Kerry’s ‘U.S. Allies’ Myth
Will it be France and Germany? These two countries had sweetheart illegal deals with Saddam Hussein under the cloak of the ‘Oil for Food Program.’ They also sold Saddam Hussein military weapons and technology right up until the time our troops invaded—knowing full well that they would be used against us.
We have also discovered that at this moment, Germany is selling hardware and technology to Iran that can be adapted to help them quickly advance in the their quest for nuclear ballistic missiles. U.S. official for arms control, John Bolton “sharply criticized Germany for trading with Iran, which Washington suspects of covertly developing nuclear weapons.”
Or per chance Kerry is counting upon the U.N. to become stalwart allies of the U.S. Maybe for the first time in it’s history the U.N. will actually help us in our fight to enforce U.N. resolutions and to dethrone villainous dictators.
Kerry appears to place boundless hope upon the intervention of the U.N. in our cause. But he should remember that it was the Kofi-Anan-led-U.N. that allowed illegal deals with Saddam Hussein under the “Oil for Food Program.”
In fact, Kofi Anan’s son allegedly made millions of dollars administering this program, which enriched Saddam, helped him circumvent the effects of U.N. sanctions and never helped the average Iraqi.
In fact, this is the main reason these ‘would-be-Kerry-allies’ did not want to invade Iraq in the first place. They did not want to loose the money, nor have it revealed what they had done.
Well, let's see now – maybe Mr. Kerry is counting on China to come to our aide. Intelligence is now documenting that China is one of the worst offenders in supplying hardware and technology to aide rogue nations in developing nuclear weapons. We have evidence that they did help Libya and now Iran.
Or maybe Kerry is referring to Pakistan. President Pervez Musharraf is already helping us to the extent that he can. He has nearly been assassinated for his help to us several times. And the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, is one of the worst offenders in passing on nuclear technology to Muslim nations – including Iran.
The Christian Science Monitor reported, “Khan confessed to sharing nuclear technology with Iran, Libya, and North Korea in a 12-page document presented to President Pervez Musharraf, according to a briefing given by government officials to Pakistani media in Islamabad.”
As for Jordan, Egypt, et al. No Muslim country would ever join us in a coalition to bring in Democracy to another Muslim nation. That threatens all Muslim regimes because none of them are democracies. Islam sees Democracy as a threat to the Islamic faith, which has an entirely contrary concept of government that is based on the Koran.
Mr Kerry cannot expect much help from Russia. They have their hands full trying to deal with Chechnya. Besides, they furnished most of the Muslim world with the weapons we now face. And Russia is the backbone of the nuclear program in Iran. They sold Iran almost anything they wanted to get the hard currency they desperately needed.
So who of any consequence is left? The rest of the nations in the EU are not going to be of any help, even if they were willing.
President George W. Bush put together the best coalition possible, given the current world attitude. The United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Italy and Australia joined in with us in a brave gesture of support.
But since Mr Kerry has called them, “the coalition of the coerced and the bribed", he is not likely to get very enthusiastic support from them. Nor will he be able to get much support from the courageous interim Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi, whom he branded as “a puppet of the Bush administration.”
I pray that Americans wake up and stop buying into style and sound bites without critically analyzing whether the things being promised are true, much less possible.
Mr Kerry is promising to do things that buy into the hopes of Americans to get things done the easy way without sacrifice. He even contradicted himself several times within the debate, but because he was promising what people want to hear – most didn’t even notice.
Leadership that shifts with the winds of what is popular to promise at the moment will not stand up under the rigors of dangerous realities that require steadfastness and courage when the going gets tough.
May God save America.
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Iran Issues Threat to Anglo-Saxon Civilization
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) just posted this ominous threat after it became known that Iran has a missile capable of hitting London, “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Official Threatens Suicide Operations: ‘Our Missiles Are Ready to Strike at Anglo-Saxon Culture …’”
This is something I greatly feared would happen – the marriage of Shi’ite suicide squads to nuclear missile capability. This is an alarm that should be shaking the entire Western Civilization.
The Ayatollah’s of Iran are capable of launching a nuclear barrage at Israel, England and the USA that they know would bring a devastating retaliation from the West. It would be a national suicide mission for the glory of Allah. This is the way they think in their twisted Fundamental religious minds.
If you think this is extreme, just listen to some of their latest comments.
Agence France Press reported on September 21, 2004, “Iran showed off its range
of ballistic missiles at an annual military parade on Tuesday, with the rockets
draped in banners vowing to ‘crush America’ and ‘wipe Israel off the map.’
A banner stating ‘Israel must be wiped off the map’ was draped on the side of a Shahab-2 missile, while a banner saying ‘We will crush America under our feet’ was on the side of a trailer carrying the latest Shahab-3 missile.” The report continued, “These missiles enable us to destroy the enemy with missile strikes.”
The London based Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that “an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening to replace the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Department of Liberation and Revolutionary Movements, which had been in charge of helping and training revolutionary forces across the world.”
The article went on to report a speech given by an official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, threatening the U.S. with suicide and missile attacks at already-selected sensitive targets, and threatening to “take over Britain”.
There is no question that Iran has received much help in developing their nuclear and missile program. Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan have all helped them accelerate their program – probably much faster than Western Intelligence groups realize.
From the nature of their increasingly brazen warnings to Israel, Britain and the U.S., they must be very near the point of operational readiness.
I am sure this is why Israel has accelerated preparations to deal with this monumental threat to their survival as a people and a nation. They are acutely aware that the time for effective action is fast drawing to a close.
Israel helped engineer and developed new versions of F-16 and F-15. They are officially known as the F-16i and F15i. These are very different aircraft than their predecessors. They have the most advanced targeting and defensive electronics ever put on an operational aircraft.
Both have been given engines with increased efficiency and power. Both have large conformal fuel tanks that fit along the sides of the fuselage, which enormously increased their range. Both have a two-man crew. The second pilot operates the very advanced electronics system. Both can fly to Iran and back, non-stop.
Another indication that Israel is preparing for action is its recent purchase of 500 ‘bunker buster’ bombs. These JDAM bombs (GBU-32) are capable of penetrating through 7 feet of reinforced concrete before detonation. .
The latest JDAM bombs can be launched from 15 miles away and hit targets with deadly accuracy. It weighs 2000 pounds. Each one is independently targeted by both an inertial navigation system and a global positioning system guidance kit. It is a perfect weapon for destroying uranium enrichment plants and nuclear reactors.
Israel knows that it cannot stand by while the U.N. plays the shell game with Iran and hopes to somehow get inspectors into the right places at the right time. Too many rogue nations have been able to play the delay game until they suddenly come out with nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them.
Such a raid will no doubt prove to be costly for Israel’s attacking aircraft. But it is a risk they know they must take.
Israel cannot afford even one mistake in its defense against the Muslim threats that face it. So if the U.S. doesn’t take action soon against this clear and apparent danger – count on it, Israel will. Thank God.
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Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
The 'Gotcha' Moment
That Wasn't
The release of the long-awaited report from the Iraqi Survey Group was expected
to do what that morning's Chicago Times' issue claimed in its headline: "Report
on Iraq Arms Undercuts President." Both the first presidential debate and the
vice-presidential debate revolved, from the Democrat's point of view, on the
Iraq War, its costs and causes.
And judging from the assessments offered by the mainstream media, namely that Bush lost to John Kerry and John Edwards defeated Dick Cheney, it still believes Iraq is the Bush administration's Achilles' Heel.
Take, for example, this statement by Senator Jay Rockefeller, co-chair of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committee:
"Despite the efforts to focus on Saddam's desires and intentions, the bottom line is Iraq did not have either weapon stockpiles or active production capabilities at the time of the war. In short, we invaded a country, thousands of people have died, and Iraq never posed a grave or growing danger."
Or, put a bit more crassly, "Gotcha!"
Most of the media 'analysis' suggested hopefully that the "the findings could boost Democratic candidate John Kerry's contention that Bush rushed to war based on faulty intelligence."
But among the findings of the Iraq Survey Group was the fact that the faulty intelligence was shared by every intelligence agency in the world. Even Saddam's own generals, said Charles A. Duelfer, head of the ISG, didn't know Saddam didn't have them.
Until the Iraq Survey Group released its report, the general consensus among intelligence agencies was that Saddam surrounded himself with 'yes-men' who told him what he wanted to hear and misled him into believing he had stockpiles of non-existent weapons.
Duelfer's report says they got the situation exactly backwards. It was Saddam who kept his generals in the dark. Saddam was actually micro-managing Iraq's weapons policies and kept even his most loyal aides from gaining a clear picture of what was going on — and, more important, not going on — with the program.
Part of the ISG report's information came from Saddam Hussein himself during postwar interrogation sessions.
