US/K Losing Iraq War - Iran Emerges as Winner

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 15:30

US Talking With the Enemy
Newsweek
By Fareed Zakari

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8770160/site/newsweek

My diplomatic source argues that the people he has talked to appear credible and are willing to be tested (by ceasing their attacks for a week, for example). Their message to him has been, "The United States is not our strategic enemy. Our strategic enemy is Iran. We want to end the war with America." That is why they insist on direct talks with the Americans. During Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's reign, they refused to deal with the Iraqi government. "Now their position appears to have softened," the diplomat says. "They will talk to this government, but the United States must be involved as well." They don't want sporadic conversations but rather a real political process.

Part of what's bringing these people to the negotiating table is their fear that the insurgency in Iraq is being taken over by jihadists. The latter kill civilians and foreign diplomats, and blow up mosques, which gets them publicity but enrages the Iraqi public. The Baathists claim that they are conducting a classic "resistance" against foreign and Iraqi government forces only.

[....]

The United States has shifted its Iraq policy substantially over the past year. Having disbanded the Army and de-Baathified the government, it now advocates aggressive moves to co-opt the Sunnis.

Chalabi, remember him? Iranian Agent who never went away

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 15:33

The spokesman for Iraqi National Congress (INC), led by Ahmad Chalabi, said here Monday that Iran plays an important role in fostering peace and stability in Iraq.

In an exclusive interview with al-Alam internet site Entifadh Qanbar said "we have the longest border with Iran and share many commonalties and together we can establish security, and embark on political and economic cooperation."

He further said recent trip by the Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to Tehran is a token of independence of the Iraqi decision making apparatus and its independence from the US.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-236/0508020056014817.htm

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 15:39

What the Brits fear most in Iraq
Robert Fox

"Last year British troops fought daily gun battles with Shia militiamen loyal to the maverick cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr. This year the number of attacks has dropped, but the attackers appear to have had some highly professional training - almost certainly from militias and elements of the Revolutionary Guard across the border in Iran. The guerrillas now carefully orchestrate their attacks after tracking every move of British patrols by mobile phones, according to soldiers."

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=8&id=112953&usrsess=1

• Juan Cole says....

http://www.juancole.com/2005/08/parliamentary-debate-on-election.html

British forces in southern Iraq are worried that Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia and other paramilitaries in southern Iraq are getting training and funding from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards

[....]

They are apparently blaming the recent bombing of a British convoy that killed two private security guards on the Sadrists. They have intercepted what look to be shipments of rocket propelled grenade launchers and other weapons from Iran to the Shiite paramilitaries of the south.

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 15:46

Iraqi Defense Minister Sa'adoun ad-Dulaimy visited with his Iranian counterpart, Admiral Ali Shamkhani last week; reportedly, they are working on a military cooperation agreement that will include Iranian training of the new Iraqi armed forces.

Dulaimy says the Iranians have offered of $1 billion in reconstruction aid and there is talk of building an oil pipeline between the two countries.

http://www.empirenotes.org/july05.html#11jul051

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 16:02

Less than three weeks before Iraq's National Assembly is to approve a new constitution, the U.S. appears increasingly concerned about the document and is vocally trying to influence its provisions on issues such as women's rights, federalism and the distribution of oil revenue.

[....]

A draft of the constitution published Tuesday in the daily newspaper Al Sabah gave some indication of why the Bush administration might have reason to worry.

The document proposes an explicitly Islamic state with a strong Shiite Muslim identity and less progressive laws for women than existed under Saddam Hussein.

[....]

However, the draft constitution's provisions on women have drawn clear criticism from U.S. officials. In the draft, a single sentence jettisons nearly 50 years of progressive Iraqi legislation protecting women's rights.

The draft reads: "The state provides all rights for women to make them equal to men in all fields according to Islamic Sharia laws and to help women to make a balance between their family and societal duties."

Explicit mention of Sharia indicates the drafters' intention to reinstate religious courts to oversee marriages, divorces and disputes surrounding inheritances.

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 16:06

Asked about the Islamic gangs who force women to wear headscarves and prevent the sale of alcohol and music, a member of the writers’ union immediately started trembling. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk about that. This is a dangerous thing,” he said. “I have three kids and I love life. The Islamic movement is very hard. Al- Qaeda is not a problem here. The Iranian revolution is the problem.” The various Islamic parties, most of whom spent years of exile from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in neighbouring Iran, deny any link to the violence and blame al-Qaeda.

But officials say that the parties are closely linked to Iran, receiving funding and reciprocating with intelligence.

Samir Jassim Khadair, a spokesman for the Southern Oil Company in Basra, was blunt.

“Iran is running Iraq, frankly speaking,” he said.

