of this strategy and may culminate in yet another military venture. That would be a disaster, not only for Iran and the Arab world, but for western, especially European, relations with the Middle East.
Translated by Barbara Wilson
Alain Gresh is editor of Le Monde diplomatique and a specialist on the Middle East
(1) Sam Gardiner, "The End of the 'Summer of diplomacy': Assessing US Military Options on Iran" (in .pdf), Century Foundation Report, Washington, 2006.
(2) See Gareth Porter, "Burnt Offering", The American Prospect, Washington, June 2006.
This article first appeared in the excellent monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, whose English language edition can be found at mondediplo.com The full text appears by agreement with Le Monde Diplomatique and CounterPunch will feature one or two articles from LMD every month.
All rights reserved © 1997-2007 Le Monde diplomatique.
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