Based on the interrogations, it appears that Hussein underestimated how seriously the United States took the weapons issue, and he believed it was vital to his own survival that the outside world -- especially Iran -- think he still had them.
This was designed to deter uprising from rebel Iraqis, on whom he deployed mustard gas in 1988, and aggressors -- especially Iran -- in the Middle East.
"The Iranian threat was very, very, palpable to him, and he didn't want to be second to Iran, and he felt he had to deter them. So he wanted to create the impression that he had more than he did," Duelfer testified to the Senate.
Kerry campaign officials jumped on the report, saying it is 'one more piece of evidence that the war in Iraq was a mistake' and was based on evidence that was either faulty or exaggerated by administration officials.
Susan Rice, a senior foreign policy adviser to Kerry, said the Bush campaign is "grasping at straws" as it strains to maintain a link between the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war with Iraq. Evidently, she didn't read the report.
Far from undercutting the Bush administration's rationale for war, the Duelfer Report found that Hussein had a missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and that he had the "capability and the intention" to possess dangerous weapons.
One of the central arguments advanced by the Kerry campaign against the Bush administration is that the White House 'rushed' to war with Saddam Hussein by lying about Iraq's weapons capability and failing to secure the approval and cooperation of our 'allies' like France, Germany, Russia and the United Nations Security Council.
The Democrats have made much of that, claiming that these are our REAL allies, going so far as to call those nations who DID support Washington a 'coalition of the bribed, coerced, the bought and the extorted.'
Throughout the campaign, Kerry has hammered home the fact that, if he were president, he would have miraculously brought those allies on board, since Kerry also says that he agreed Saddam should have been toppled, but that Bush went about it the 'wrong way'.
The Duelfer Report DID provide details about a 'coalition of the bribed, coerced, the bought and the extorted' -- but it wasn't referring to the same coalition John Kerry was.
According to the findings of the Iraq Survey Group, the bribes all went to France, Germany, Russia and the UN Security Council. The very 'allies' the Democrats say the Bush administration ignored 'out of arrogance'.
According to the report, from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.
Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions - which stopped him acquiring weapons - were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition.
He personally approved every one. Saddam focused on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.
Tariq Aziz told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.
A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from Saddam's intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq."
Oil "vouchers" that could be resold for large profits were given to officials including French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and former Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky as well as governments, companies and influential individuals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the ISG. Another recipient was Benon Sevan, the former top U.N. official in charge of humanitarian relief.
Russia, France and China -- all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- were the top three countries in which individuals, companies or entities received the lucrative vouchers.
"Despite U.N. sanctions, many countries and companies engaged in prohibited procurement with the Iraqi regime throughout the 1990s, largely because of the profitability of such trade," Duelfer reported.
France, Italy, India, Turkey, Jordan and Romania may have sold Hussein dual-purpose equipment that could be converted for production of unconventional weapons.
The success of Hussein's regime in circumventing the U.N. embargo is "grossly obvious," the report says. "It is also grossly obvious how the sanctions perverted not just the [Iraqi] national system of finance and economics, but to some extent the international markets and organizations."
So, to recap, the ISG found that the White House didn't lie about the threat posed by Saddam's government. At best, it was misled, together with the rest of the world, (and Saddam's own generals!), as to the scope of the threat by Saddam Hussein himself.
The White House didn't 'rush to war' by 'ignoring our allies'. Our 'allies' had betrayed us already and sold out to Saddam Hussein. Saddam had three out of five Security Council vetoes in his pocket. The UN would NEVER have supported the US, and neither would John Kerry's trusted European 'allies'.
The sanctions were NOT working, and giving inspections more time would have resulted in the sanctions being eventually lifted against Iraq.
Saddam would still be in power, with a pocketful of 'allies' (France, Germany, Russia, China, the UN, etc.) already bought and paid for.
John Kerry said that under his watch, America would never take preemptive military action without first submitting to a 'global test' and the support of our 'allies' -- whom he has at various times, identified as being France, Russia, Germany and the United Nations Security Council.
The Kerry Doctrine: "Find a REAL 'coalition of the bribed, coerced, the bought and the extorted' -- and having done so, grant them a veto over US security."
According to John Kerry, THAT is the recipe for bringing peace and safety to America. According to the national polls, the 'Kerry Doctrine' enjoys the support of almost half the American voting public.
It is a Skerry thought.
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Terror - Islam
Although the US war on terror is ostensibly a global war with many allies, in reality, it is an American war on terror. And that is something we’d better get used to.
The mythical United Nations worshipped by the Left does not exist. The United Nations that does exist is united only in its opposition to all things Israeli, which, by definition, includes all things American.
If there is a single issue over which there is almost no division at the UN, it is the shared view that world peace will never be possible as long as Israel exists.
When an anti-Israeli resolution comes before General Assembly, the vote is always the same: the whole world votes in favor -- with the United States, Israel, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands opposed.
Our ‘closest allies’ at the UN -- according to the liberal left – include Germany, France and Russia. With allies like that, who needs enemies?
They claim to stand united with America against the terrorists -- provided the US doesn’t ask them to do anything EXCEPT stand. None of them seem particularly interested in DOING anything beyond that.
Not even the Russians. They are going after their own terrorists, but any claims of cross-cooperation are a fantasy, except in cases where it benefits Moscow.
America’s global war on terror remains America’s war, despite the very significant contributions from genuine allies like Australia, the UK, Poland and some of the former Eastern European Soviet bloc countries.
But both Tony Blair and John Howard are in deep trouble at home because of their courageous commitment to the US effort to liberate and rebuild Iraq. Both face tough re-election battles, and the central issue in each campaign revolves around Iraq and the war on terror.
On the other hand, our other alleged ‘allies’ at the UN, especially France, Germany and Russia, are not just sitting on their hands – they are actively helping terrorists and terror states procure and develop weapons of mass destruction.
As Bill Gertz explained in his book, ‘Treachery’, “intelligence reports showing French assistance to Saddam ongoing in the late winter of 2002 helped explain why France refused to deal harshly with Iraq and blocked U.S. moves at the United Nations.”
Iraq's Mirage F-1 fighter jets were made by France's Dassault Aviation. Its Gazelle attack helicopters were made by Aerospatiale, which became part of a consortium of European defense companies.
The State Department confirmed intelligence indicating the French had given support to Iraq's military.
The central figure in these weapons ties is French President Jacques Chirac. His relationship with Saddam dates to 1975, when, as prime minister, the French politician rolled out the red carpet when the Iraqi strongman visited Paris.
"I welcome you as my personal friend," Chirac told Saddam, then vice president of Iraq.
France's corrupt dealings with Saddam flourished throughout the 1990s, despite the strict arms embargo against Iraq imposed by the United Nations after the Persian Gulf War.
By 2000, France had become Iraq's largest supplier of military and dual-use equipment
In mid-March 2003, U.S. intelligence and defense officials confirmed that exporters in France had conspired with China to provide Iraq with chemicals used in making solid fuel for long-range missiles.
In April, 2003, an American A-10 Thunderbolt was shot down by Iraqi forces. The A10 was hit by a French-made Roland anti-aircraft missile. Army intelligence concluded that the French had sold the missile to the Iraqis within the past year.
A week later, a US Army team searching Iraqi weapons depots at the Baghdad airport discovered caches of French-made missiles.
One anti-aircraft missile, among a cache of 51 Roland-2s from a French-German manufacturing partnership, bore a label indicating that the batch was produced just months earlier.
Keep in mind that these weapons were being sold to Saddam Hussein’s government in violation of UN sanctions WHILE Dominique de Villepin was fighting tooth and nail at the UN to keep Saddam in power.
In May, Army intelligence found a stack of blank French passports in an Iraqi ministry. They found French-made trucks and radios as well as RPGs with French-made night sights.
A Defense Department-sponsored report produced in February identified France as one of the top three suppliers of Iraq's conventional arms, after Russia and China. The report revealed that France supplied 12 types of armaments and a total of 115,005 pieces -- while Iraq was under UN embargo.
Why would our allegedly closest allies arm our enemies – knowing those weapons will be used to kill Americans?
Because they hope we’ll lose. Even if America survives, they are hoping that it will result in a corresponding reduction of American power and influence – ending what Jacques Chirac dubbed a ‘unipolar’ world.
If al-Qaeda can successfully cripple America to the degree it is no longer the world’s only superpower, then the task of developing a counter-balance to American global influence becomes that much easier. And if a few million Americans die in the process, well, c’est la vie!
As a consequence, our alleged allies want no active role in it; unless and until they are certain that we are winning. In that case, they’ll be the first to clap us on the back and celebrate the "collective victory over world terrorism," and hope we’ll let bygones be bygones.
As the Bible’s outline for the last days continues to develop, more and more of the Big Picture begins to come into focus.