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 17:32

Shiite Morality Is Taking Hold in Iraq Oil Port
• July 7, 2005
New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/asezs

The once libertine oil port of Basra, 350 miles south of the capital and far from the insurgency raging in much of Iraq, is steadily being transformed into a mini-theocracy under Shiite rule. There is perhaps no better indication of the possible flash points in a Shiite-dominated Iraq, because the political parties that hold sway here also wield significant influence in the central government in Baghdad and are backed by the country's top clerics.

Efforts to impose strict Shiite religious rule across Iraq would almost certainly spur resistance from Sunni Arabs and the more secular Kurds. But here in Basra, the changes have accelerated since the January elections, which enabled religious parties to put more radical politicians into office.

Small parties with names like God's Vengeance and Master of Martyrs have emerged. They work under the umbrella of more established Shiite groups, but many Iraqis suspect them of being agents of the Iranian government. One of the leading parties was formed in Iran by an Iraqi cleric living in exile during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

The growing ties with Iran are evident. Posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, are plastered along streets and even at the provincial government center. The Iranian government opened a polling station downtown for Iranian expatriates during elections in their home country in June.

The governor also talks eagerly of buying electricity from Iran, given that the American-led effort has failed to provide enough of it.

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 17:38

From
http://amconmag.com/2005_08_01/article3.html

In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

By Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is a partner in Cannistraro Associates.

-- --

About Cannistraro Associates:
http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/06/27/features/profiles/87profile07cannistraro.txt

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 17:41

Lost Nuclear Warheads from a B-52 Now in Iran?

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Iran may have the weapons-grade uranium out of three nuclear warheads dumped out of a B-52 back in 1991. Or so at least the US government might have some reason to believe, according to a seemingly well-informed person talking to CounterPunch last week.

On February 3, 1991, this particular B-52G had been deployed to circle around Baghdad. It was armed with 3 SRAM missiles armed with nuclear warheads and fitted with rocket drives to push them 100 miles to the rear of the B-52 before detonating.

The B-52 was heading off to refuel when it developed very serious electrical problems, including the loss of navigational equipment.

Hoping to limp back to base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the crew were heading the plane south just off the coast of Somalia when fires in five of the engines threatened to detonate the heat sensitive fuse mechanisms of the SRAMS. Thinking they would plummet into deep water the crew dumped the nuclear bombs, and the B-52 crashed not long thereafter. Some members of the crew died, others survived and were picked up.

But, our informant tells us, the warheads in fact landed in shallow water, on Somalia's continental shelf. Three months later, in mid-May of 1991, they were allegedly retrieved and passed into the hands of an arms dealer involved in other covert transactions in Somalia at the time.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn07302005.html

by redjade Tue Aug 02, 2005 17:57

The Iran War Buildup
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0722-20.htm
July 22, 2005 by The Nation
by Michael T. Klare

....Vice President Dick Cheney declared in January that "the Israelis might well decide to act first" if Iran proceeded with the development of nuclear weapons--obviously hinting that Washington would look with favor upon such a move.

There are also indications that the CIA and SOF officials have met with Iranian opposition forces--in particular, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) -- to discuss their possible involvement in commando raids inside Iran or a full-scale proxy war. In one such report, Newsweek disclosed in February that the Bush Administration "is seeking to cull useful MEK members as operatives for use against Tehran." (Although the MEK is listed on the State Department's roster of terrorist groups, its forces are "gently treated" by the American troops guarding their compound in eastern Iraq, Newsweek revealed.)

Given the immense stress now being placed on US ground forces in Iraq, it is likely that the Pentagon's favored plan for military action in Iran involves some combination of airstrikes and the use of proxy forces like the MEK. But even a small-scale assault of this sort is likely to provoke retaliatory action by Iran--possibly entailing missile strikes on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or covert aid to the insurgency in Iraq. This being the case, CENTCOM would also have to develop plans for a wide range of escalatory moves.

Repeating what was said at the outset, there is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran. But there are many indications that planning for such a move is well under way--and if the record of Iraq (and other wars) teaches us anything, it is that such planning, once commenced, is very hard to turn around. Hence, we should not wait until after relations with Iran have reached the crisis point to advise against US military action. We should begin acting now, before the march to war becomes irreversible.

-------

the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujaheddin_e_Khalq

Official Website(?)
the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)
http://www.iran.mojahedin.org/

Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK)
From: Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004.
United States Department of State, April 2005.
http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/mek.htm

Description
The MEK philosophy mixes Marxism and Islam. Formed in the 1960s, the organization was expelled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein starting in the late 1980s. The MEK conducted anti-West-ern attacks prior to the Islamic Revolution. Since then, it has conducted terrorist attacks against the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad. The MEK advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime and its replacement with the group’s own leadership.

the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK): Once Terrorists, now fighting the War on Terror

by redjade Wed Aug 03, 2005 14:26

Reinvented, Chalabi back on top

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/12272380.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

....lesson No. 1 in dealing with Chalabi: Never underestimate him. A year after observers pronounced him finished - spurned by onetime U.S. sponsors and with no apparent political base in Iraq - Chalabi has emerged more powerful than ever.

From his deputy premier's seat in the elected Iraqi government, Chalabi, 60, oversees Iraq's vast oil resources as chairman of the energy council. He presides over a board that regulates multimillion-dollar rebuilding contracts. He commands the controversial purge of former Baath Party members from government posts and the Iraqi Special Tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein. Until an oil minister was named, Chalabi held that job, too.

One of his top aides, Entifadh Qanbar, is headed for a plum job at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. Chalabi's Harvard-educated nephew is the finance minister; rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is an ally. On a visit to a hospital in southern Iraq, the secular Chalabi was introduced as "the pride of the Shiites," suggesting that at least some members of the majority sect now claim him as their own.

"Chalabi is a clever politician who knows how to get ahead," said Sheikh Khalaf al Alayan of the Iraqi National Dialogue Committee, an umbrella group for Sunni factions. "In any place related to money, you can be sure to find Chalabi's people in control."

A comeback of Chalabi's magnitude is hard work, and he started from rock bottom. He had become a scapegoat for the false or exaggerated intelligence given to the Bush administration in advance of the invasion of Iraq. His pagoda-style villa in Baghdad was ransacked during a probe into allegations of counterfeiting and kidnapping, and U.S. officials accused him of passing secrets to Iran. The Jordanian government asked for his extradition on a 1992 embezzlement conviction.

Abruptly spurned by his hawkish friends in Washington and faced with little street support in Baghdad, Chalabi saw his star dimmed. Then came a total makeover. He turned critical of the Americans, who a year earlier had airlifted him into Iraq, and relied on Iraqi power brokers to protect his shaky Baghdad empire.

by redjade Wed Aug 03, 2005 14:37

Iraq plans to build a multimillion-dollar international airport near the southern city of Najaf, a holy center for Shiite Muslims, that would be financed largely by a low-interest loan from Iran, according to Iraq's transportation minister.

[....]

The facility, which [Iraqi transport minister Salam] Maliki said would cost an estimated $20 million to $25 million, would largely serve religious pilgrims traveling to and from Iran...

Maliki, 32, once served as a representative of Moqtada Sadr, a Shiite cleric whose militia battled U.S. troops in Najaf and Baghdad a year ago. Last week, Maliki ordered the duty-free store at Baghdad International Airport to stop selling alcohol to travelers, calling the airport a "holy and revered" part of Iraq.

Airport administrators initially flouted his order, and one official said a local court had backed their stance, an assertion that could not be independently confirmed. But the duty-free store is closed for renovations until its operators can meet with Maliki about the issue, the airport official said.

by Browser Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:42

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Aug 4, 2:52 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The Marines have one of the roughest assignments in Iraq: pacifying the perpetually restive Anbar province, home to Fallujah, Ramadi and Haditha, all sites of heavy American casualties since the insurgency went into high gear last year.

Full story:

by redjade Sat Aug 06, 2005 13:34

Indictment of former AIPAC staffers
raises the prospect of a day in court

http://jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=15699&intcategoryid=5

This week’s indictment of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee suggests that the government wants to prove an extensive pattern of trading classified information.

Paul McNulty, the U.S. Attorney for eastern Virginia who handed down the indictment here Thursday, decisively counted out the pro-Israel lobby as a target in the inquiry.

[....]

The indictment charges Steve Rosen, AIPAC´s former policy director, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, with "conspiracy to communicate national defense information to people not entitled to receive it," which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Rosen is also charged with actual communication of national defense information, also punishable by 10 years in prison.

The charges against the former AIPAC staffers do not rise to the level of espionage, which the defendants and their supporters had feared.

[....]

The FBI raided AIPAC´s offices on Aug. 27, 2004, the first time the investigation was made public.

One major question likely to come up in the trial is why the two U.S. government officials listed in the indictment as leaking the information are not facing trial, as McNulty indicated.

"They should be going after all the guys who gave the information," said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

--- --- ----

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee
http://www.aipac.org

by redjade Sat Aug 06, 2005 13:38

The Real Aipac Spy Ring Story -- It Was All About Iran
by Doug Ireland

Here's what the stories in today's Washington Post and New York Times on the new indictments of the two AIPAC spies aren't telling you: their espionage was principally about helping to prepare an attack by Israel on Iran. And one of the Israeli embassy officials who knows all about AIPAC's role in helping plan the attack on Iran has been whisked out of the country and out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reports this morning.