According to Scripture, in the very last days, Israel will face the assembled might of the world’s collective armies alone.
Zechariah writes, “And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (12:3)
Consider the historical progression so far. There is no political potato hotter than Jerusalem. Every nation that has attempted her destruction was cut to pieces. Israel won all five of her wars by utterly decimating her enemy’s war-making capability.
It took years after each attempt for the Arabs to sufficiently rebuild their military capabilities so they could try again. Even with the almost unlimited military aid given the defeated Arab states by the Soviets and Europeans.
Zechariah says that ALL that burden themselves ‘will be cut in pieces’ – allies as well as enemies. America became a target of Islamic terror more for its support of Israel than any other reason.
According to Zechariah, Israel is alone in this final confrontation, under siege by ALL the people of the earth – there is no mention of an ally standing beside her – apart from God.
Zechariah says that; “In that day shall the LORD [and not Washington] defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” (12:8)
In the Big Picture, we can already see the four spheres of global power defined by Scripture assuming their final forms; the reviving Roman Empire, the Gog-Magog alliance, the Kings of the East and the Kings of the South [Islamic North Africa].
That pretty much encompasses our erstwhile ‘allies’ in the war on terror who are sitting on the sidelines hoping for an Islamic victory over America.
But Scripture makes no mention of a fifth, overarching superpower resembling the United States.
“So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom
of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass
away, till ALL be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:31-32)
Excerpted from the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest Volume:36, Issue:30
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By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The United States
stood by for years as supposed allies helped its enemies obtain the world's most
dangerous weapons, reveals Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter
for The Washington Times, in the new book "Treachery" (Crown Forum). In this
excerpt, he details France's persistence in arming Saddam Hussein.
First of three excerpts
New intelligence revealing how long France continued to supply and arm
Saddam Hussein's regime infuriated U.S. officials as the nation prepared for
military action against Iraq.
The intelligence reports showing French assistance to Saddam ongoing in the
late winter of 2002 helped explain why France refused to deal harshly with Iraq
and blocked U.S. moves at the United Nations.
"No wonder the French are opposing us," one U.S. intelligence official
remarked after illegal sales to Iraq of military and dual-use parts, originating
in France, were discovered early last year before the war began.
That official was careful to stipulate that intelligence reports did not
indicate whether the French government had sanctioned or knew about the parts
transfers. The French company at the beginning of the pipeline remained
unidentified in the reports.
France's government tightly controls its aerospace and defense firms,
however, so it would be difficult to believe that the illegal transfers of
equipment parts took place without the knowledge of at least some government
officials.
Iraq's Mirage F-1 fighter jets were made by France's Dassault Aviation. Its
Gazelle attack helicopters were made by Aerospatiale, which became part of a
consortium of European defense companies.
"It is well-known that the Iraqis use front companies to try to obtain a
number of prohibited items," a senior Bush administration official said before
the war, refusing to discuss Iraq's purchase of French warplane and helicopter
parts.
The State Department confirmed intelligence indicating the French had given
support to Iraq's military.
"U.N. sanctions prohibit the transfer to Iraq of arms and materiel of all
types, including military aircraft and spare parts," State Department
spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said. "We take illicit transfers to Iraq very
seriously and work closely with our allies to prevent Iraq from acquiring
sensitive equipment."
Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Republican and chairman of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, declared that France's selling of military equipment
to Iraq was "international treason" as well as a violation of a U.N. resolution.
"As a pilot and a former war pilot, this disturbs me greatly that the
French would allow in any way parts for the Mirage to be exported so the Iraqis
could continue to use those planes," Stevens said.
"The French, unfortunately, are becoming less trustworthy than the
Russians," said Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican and vice chairman of
the House Armed Services Committee. "It's outrageous they would allow technology
to support the jets of Saddam Hussein to be transferred."
The U.S. military was about to go to war with Iraq, and thanks to the
French, the Iraqi air force had become more dangerous.
The pipeline
French aid to Iraq goes back decades and includes transfers of advanced
conventional arms and components for weapons of mass destruction.
The central figure in these weapons ties is French President Jacques Chirac.
His relationship with Saddam dates to 1975, when, as prime minister, the French
politician rolled out the red carpet when the Iraqi strongman visited Paris.
"I welcome you as my personal friend," Chirac told Saddam, then vice
president of Iraq.
The French put Saddam up at the Hotel Marigny, an annex to the presidential
palace, and gave him the trappings of a head of state. The French wanted Iraqi
oil, and by establishing this friendship, Chirac would help France replace the
Soviet Union as Iraq's leading supplier of weapons and military goods.
In fact, Chirac helped sell Saddam the two nuclear reactors that started
Baghdad on the path to nuclear weapons capability.
France's corrupt dealings with Saddam flourished throughout the 1990s,
despite the strict arms embargo against Iraq imposed by the United Nations after
the Persian Gulf war.
By 2000, France had become Iraq's largest supplier of military and dual-use
equipment, according to a senior member of Congress who declined to be
identified.
Saddam developed networks for illegal supplies to get around the U.N. arms
embargo and achieve a military buildup in the years before U.S. forces launched
a second assault on Iraq.
One spare-parts pipeline flowed from a French company to Al Tamoor Trading
Co. in the United Arab Emirates. Tamoor then sent the parts by truck through
Turkey, and into Iraq. The Iraqis obtained spare parts for their French-made
Mirage F-1 jets and Gazelle attack helicopters through this pipeline.
A huge debt
U.S. intelligence would not discover the pipeline until the eve of war last
year; sensitive intelligence indicated that parts had been smuggled to Iraq as
recently as that January.
"A thriving gray-arms market and porous borders have allowed Baghdad to
acquire smaller arms and components for larger arms, such as spare parts for
aircraft, air-defense systems and armored vehicles," the CIA said in a report to
Congress made public that month.
U.S. intelligence agencies later came under fire over questions about prewar
estimates of Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But intelligence
on Iraq's hidden procurement networks was confirmed.
An initial accounting by the Pentagon in the months after the fall of
Baghdad revealed that Saddam covertly acquired between 650,000 and 1 million
tons of conventional weapons from foreign sources. The main suppliers were
Russia, China and France.
By contrast, the U.S. arsenal is between 1.6 million and 1.8 million tons.
As of last year, Iraq owed France an estimated $4 billion for arms and
infrastructure projects, according to French government estimates. U.S.
officials thought this massive debt was one reason France opposed a military
operation to oust Saddam.
The fact that illegal deals continued even as war loomed indicated France
viewed Saddam's regime as a future source of income.
Telltale chemical
Just days before U.S. and coalition forces launched their military campaign
against Iraq, more evidence of French treachery emerged.
In mid-March 2003, U.S. intelligence and defense officials confirmed that
exporters in France had conspired with China to provide Iraq with chemicals used
in making solid fuel for long-range missiles. The sanctions-busting operation
occurred in August 2002, the U.S. National Security Agency discovered through
electronic intercepts.
The chemical transferred to Iraq was a transparent liquid rubber called
hydroxy terminated polybutadiene, or HTPB, according to intelligence reports.
U.S. intelligence traced the sale to China's Qilu Chemicals, "the largest
manufacturer of HTPB in China," one official says.
A French company, CIS Paris, helped broker the sale of 20 tons of HTPB, a
controlled export that was shipped from China to the Syrian port of Tartus. The
chemical solution was sent by truck from Syria into Iraq, to a
missile-manufacturing plant. The Iraqi company that purchased the shipment was
in charge of making solid fuel for long-range missiles.
HTPB technically is a dual-use chemical, because it also can be used for
commercial purposes such as space launches. However, Iraq often disguised
military purchases as commercial ones, as documents found later in Iraq would
confirm.
In a report to Congress, the CIA said Iraq had constructed two "mixing"
buildings for solid-propellant fuels at a plant known as al-Mamoun. The facility
originally was built to produce the Badr-2000, a solid-propellant missile also
known as the Condor.
The new buildings "appear especially suited to house large, U.N.-prohibited
mixers of the type acquired for the Badr-2000 program," the CIA report stated.
French denials
Despite controversy over prewar intelligence on Iraq, the CIA said its
estimates of Iraqi missiles were on target.
Representatives of the French and Chinese governments went on the attack
when The Washington Times asked about the chemical sale.
Chinese Embassy spokesman Xie Feng did not address the specifics, but said
"irresponsible accusations" about China's exports had been made in the past.
"These accusations are devoid of all foundation," French Foreign Ministry
spokesman Francois Rivasseau declared. "In line with the rules currently in
force, France has neither delivered, nor authorized, the delivery of such
materials, either directly or indirectly."
By that point, many in the U.S. government were fed up with French denials.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz called in the French ambassador to
the United States, Jean-David Levitte, to complain about France's covert and
overt support for Saddam's regime.
"Twelve years of waiting was too costly in terms of the growing threat from
Baghdad," Wolfowitz told the ambassador, according to a U.S. official who was
present.
Made in France
The war in Iraq, which began March 19, 2003, provided disturbing evidence
that France's treacherous dealings come at a steep cost to the United States.
On April 8 came the downing of Air Force Maj. Jim Ewald's A-10 Thunderbolt
fighter over Baghdad and the discovery that it was a French-made Roland missile
that brought down the American pilot and destroyed a $13 million aircraft. Ewald,
one of the first U.S. pilots shot down in the war, was rescued by members of the
Army's 54th Engineer Battalion who saw him parachute to earth not far from the
wreckage.
Army intelligence concluded that the French had sold the missile to the
Iraqis within the past year, despite French denials.
A week after Ewald's A-10 was downed, an Army team searching Iraqi weapons
depots at the Baghdad airport discovered caches of French-made missiles. One
anti-aircraft missile, among a cache of 51 Roland-2s from a French-German
manufacturing partnership, bore a label indicating that the batch was produced
just months earlier.
In May, Army intelligence found a stack of blank French passports in an
Iraqi ministry, confirming what U.S. intelligence already had determined: The
French had helped Iraqi war criminals escape from coalition forces -- and
therefore justice.
Then, there were French-made trucks and radios and the deadly grenade
launchers, known as RPGs, with French-made night sights. Saddam loyalists used
them to kill American soldiers long after the toppling of the dictator's regime.
The intelligence team sent to find Iraqi weapons also discovered documents
outlining covert Iraqi weapons procurement leading up to the war. The CIA,
however, refused to make public the documents on assistance provided by France
or by other so-called allies of the United States.
The clandestine arms-procurement network, disclosed late last year by the
Los Angeles Times, put a Syrian trading company in a pivotal role. Documents
showed the company, SES International Corp., was the conduit for millions of
dollars' worth of weapons purchased internationally, including from France. Al
Bashair Trading Co. in Baghdad was the major front used by Saddam to buy arms
abroad.
A Defense Department-sponsored report produced in February identified France
as one of the top three suppliers of Iraq's conventional arms, after Russia and
China. The report revealed that France supplied 12 types of armaments and a
total of 115,005 pieces.
A major reason Iraqi militants posed a threat to U.S. forces for so many
months was that they had access to weapons that Saddam stockpiled in violation
of U.N. resolutions.
A close call
One of the most frightening examples of how the militants put French weapons
to use against the Americans came Oct. 26, 2003. That morning, at about 6
o'clock, they bombarded the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad with French missiles.
The French rockets nearly killed Wolfowitz, whom Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld has called "the brains" of the Pentagon.
The deputy defense secretary had just gotten dressed in his room that Sunday
morning when a car stopped several hundred yards from the hotel. It dropped off
what appeared to be one of the blue electrical generators that were common in
the power-starved Iraqi capital. The driver stayed just long enough to open a
panel on the end of the metal box that was pointing upward toward the hotel.
The car sped off. Minutes later, a pod of 40 artillery rockets set off by
remote control began firing at the hotel, their trails leaving sparks as they
flew. The rockets hit one floor below where Wolfowitz and about a dozen aides
and reporters were staying.
One rocket slammed into the room of Army Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring, a
public-affairs officer. The explosion hit Buehring, 40, in the head. A reporter
discovered him and tried to help, but the Fayetteville, N.C., resident died a
short time later.
In all, between eight and 10 missiles hit the hotel. The casualties might
have been higher, and included Wolfowitz, if the improvised rocket launcher had
fired all the missiles.
Because of a malfunction, 11 failed to go off.
Playing defense
Half the missiles fired at Wolfowitz's hotel were French-made Matra SNEB
68-millimeter rockets, with a range of two to three miles. The others were
Russian in origin.
The French missiles were "pristine," Navy SEAL commandos reported.
"They were either new or kept in very good condition," said one SEAL who
inspected the rocket tubes.
The rockets were thought to have been taken from Iraq's French-made Alouette
or Gazelle attack helicopters.
The fact that new French missiles were showing up in the hands of Saddam
loyalists months after the fall of Baghdad made Wolfowitz and his close aides
livid. Still, others in the U.S. government worked to defend the French.
The CIA, to avoid upsetting ties with French intelligence, played down the
French role in helping Saddam. The agency had a weak human
intelligence?gathering capability, and France, because of its history of ties to
Iraq, was much better at penetrating Saddam's regime.
The State Department's response was not surprising. Asked about French
support for Iraq while on a fence-mending mission to Paris in May 2003,
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had said: "We're not going to paper over it
and pretend it didn't occur. It did occur. But we're going to work through
that."
Powell, the retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, was too inexperienced in the ways of diplomacy. As a result, he
largely had turned over control of State Department policy-making to the Foreign
Service.
The problem with the Foreign Service is its culture. It trains diplomats to
"get along" with the foreign governments they are sent to work with. Not
insignificantly, Paris is among the most coveted postings in the world.
Backing down
Pentagon hard-liners on France, led by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, carried the
day early in the war, but accommodationists within the upper councils of the
Bush administration took control as the conflict went on.
Among those who took a softer position on France was National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the former Stanford provost who surrounded herself
with State Department officials and Foreign Service officers.
Rumsfeld drew a great deal of attention on Jan. 22, 2003 -- and created a
backlash within the State Department -- when he let fly a verbal salvo against
France and Germany for not siding with the United States, describing them as
"old Europe" during a meeting with foreign reporters.
Rumsfeld also criticized French and German political leaders for making
policy based not on "their honest conviction as to what their country ought to
do" but on opinion polls that reflected ever-shifting public sentiments.
As the accommodationists in the Bush administration gained the upper hand,
Rumsfeld and others were ordered to tone down the anti-Europe rhetoric. By late
last year, the defense secretary's critics within the Foreign Service were
crowing that Rumsfeld had been "tamed."
Just a day after the Iraqi attack on Wolfowitz's hotel in Baghdad, in an
interview with The Washington Times, Rumsfeld took an even softer approach
toward the French.
"People tend to look at what's taking place today and opine that it is
something distinctive," Rumsfeld said of the turbulence in Franco-American
relations. "I don't find it distinctive. I find it an old record that gets
replayed about every five or seven years."
The public soft-policy line was, in many ways, a great victory for France.
Even as new evidence poured in that the French had betrayed the United States
and cost the lives of American troops, the government backed down from a
confrontation with its erstwhile ally.
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By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The United States
stood by for years as supposed allies helped its enemies obtain the world's most
dangerous weapons, reveals Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter
for The Washington Times, in the new book "Treachery" (Crown Forum).
Second of three excerpts
Musa Kusa, the head of Libya's spy agency, got the attention of Britain's
Foreign Office and MI6 intelligence service when he contacted them in March
2003.
Kusa was a man with blood on his hands. He had been deputy chief of Libyan
intelligence when two of its agents were dispatched to blow up Pan Am Flight 103
in December 1988, killing all 259 on board and 11 on the ground.
When Kusa informed the British officials that he had an offer from Libyan
dictator Moammar Gadhafi, they heard him out.
Kusa said Libya would agree to rid itself of all nuclear and chemical
weapons and materials, along with longer-range missile delivery systems.
Gadhafi's condition: Britain and the United States must help remove the
sanctions on his regime and normalize relations with Libya, an officially
designated state sponsor of terrorism.
The CIA was skeptical.
"You're talking to the most suspicious organization in the world," said one
intelligence official who was closely involved in the negotiations.
Still, a decision was made at the highest levels of both governments -- by
President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair -- to pursue the talks.
To Douglas Feith, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, Gadhafi's
apparent decision to "open up" reflected a victory in Bush's global war on
terrorism, which focused on the connections among terrorist organizations,
weapons of mass destruction and state sponsors of terrorism.
For many years, Gadhafi tried to remain at that intersection while
attempting to buy his way off the list of rogue states, Feith said.
"When President Bush made it clear that living at that intersection is
really dangerous," Feith said, "Gadhafi decided he was going to come clean."
Over several months, CIA officers and British diplomatic and intelligence
officials held secret meetings with Libyan representatives in London. In May
2003, Gadhafi himself met with U.S. and British officials in Tunisia. That fall,
a CIA and MI6 team visited Libya.
Before a second planned visit to Libya could take place, another event
exposed a clandestine network of nuclear suppliers headed by scientist Abdul
Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program.
And that same month, October 2003, a U.S.-initiated diversion and search of
a German-flagged ship bound for Libya from the United Arab Emirates also called
into question Gadhafi's sincerity in negotiating Libya's nuclear and chemical
disarmament.