The neo-cons in the Pentagon had long been arguing for an attack on Iran to take out its nuclear facilities that had the potential to be converted for development of nuclear weapons. Wolfie's man Doug Feith had been particularly assiduous in pressing the case for a "forward strategy" against Iran. Feith's views are madly extremist, and Jim Zogby collected them in an April profile of Feith that should scare the pants off of anyone rational. (Feith's been a major activist for years with the viciously anti-Arab crazies of the ZOA, the Zionist Organization of America).

When, for purely electoral reasons with the Iraq occupation going so disastrously, the White House decided against a direct attack by the U.S. on Iran, the neo-cons went to Plan B -- an attack on Iran by proxy, from Israel. The principal classified documents leaked to Israel through AIPAC -- the leaks that that began the investigation of the AIPAC spy ring, which has been going on now for over a year -- concerned Iran. They were leaked by Feith's deputy, Larry Franklin, also now under a five-count indictment for spying.

[....]

Now, just what is AIPAC, you may well ask? AIPAC is the enforcer of the knee-jerk support for the Israeli government which characterizes the political and governing classes in this country, -- Israel is the real third rail of American politics: touch it with criticism, no matter how carefully couched, and you die. Both the Democratic and Republican parties fall all over themselves to kiss AIPAC's boots -- because AIPAC and its well-filled war-chest helps make sure they toe the line on Israel, and has been responsible for the defeat of a significant number of politicians over the years who dared to criticize Israeli policies.

more at
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0805-33.htm

by redjade Sat Aug 06, 2005 13:42

Haaretz has also learned that FBI investigators are interested in questioning more than one embassy worker (Naor Gilon whose name was already mentioned in the early stages of the probe) and that they also apparently wish to present ambassador Danny Ayalon with questions.

According to one American source Israel's position is that the questionnaire should be of a general not a personal nature and that it will not be presented directly to those people being investigated but will be answered by the members of the foreign ministry's legal department.

[....]

The Israeli diplomat in Washington who met several times with Franklin has been identified as Naor Gilon head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and a specialist on proliferation issues.

Gilon returned to Israel a few days ago as part of a long-scheduled rotation according to an Israeli official in Washington.

U.S. investigators want to question Gilon and other Israeli diplomats about their contacts with Franklin officials said.

by redjade Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:36

Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team
by Jason Leopold
August 6, 2005
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Leopold0806.htm

Scandal-plagued Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, was secretly working with one of Iran’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and, allegedly, selling the officials' oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, according to Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies’ business dealings.

Just last week, a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, which just reported a 284 percent increase in its fourth quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the financial means to build a nuclear weapon.

Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies, on oil development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team.

“Nasseri, a senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over Iran's controversial nuclear program is at the heart of deals with US energy companies to develop the country's oil industry,” the Financial Times of London reported.

Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets and accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton, according to Iranian government officials.

[....]

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions. According to a February 2001 report in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products & Services Ltd. works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is ‘non-American.’ But, like the sign over the receptionist's head, the brochure bears the company's name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover, mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded to the company’s Dallas headquarters.

read the rest at
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Leopold0806.htm

by redjade Sun Aug 07, 2005 13:06

Broken Arrows and Iran

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Concerning my weekend diary item about the possibility of nuclear warheads from a B-52 that crashed on February 3, 1991,ending up in Iran, John Vickers, a former B-52 flier and CounterPunch reader, offers some pretty persuasive criticisms on at least one part of the story.

My weekend diary item, based on a conversation with someone in the arms business who doesn't want his name used, was that a B-52G flying over Baghdad on February 3 was carrying three SRAMS, missiles with nuclear warheads.

The plane developed serious problems, including black-out of navigational systems, and as the plane limped down the African coast, fire prompted the crew to dump the SRAMS. They landed in shallow water off the Somali coast, were retrieved and may ultimately have ended up in Iran.

Even at first hearing the story had some obvious problems, most notably the B-52's flight path....

read more...
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08032005.html

by redjade Sun Aug 07, 2005 14:33

AP Poll: Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq reaches low point

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-05-bush-poll_x.htm?csp=34

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans' approval of President Bush's handling of Iraq is at its lowest level yet, according to an AP-Ipsos poll that also found fewer than half now think he's honest.

A solid majority still see Bush as a strong and likable leader, though the president's confidence is seen as arrogance by a growing number.

Approval of Bush's handling of Iraq, which had been hovering in the low- to mid-40s most of the year, dipped to 38%. Midwesterners and young women and men with a high school education or less were most likely to abandon Bush on his handling of Iraq in the last six months.

[....]

The portion of people who consider Bush honest has dropped slightly from January, when 53% described him that way while 45% did not. Now, people are just about evenly split on that issue — with 48% saying he's honest and 50% saying he's not.

[....]

But the portion of people who view his confidence as arrogance has increased from 49% in January to 56% now.

[....]

Six in 10 said they think the country is headed down the wrong track, despite some encouraging economic news in recent weeks.