Khan's key man
What one CIA official called a "breakthrough" in the secret arms talks with
Libya was the result of electronic eavesdropping conducted by the supersecret
U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Back in 2000, U.S. intelligence agencies had put Khan under clandestine
electronic surveillance and soon confirmed long-held suspicions that he was a
major figure in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Intercepts revealed that
Khan's network of companies and contacts stretched from Southeast Asia to
Europe.
The intercept that reached NSA headquarters in early October 2003 concerned
Khan and key associate Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman. Tahir,
having married a Malaysian in 1998, was a permanent resident of Malaysia.
U.S. officials said Tahir and his brother owned SMB Group, a company based
in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Tahir did work with SCOMI Precision Engineering, known as SCOPE, a
subsidiary of a petroleum-services company that produced centrifuge parts for
Libya's growing nuclear-weapons program. SCOPE had a plant in Shah Alam,
Malaysia, about 95 miles southeast of the capital of Kuala Lumpur, where it
worked on centrifuge components for Gadhafi.
The evidence in the NSA intercept led investigators directly to Tahir, who
would reveal the extent of his involvement with Khan and the reach of Khan's
network. Investigators later concluded that Tahir's company served as a front
for numerous black-market deals for nuclear technology; he was a key player in
building Libya's program.
Tahir's first contact with A.Q. Khan occurred in 1985, when Tahir visited
Pakistan and won a contract to supply air-conditioning equipment to the Khan
Research Laboratory.
U.S. officials concluded that Tahir played a critical role in Khan's covert
nuclear-weapons network, which would sell equipment -- specifically centrifuge
components -- to Libya, Iran, North Korea and other rogue states. The network
cleverly disguised transactions by also selling commercial equipment used in oil
drilling, water treatment and other unrelated endeavors.
Libya's interest
Investigators reveal that in about 1995, Khan asked Tahir to send two
containers of centrifuge parts from Dubai to Iran aboard an Iranian merchant
ship.
Iran paid Tahir and Khan about $3 million. The cash was delivered in
suitcases to a guesthouse in Dubai that Khan used during frequent visits to the
Persian Gulf.
In 1997, Libyan intelligence agents reportedly contacted Khan and requested
help in developing a uranium-enrichment system with centrifuges. Several
meetings between Khan and the Libyans followed, including one in Istanbul. Among
those present were Khan, Tahir and two Libyan arms-procurement officials,
Mohamad Matuq Mohamad and a man identified only as Karim. The Libyans said they
wanted to build a centrifuge and were willing to pay for it, whatever the cost.
Khan, Tahir and Mohamad met several times between 1998 and 2002 -- at least
once in Dubai and once in Casablanca, Morocco, Tahir later said.
In 2001, Khan notified Tahir that Pakistan had sent Libya a shipment of
uranium hexafluoride, the gas necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for
nuclear bombs. By 2001 and 2002, Khan was sending centrifuge components for
complete machines aboard Pakistani cargo flights to Libya.
Tahir told Malaysian investigators that he thought the centrifuge design had
been copied from the P1 model, which Pakistan adapted from a centrifuge plan
stolen from the European conglomerate Urenco.
The Libyans put the centrifuges in a nuclear facility code-named Project
Machine Shop 1001. Tahir said Libya used middlemen to set up the facility and to
obtain equipment, including a lathe to make centrifuge components and a furnace
to temper them.
Nuclear agents
Tahir identified a key middleman as Peter Griffin, a British national who
was retired and living in France. Griffin's son now headed his company, Gulf
Technical Industries.
Tahir disclosed the names of other nuclear agents. One was the late Heinz
Mebus, an engineer who helped Khan smuggle centrifuge designs to Iran in 1984
and 1985.
Another supplier was Gotthard Lerch, a German who lived in Switzerland and
at one time worked for the German company Leybold Heraeus, producer of vacuum
technology. Lerch tried to help the Libyans obtain specialty pipes for Machine
Shop 1001 from South Africa, but was unable to conclude the deal even after
Libya paid for the tubes in advance.
Tahir also fingered Gunas Jireh, a Turkish national whom Khan had hired to
supply aluminum casting and a centrifuge dynamo for the Libyan nuclear program.
Another Turk, engineer Selim Alguadis, supplied the Libyan nuclear program with
electrical cabinets and voltage-regulator equipment.
Tahir said some of the most important contributors to the Libyan nuclear
program came from a Swiss family, the Tinners.
Friedrich Tinner, a mechanical engineer, had worked covertly with Khan
since the 1980s and was able to provide safety valves for centrifuges obtained
from European manufacturers. Tinner arranged for the goods to be shipped to
Libya by way of Dubai.
Tinner's son, Urs, worked for Tahir and helped set up SCOPE's factory in
Malaysia in December 2001. Urs was also in charge of setting up Libya's machine
shop. At one point, he coordinated with brother Marco, owner of Switzerland's
Traco Co., to import key machines to Libya. Urs also procured machines from
Britain, France and Taiwan.
In all, the Khan network helped Libya purchase more than a hundred machine
tools for its plant. Libya's goal was to produce a cascade of 10,000 centrifuges
to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.
Stopping a ship
The Libyans made other efforts to hide their nuclear procurement. When
purchasing raw materials for centrifuge components, they chose a grade of
aluminum tubes that was not controlled for export and thus would not raise
suspicions among intelligence agencies.
Libya purchased 300 metric tons of tubes from a Singapore-based company
that was a subsidiary of the German company Bikar Metalle. Tahir then arranged
for the tubes to be machined at the SCOPE plant in Malaysia.
Between December 2002 and August 2003, even while the Libyans were in
disarmament talks with British and U.S. intelligence, Tahir sent the tubes to
Libya in four shipments via a trading company in Dubai.
But Libya's ongoing nuclear advances were thwarted Oct. 4, 2003, seven
months after its spy chief, Kusa, first reached out to the British.
That was the day the CIA alerted German and Italian authorities that the
German-flagged ship BBC China was bound for Libya with parts for its nuclear
program.
The vessel had set sail from Dubai. The U.S. government contacted the ship's
owner, the German company BBC Chartering and Logistic GmbH, and asked for help
in blocking the shipment. With that assistance and the presence of a U.S.
warship, the vessel was diverted to a port in Italy.
This was considered the first action of what is now known as the
Proliferation Security Initiative, the Bush administration's program for halting
illegal-weapons sales.
When investigators boarded the BBC China and seized the cargo, they
confirmed that five shipping containers contained parts that could have helped
Gadhafi build nuclear bombs.
The containers were filled with wooden boxes bearing the SCOPE logo. All
the goods were made of high-quality aluminum used to make high-speed centrifuges
for enriching uranium. Also on board were the aluminum casting goods and dynamo
that nuclear agent Gunas Jireh had procured for Libya.
U.S. intelligence agencies previously had not known the extent of Libya's
nuclear-arms program.
Two weeks later, investigators discovered that Tahir had arranged to ship
electrical components to Libya for its machine plant.
Gadhafi's lesson
Caught in the act, Libya was forced to publicly reveal it had worked
secretly to build nuclear as well as chemical weapons.
Gadhafi, concerned about his legacy and an economy hit hard by sanctions,
made a startling announcement two months later, in December 2003. The dictator
said Libya would abandon its nuclear and chemical arms programs, limit the range
of its missiles and comply with numerous international weapons treaties.
Libya ultimately admitted it had spent some $500 million since the late
1990s in developing nuclear weapons.
Gadhafi's announcement was widely hailed as a victory in the effort to stem
the flow of nuclear-weapons technology to rogue states.
Feith, the U.S. undersecretary of defense, was more cautious. But he
acknowledged that Libya's pledge to disarm could be an important step.
Feith suggested that Gadhafi adopted this approach after the sobering
U.S.-led ousters of the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam from Iraq.
"At that point, Gadhafi, having tried for years to get off the 'bad list'
[of rogue states] by means short of opening up, decided that he had to open up,"
Feith said. "Now, what does one infer from that? I suppose it seems as if he
came to the conclusion that it was too risky being coy, it was too risky trying
these lesser means to get off the bad list.
"And it became more urgent for him to get off the bad list when he saw the
fate of the Taliban regime and the Saddam Hussein regime."
Still, the Libyans have continued to deny the existence of a
biological-weapons program, even though numerous intelligence reports indicate
they have such a program.
Sobering reminder
Feith and other U.S. officials were right to be cautious and skeptical about
Gadhafi's disarmament pledge. In May, the United Nations' International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) produced a report that confirmed their suspicions.
The confidential report praised the Libyan government for allowing
inspectors to examine nuclear-weapons facilities, and it disclosed for the first
time the exact locations of those sites. But on the whole, the report was a
sobering reminder that much remained unknown about the Libyan nuclear-weapons
program.
The report stated, for example, that Libya failed to provide documents
confirming the program had been dismantled. And U.S. officials said the Libyans
could not account for major portions of components and equipment.
The IAEA report stated that a container of centrifuge components "actually
arrived in Libya in March 2004."
The report concluded that "nearly all of the technology involved in Libya's
past nuclear activities was obtained from foreign sources, often through
intermediaries."
The IAEA did not identify countries or persons, but those involved included
at least one declared nuclear-weapons state, probably Russia or China; an
Eastern European nation; a Western European company; a Far Eastern country; and
a "supplier state" thought to be Pakistan.
"Libya has stated that centrifuge-related training had been provided by
foreign experts at locations in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and
Southeast Asia," the report said.
The stark conclusion was that Libya, known to support international
terrorism, received much assistance in building the most deadly weapons known to
man.
Reason for doubt
The report's most alarming section related to whether the Libyans tried to
make a nuclear warhead. Libyan government officials said that in January, they
turned over to the United States all documents and drawings related to nuclear
weapons design and manufacturing. They asserted that the data never had been
transferred in electronic form.
"It is practically impossible for the agency to prove or disprove such
statements," the IAEA reported, highlighting just how much remained unknown
about the Libyan program -- and the difficulty of weapons monitoring and
verification in general.
Libya received design data for nuclear warheads in late 2001 or early 2002,
but the Libyans said they did not act on the information or even check whether
it was credible or practical. The IAEA doubted this.
"This is surprising," the IAEA report said, "given the substantial effort
that was being devoted to uranium enrichment."
U.S. officials familiar with Libya's program said the design data
originated in China and probably had been re-exported from Pakistan through
Khan's network.
As it did in Iran, the IAEA discovered trace amounts of weapons-grade
uranium on centrifuge components in Libya. The highly enriched uranium may have
come from equipment sent from Pakistan or it could have been produced in Libya.
Whatever the case, the discovery raised serious questions about how far
along the Libyan nuclear program was -- and whether Libya's promises could be
trusted.
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By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The United States
stood by for years as supposed allies helped its enemies obtain the world's most
dangerous weapons, reveals Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter
for The Washington Times, in the new book "Treachery" (Crown Forum).
Last of three excerpts
Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's new foreign minister, delivered a memorable address
to the United Nations Security Council in New York on Dec. 16, 2003.
Zebari, an Iraqi Kurd, began his remarks by noting the historic capture,
three days earlier, of Saddam Hussein. Then, after laying out a plan for Iraq to
become a democracy, the foreign minister lowered the boom on the assembled
diplomats.
"One year ago," Zebari said, "this Security Council was divided between
those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wantedto hold him
accountable. The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the
Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today, we
are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure.
"The United Nations must not fail the Iraqi people again," he said.
It was clear to whom Zebari was referring: France, Germany, Russia and
China, among others in the world body, fought U.S.-led efforts to end Saddam's
bloody dictatorship.
But the organization's failure was far more significant than failing the
Iraqi people. The United Nations had failed in its founding purpose: to preserve
peace and international security.
It appeased Saddam for years before the United States called for decisive
action.
And Saddam's Iraq is just one of many rogue regimes that the United Nations
has failed to keep in check. Again and again, dangerous states have built up
their militaries and weapons programs right under the world body's nose, despite
sanctions and anti-proliferation agreements.
Sleeping watchdog
Three times, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency missed the covert
nuclear-arms programs of rogue regimes, allowing those states to build deadly
weapons capability under the guise of generating nuclear power.
Disclosures of the nuclear progress of North Korea, Libya and Iran came in
rapid succession, within the space of about a year. If the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) did not detect these programs, one must wonder what purpose
the U.N. branch serves.
The United Nations established the IAEA in 1957 to help countries build
nuclear facilities for generating electricity. Its initial program, Atoms for
Peace, quickly became "Atoms for Bombs." And not much has changed in the past
five decades, except the size of the program.
Today, the IAEA has about 2,200 staff members at its headquarters in Vienna,
Austria, and at four regional offices in Geneva, New York, Toronto and Tokyo.
Its budget for 2004 was $268.5 million.
The IAEA's statutory purpose is to assist in transferring expertise and
equipment for the "peaceful" use of nuclear power. The international agency also
is charged with making sure that nations do not divert equipment or material for
nuclear-energy development into weapons programs.
Specifically, Section 5 of the empowering statute directs the IAEA to
"establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special fissionable
and other materials, services, equipment, facilities and information made
available by the agency or at its request or under its supervision or control
are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose."
But the IAEA has not administered appropriate safeguards. And as a result,
it has been fooled again and again by states such as North Korea, Iran, Libya,
Syria and Iraq.
The centerpiece of the IAEA's work has been the Treaty on the
Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, which went into effect on March 5,
1970.
Korean threat
Rogue states generally sign international agreements only if doing so is
expedient. Nothing better illustrates this point than North Korea.
The NPT provided cover for North Korea's secret nuclear-weapons programs,
allowing Pyongyang to purchase equipment, train technicians and build reactors.
North Korea was one of the agreement's 188 signatories when, in the fall of
2002, the communist regime of Kim Jong-il revealed that it secretly had been
developing nuclear weapons.
The IAEA failed to anticipate or uncover North Korea's nuclear-weapons
program. The agency admitted as much last year, when it reported: "The agency
has never had the complete picture regarding [North Korean] nuclear activities."
Pyongyang froze plutonium production as part of a 1994 pact with the United
States known as the Agreed Framework. But the CIA noted in 1995, in a classified
Special National Intelligence Estimate: "Based on North Korea's past behavior,
the [intelligence] community agrees it would dismantle its known program [only]
if it had covertly developed another source of fissile material."
Sure enough, North Korea's disclosure in October 2002 of its
uranium-enrichment activity confirmed that Pyongyang was trying to build nuclear
bombs. In essence, Kim and the North Koreans were announcing that membership in
the NPT had been a ruse all along.
Still, the IAEA did not take a hard line with Kim. It responded to the
disclosure by sending faxes requesting "clarification." The North Koreans
ignored the request.
Saber-rattling
The IAEA adopted a resolution calling on Pyongyang to cooperate. The North
Koreans responded with a letter saying that they rejected the U.N. agency's
unfair and unilateral approach.
The director of North Korea's nuclear program, Ri Je-son, stated in a
letter dated Dec. 4, 2002, that Pyongyang would resume nuclear work if the
United States did not resume oil shipments to North Korea.
Then, on Jan. 10, 2003, North Korea unceremoniously abandoned its partners
in the NPT. In a broadcast on Kim's state radio, government commentator Jong
Pong-kil said the decision to pull out was a defensive measure:
"The United States trampled on the NPT and the [North Korean]-U.S. Agreed
Framework and is trying to crush us by all means," Jong declared. "By even
mobilizing the IAEA, the United States is compelling us to give up the right of
self-defense. Under such conditions, it is clear to everyone that we cannot let
the country's security and the nation's dignity be infringed upon by remaining
in the NPT treaty."
Jong then added a threat: "If the U.S. imperialists and their following
forces challenge our republic's withdrawal from the NPT with new pressure and
sanctions, we will respond with a stronger self-defensive measure."
In other words, the North Koreans, who already had shown that their
membership in the NPT was a ruse, were announcing that they would keep building
nuclear arms.
The IAEA's response to Jong's announcement was tantamount to appeasement.
Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian, said North Korea must return to
the NPT.
Then, during a meeting with U.S. senators, ElBaradei said: "If North Korea
were to show good behavior, they need to get some assurance as to what to expect
in return for good behavior, and I think that's very important in articulation
of what to expect in case of compliance."
It did not matter that the North Koreans openly admitted defying the IAEA
for years; ElBaradei sent the message that the international arms-control agency
would impose no penalty.
The matter was sent to the U.N. Security Council, but that body did little
more than express "deep concern" for the violations. The United States picked up
its diplomatic approach, which produced no results. North Korea continues its
drive for nuclear arms.
Iran and Libya
The United Nations also failed to confront the nuclear threat from Iran,
which, like North Korea, used the NPT to acquire equipment and materials to make
nuclear bombs.
When Iran's weapons work was discovered, showing that the Iranians knowingly
ignored obligations to their treaty partners, the IAEA essentially ignored the
violations. The agency sought only an additional "protocol" from Iran as a new
safeguard.
"This is a good day for peace, multilateralism and nonproliferation,"
ElBaradei declared after Iran signed the protocol. "A good day for peace because
the [IAEA] board decided to continue to make every effort to use verification
and diplomacy to resolve questions about Iran's nuclear program."
But "verification and diplomacy" failed to stop Iran from developing nuclear
arms in the first place. Despite pressure from security officials within the
Bush administration, ElBaradei refused to cite Iran for breaking its
obligations.
Moreover, the IAEA did not keep careful watch over Libya's nuclear-weapons
program, which was further along than both U.S. intelligence or the U.N. agency
had known.
When Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi publicly disclosed his weapons program
in December 2003, the IAEA knew nothing about it. The agency said Libya should
have reported its activities to the IAEA.
The IAEA was happy to report Tripoli's decision to eliminate "materials,
equipment and programs which lead to the production of internationally
proscribed weapons."
But the agency tried to minimize its failure to discover the program. It
noted that a Libyan official characterized his nation's uranium-enrichment
program as "at an early stage of development" and that "no industrial-scale
facility had been built, nor any enriched uranium produced."
Algeria long since had launched its own nuclear-arms program in response to
the military buildup by neighbor Libya, with which it had tense relations,
reflecting how weapons proliferation only breeds further proliferation.
U.S. intelligence agencies in the spring of 1991 detected the first signs
that Algeria was developing nuclear weapons with the assistance of China.
'New urgency'
The ultimate threat to peace is nuclear weapons in the hands of
international terrorists.
There is a real danger that terrorists could use nuclear materials in
radiological attacks, or "dirty bombs." Worse, terrorists would use them in a
nuclear blast that could kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands.
To his credit, the IAEA's ElBaradei has begun to worry about this threat.
"[Nuclear] source security has taken on a new urgency since 9/11," the U.N.
arms agency's director general said in a speech last year. "There are millions
of radiological sources used throughout the world. Most are very weak. What we
are focusing on is preventing the theft or loss of control of the powerful
radiological sources."
The fact is, al Qaeda and the world's other most lethal terrorist
organizations are trying to acquire nuclear arms.
The United Nations' record of failure to detect and halt nuclear threats
posed by rogue states, however, casts doubt on its ability to grapple with such
arms in the grip of shadowy terrorist groups.
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Report unveils Saddam's true strategic intentions
By Steven Komarow and John Diamond, USA TODAY
On the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein met with his top commanders. They chatted about a new uniform design as waiters served food. Then the dictator ordered the doors closed and turned to business: repelling the expected U.S.-led effort to liberate Kuwait.
"I want to make sure that the germ and chemical warheads, as well as the chemical and germ bombs, are available," Saddam said. (Related link: Transcript of 1991 conversation)
When it came to weapons of mass destruction, Saddam was a believer. Fusillades of poison gas had beat back waves of Iranian troops a few years earlier, and Saddam thought such weapons might help save him again.
His truculent attitude, captured on a tape uncovered and translated years later by U.S. weapons inspectors, would last but a few days. After a U.S. warning that use of such weapons would bring a massive response, Saddam fired only conventional warheads at Israel and Saudi Arabia. And within a year of Desert Storm, Saddam would back down again and order his banned weapons destroyed to meet United Nations demands.
The episode reflects the complex picture of Saddam that emerges from the 1,000-page report of chief U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer. The Iraqi dictator, now in U.S. military custody awaiting a war crimes trial in Iraq, comes across not as a madman but as a calculating adversary, ruthless but also ready to make a tactical retreat.
As the report makes clear, successive U.S. administrations misjudged not just Saddam's arsenal, but Saddam himself and in so doing may have missed opportunities to avoid war. To be sure, the Iraqi dictator comes across as brutal, perfectly willing to execute subordinates who defy him, or gas civilian populations. He was belligerent to the world. But the new portrait, one that was not available before last year's invasion, also shows that while the United States was obsessed with Saddam, Saddam was usually more concerned about neighboring Iran than his more distant adversary.
Understanding Saddam's actions, Duelfer suggests, requires "recalibrating the perspective of the reader" to see Saddam's world through his eyes.
Based largely on interrogation of the former dictator and members of his inner circle who are now awaiting trial, the report concludes that Saddam saw himself as the latest in a chain of great Iraqis in the tradition of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled the ancient Babylonian empire from 605 to 562 B.C. Even today, Saddam's biggest concern is his legacy. The FBI interrogator who has conducted all the interviews of Saddam used that vanity to try to prod him to tell his story and answer questions about banned weapons.
Saddam rightly feared the United States wanted to kill him. He said he didn't use a telephone more than twice in 10 years because he thought he'd be tracked. He grew increasingly distrustful over time. But he didn't see the United States as Iraq's main foe. That was Iran.
Fear of another Iranian invasion apparently compelled Saddam to play a double game: deny he had weapons of mass destruction to the West while leaving enough doubt that Iran could not be sure it wouldn't face the same devastating barrages the second time around. It turned out that Saddam was deceiving Iran and telling the West the truth, though it was hard to tell at the time. Saddam destroyed the weapons because he wanted the U.N. sanctions lifted — so he could buy more military components with which to fight Iran. But Saddam didn't loudly and unequivocally proclaim destruction of all his banned weapons because that would show Iraq's weakness to Iran, the report says.
One of Saddam's favorite books was Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Saddam identified with the protagonist, Santiago, the Cuban fisherman who hooks a great marlin only to have sharks eat the fish down to a skeleton.
"The story sheds light on Saddam's view of the world and his place in it," according to the report. To him, "even a hollow victory was by his reckoning a real one."
Saddam was willing to see his country reduced to poverty and decay rather than lose face to the U.N. sanctions and inspections. This was not clearly understood by the U.S. policy makers who tried to bring him to heel for a dozen years after the first Gulf War.
U.S. intelligence did a poor job discerning the mindset of Saddam and his inner circle in part because it had no access to that inner circle, Duelfer says.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Duelfer said the U.S. intelligence analysts "were actually in a very poor position. They didn't have any ground troops. They spent a lot of time looking at computer screens" instead of talking to Iraqis.
Saddam, meantime, came to misjudge the United States much as the United States misjudged him.
He was wily and had nearly won lifting of the U.N. sanctions at the time of the 9/11 attacks. But he did not understand how that day changed things. He committed a grievous error by being one of the few world leaders not to express outrage. Although he, too, distrusted al-Qaeda, he did not condemn it.
The report is not the last word. Saddam has told his interrogator that he's looking forward to the public stage that a war crimes trial will provide.
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The U.N. is in a
crisis of relevance.
In a
desperate effort to prevent the collapse of the international institution, Kofi
Annan appointed a 16-member "High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change"
last November. The report is expected in December. U.N. observers are eagerly
awaiting the panel's recommendations about two areas of critical concern to the
United States.
The panel
is expected to recommend the criteria to legitimize pre-emptive unilateral
action, and to recommend major changes in the structure of the U.N. Security
Council.
Kofi Annan
has already declared the
U.S. invasion of Iraq to be "illegal." Panel member Gareth Evans, a former
foreign minister of Australia,
told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars:
"A
central reason for our appointment was concern that the U.N., and indeed the
whole multilateral security system, was really at a crossroads with the
resurgence of unilateralism from you know whom, and increasing willingness to
bypass the Security Council."
When
George Bush
slammed shut the window of diplomacy, after the U.N. Security Council
refused to make good on its threats against Iraq, issued through 17 resolutions
over 12 years, the crisis of relevance at the U.N. became obvious to the world.
Annan's High Level Panel is expected to draft the rules of engagement which will
prevent, or at least provide the basis for international condemnation of
unilateral action in the future.
The reason
for the U.N. Security Council's inaction is now coming into focus. The unfolding
"Oil for Food" scandal implicates both U.N. officials, and officials in the
governments of those nations that refused to act. Benon Sevan, once the
executive director of the program, was among hundreds of people
who received oil vouchers and bribes from Hussein. As late as May, 2002,
France assured Hussein that it would use its veto in the Security Council to
prevent an invasion of Iraq.
This
revelation exposes two fundamental, fatal, flaws that permeate the United
Nations: a nation's self-interest will always trump the security interests of
other nations; and, corruption will always trump integrity in governments that
are empowered by appointment, rather than by the consent of the governed.
Both the
U.N., and the nations that refused to enforce 17 U.N. resolutions, chose to
profit from Saddam Hussein's corruption, rather than to put an end to his
support of terrorism and the oppression of his people.
Restructuring the U.N. Security Council will not change these fundamental flaws,
it will only expand the potential for abuse, further empower the U.N.
bureaucracy, and dilute the United States' power.
The U.N.'s
ultimate goal is to expand the U.N. Security Council, and to
eliminate P-5 - the permanent member status of the five nations that hold
veto power over Security Council actions.
The
recommendations of Annan's High Level Panel are not expected to reach for the
elimination of veto power at this time. It is expected to recommend the
expansion of Security Council membership, and perhaps, to expand the number of
permanent members.
Originally, the Security Council consisted of 11 members, five of which were
permanent, each with veto power. The remaining six members served two-year
terms, rotated among the member nations. The Council was
expanded to 15 members in 1965, with no change in the status of the
permanent members.
Four nations - Brazil, Germany, India and Japan - have formed a group to
lobby for permanent member status. There is additional support to add an African
nation to the group of new permanent members.
Annan's
High Level Panel has been deliberating in relative secrecy for nearly a year.
Their report may also be kept secret - at Kofi Annan's discretion. Retired Gen.
Brent Scowcroft is the only American on the panel.
Whatever
the panel recommends will have to be approved by the United States. This
so-called reform may be the deciding factor in the future of the United Nations.
Most of the world resents the ability, and willingness of the United States to
act unilaterally when it chooses. Without the reform measures expected from the
panel, other member nations will realize that the U.N. cannot contain and
control the United States.
If the
reform measures are adopted, the United States will signal its willingness to be
contained and controlled by the United Nations.
Politically, it will be extremely difficult for the United States to reject the
reform measures. But this may be the time, and the way for the United States to
declare to the world that it will not be a party to a global bureaucracy,
fraught with corruption, bent on controlling the destiny of all nations.
To do so,
the United States must offer a better alternative. What may be a better
alternative than expanding the Security Council, is the elimination of it. The
Security Council has been increasingly ineffective in reaching decisions, and
even less effective in enforcing the decisions it has reached.
Elimination of the Security Council would give the General Assembly reason to
exist, where nations can continue to meet to discuss differences, and to develop
voluntary agreements to work together on projects of mutual benefit.
The United
Nation's quest to administer its brand of global governance must be stopped.
Elimination of the Security Council would be a very good first step.
The
opportunity to further empower, or to begin dismantling the U.N. will be forced
upon the United States early next year when Annan's panel's recommendations are
revealed. Americans should make sure their elected officials know how they feel
about this important decision.
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EU Parliament Member:
(Palestinian) Intifada is European Proxy War Against America
Arutz Sheva ^ | 23 December 2003
EU Member of Parliament Ilka Schroeder delivered an address entitled, “The European Union, Israel, and Palestinian Terrorism” at the Center for German Studies of Ben Gurion University on Monday.
“The Europeans,” explained MP Schroeder, “supported the Palestinian Authority with the aim of becoming its main sponsor, and through this challenge the U.S. and present themselves as the future global power. Therefore, the Al-Aksa Intifada should be understood as a proxy war between Europe and the United States.”
"It is an open secret within the European Parliament that EU aid to the Palestinian Authority has not been spent correctly," MP Schroeder said during a recent address in New York. “The European Parliament does not intend to verify whether European taxpayers' money could have been used to finance anti-Semitic murderous attacks. Unfortunately, this fits well with European policy in this area."
MP Schroeder, a twenty five year old member of the German Green Party, began her political career protesting the war in Kosovo and denouncing globalization. A year ago MP Schroeder set her sights on an issue long avoided by members of the radical Left - the diverting of some of the 250 million in annual aid for the Arabs of Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) to corrupt officials and terrorist groups bent on Israel's destruction.
MP Schroeder managed to initiate an inquiry by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) into the issue despite significant pressure from her colleagues and fellow parliamentarians to ignore the issue. MP Schroeder has derided her colleagues who wish to ignore the issue of EU money funding terrorism against Jews as "simple-minded anti-Semites." She has also accused EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten of "winking approval of terrorist attacks funded by the EU."
In her Ben Gurion University address, MP Schroeder claimed the issue of the EU funding terrorist groups points to a broader European goal, namely, to use the Middle East conflict to challenge US hegemony.
"The primary goal of the EU is the internationalization of the conflict in order to underline the need for its own mediating role," she argues, warning that renewed European calls for a multinational force in the region - heard most recently by the head of the largest political bloc in the parliament - combined with heightened levels of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Arab world, could spell disaster for Jews everywhere. "The Palestinians are playing the ugly role of being the cannon fodder for Europe's hidden war against the U.S.," she adds.
While MP Schroeder's call for accountability in EU funding was supported by nearly one quarter of the 626-member parliament, she appears grimly convinced that her efforts to expose anti-Zionism, which she sees as Europe's polite version of anti-Semitism, has come to naught. MP Schroeder has been embraced by many Jewish groups in Europe and the U.S. and decided to visit Israel for her first time in order to further research the E.U.’s role in the region.
"There is no difference in the consciousness of an average member of the European Parliament and an average German peace demonstrator, and I consider this to be a mixture of naivete, moralism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism and an altogether serious danger," she said during her U.S. speaking tour. "It is against these trends that my efforts are directed."
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JOHN
FUND
Getting Physical
Union thugs target Republicans.
Monday, October 11, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
We may be about to experience an election unlike any we've seen in a while. The Florida recount in 2000 raised passions and blood pressure and featured some demonstrations on both sides, but there was no violence. This year, lots of groups are jostling with each other to monitor the elections in battleground states. For its part, the AFL-CIO has promised to dispatch thousands of election monitors to battleground states to watch for any hint of trouble at polling places. From the initial reports, they may be the ones for have to be watched as potential troublemakers.
Last week, in Orlando, Fla., approximately 60 union protestors stormed and ransacked the local Bush-Cheney headquarters causing considerable damage and injuring one campaign staffer, who suffered a broken wrist.
According to an Orlando Police Department report, Rhyan Metzler, a field director for the Republican Party, was at the headquarters about 1 p.m. last Tuesday when 60 protestors barged in. Van Church, a 53-year old protestor, forced the door open and caused Mr. Metzler's arm to be caught in it. His left wrist was fractured in the altercation. Police say Mr. Church will be charged with two counts of battery.
But Mr. Church is unrepentant. "If his wrist was fractured, it's a result of his own actions in jerking the door the way he did," he told the Orlando Sentinel. "He jerked the door out of my hand and cut it in the process." But since it is Mr. Church who is being charged, the police apparently didn't think Mr. Metzler did anything wrong.
Orlando's fracas was mirrored in Miami, where police reported that more than 100 union protestors stormed the Bush-Cheney office and shoved volunteers aside. No one was charged because most of the protestors left before the police arrived. In Tampa, about 35 protestors filled the local GOP office and intimidated the elderly volunteers working there.
The AFL-CIO took credit on its Web site for similar demonstrations--apparently all coordinated--in Independence, Mo., Kansas City, Mo., Dearborn, Mich., St. Paul, Minn., and West Allis, Wis. In what could be a related incident, the Bush-Cheney office in Knoxville, Tenn., had its plate-glass windows shattered by gunfire on Tuesday morning before volunteers showed up for work. Another Republican office, in Seattle, was broken into and had computer files stolen.
Esmerelda Aguilar, an AFL-CIO spokesman, says Republicans are "trying to politicize [the Orlando incident] and exaggerate the event." She maintains that all of the demonstrations "were peaceful protests" designed to call attention to new Bush administration regulations on overtime pay.
Rep. Tom Feeney (R., Fla.) is skeptical. He was speaker of the Florida House in 2000 and knows how important it is to address election-related problems early and not wait for Election Day. Mr. Feeney and 49 other GOP members of Congress have signed a letter asking the Justice Department to investigate if the coordinated protests violated any federal laws on protecting the rights to campaign and vote.
Rep. Feeney also says the Justice Department needs to let people know it is watching this election more closely than most. "We ask that you work with state law enforcement agencies in investigating a series of voting irregularities including forgeries in voter registration forms, casting simultaneous ballots in different states (double voting), and absentee voter fraud. Such activities disenfranchise those who properly register to vote and cast valid ballots."
Look for the Justice Department to become a major political football in this election. Already, its warnings that terrorists may well try to disrupt the Nov. 2 election is being greeted skeptically by some local election officials. New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, a Democrat, is openly asking if Attorney General John Ashcroft's warnings are part of a GOP effort to suppress voter turnout. Last week, Democrats responded by creating their own SWAT teams of lawyers that will be dispatched to any place where voting problems are recorded. One issue certain to be disputed will be provisional ballots, which are cast when someone doesn't find his name on the registration rolls. Such ballots are set aside and verified later. A flood of provisional ballot lists could tilt the election in close states one way or the other with Democrats demanding that officials "count every vote" and Republicans questioning the validity of some of the ballots.
California Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, a Republican, says she has found 3,000 new duplicate registrations in her district. "The current process today is really Third World conditions," she told CNN's Lou Dobbs program. When asked what she thinks about Democratic charges that her calls for investigations into the duplicate registrations will scare voters away from the polls, she refuses to back down. "You're damn right, I'm going to try to scare away the crooks."
Let's hope the lawyers don't take over this election's aftermath the way they did in Florida in 2000. To prevent that the Justice Department needs to step in now and enforce everyone's civil rights. That means protecting campaign workers from intimidation as well as preventing fraudul