THE BUSH administration is keen on building a
triangular "strategic" relationship with India and
Israel since Washington has found these two countries
as the most reliable allies in the ongoing war against
terror, diplomatic sources and analysts say.
India joining such a relationship would not be taken
lightly by the Arab and Muslim world, given that the
alliance would be deemed as designed to counter the
resurgence of Islam in the wake of the American
response to the Sept.11 attacks, the US-led invasion
and occupationof Iraq and Washington's support for
Israel and implicit endorsement of its occupation of
Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territories.
Pakistan will definitely seize upon the "anti-Muslim"
nature of an American-Israeli-Indian alliance to lobby
its Arab and Muslim friends against Indian interests,
but the effect of such a campaign remains to be seen
since most of the Arab and Muslim countries could not
afford to step out of line with the Americans in the
post-Iraq war era.
At the same time, the sting of the Arab and Muslim
reaction to India getting involved in a US-centred
alliance, with Israel playing an equally if not more
important role, could be weakened if Washington is
successful in pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace
agreement that would also open the door for peace
between Israel and Syria.
The so-called neoconservatives -- most of them Jews
and known to be heavily pro-Israeli -- who are guiding
American foreign policy are the main force behind
Washington's drive to seal an alliance with Delhi.
Signs of a new warmth in US-Indian relationship have
emerged in recent months. In late May, Indian Prime
MInister AB Vajapyee's National Security Adviser
Brajesh Mishra attended a dinner hosted by the annual
convention of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). He
declared that the United States, India, and Israel
''have to jointly face the same ugly face of
modern-day terrorism."
''Such an alliance," he said, "would have the
political will and moral authority to take bold
decisions in extreme cases of terrorist provocation."
Emphasising the institutionalised democracies in the
US, Israel and India, Mishra said the three countries'
''vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal
opportunity..." would naturally lead to ''stronger
India-US relations and India-Israel relations."
Washington's interest in developing a strategic
alliance grouping India and israel has manifested
itself in several areas:
Washington has approved an Israeli sale of its
advanced Phalcon air-borne reconnaissance system to
India in a deal worth about $1billion and is poised to
approve another deal involving the most expensive sale
of Israel's Arrow anti-missile system developed
jointly with the US.
The Arrow missiles could counter incoming missile and
neutralise nuclear warheads and could be counted as
India's most effective defence against threats posed
by Pakistan's nuclear missiles.
The Phalcon deal was supposed to have been put on hold
until definite signs have emerged of peace between
India and Pakistan and its approval now, even before
India agreed to enter talks with Pakistan, is seen as
the neo-conservatives' desire to take a clear position
on Delhi's side, analysts say.
The newly established US-India Institute for Strategic
Policy will be the focal point in
American-Israeli-Indian military co-ordination.
India counts among one of the largest buyers of
Israeli military equipment. Its arms purchases from
Israel and military service contracts given to Israel
were said to be worth about $1.8 billion in 2002.
Washington has invited India to take part in
"peacekeeping" operations in post-war Iraq. However,
India, obviously mindful of the pitfall that it would
be seen as not only backing the American-British
invasion and occupation of Iraq but also becoming part
of the occupation force, has not committed itself to
the invitation.
Riding on the American invitation is the attraction of
lucrative sub-contracts in reconstruction of Iraq and
a share of trade with that American-controlled
country.
The Israeli angle to the triangular relationship is
expected to be given more shape when Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon visits India this year, by which
time the American Jewish Committee would have opened
an office in Delhi.
The Israeli interest in ties with India revolves
around what Israel sees as the reliability of a
democratic non-Muslim country in the Jewish fight
against Muslim militants. The US approach is based on
Washington's need to develop India as a strong ally in
the sub-continent against China before Delhi is drawn
into the emerging Chinese-Russian axis.
Israelis interests come first for the
neoconvervatives, who are believed to have been the
main force that nudged President George W Bush into
waging war against Iraq, and the most the campaign
focusing on India is orchestrated by hawks like
Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith.
Feith had been instrumental in setting up the
US-India Institute for Strategic Policy, which
includes, among others, the head of the
Washington-based Center for Security Policy, Frank
Gaffney, and a founder of the Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs, Michael Ledeen. Both of
them are avowed opponents of any American military
relationship with Pakistan outside the immediate
context of Washington's need to have help from
Islambad until the situation in Afghanistan settles
down.
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Where the US went wrong
THE US went wrong from the word go when it gave more
weight to its military might than a pacifist approach
of political persuasion in post-war Iraq. Today, it
faces a deep quagmire unless it moves fast against
lost time to stabilise the Iraqis' most basic needs --
personal safety, electricity, water, health care, job
security and regular salaries.
This is the finding of international and regional
experts who are alarmed over the deteriorating
situation in Iraq, where the US military is getting
more aggressive every day in the face of mounting
resistance attacks.
The American military action freed the Iraqis from the
oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein but pushed them into
a much worse situation that the Saddam days in terms
of daily life. The US forces gave prime consideration
to securing oilfields and installations and ignored -
and thereby seen as having encouraged - widespread
looting, robberies rape and murder throughout the
country. In fact, accusasions that the invading force
was more interested Iraq's oil than the welfare of the
Iraqis were heard even on April 9, the day Baghdad
fell to the US force.
The American actions since then have convinced a
majority of Iraqis that the US was not their liberator
beyond the point of removing the Saddam regime to
serve American interests that have little to do with
caring for the people of Iraq or respecting their
rights.
In Baghdad and other Iraqi towns male members of
families keep watch with guns and take shifts to
sleep, fearing armed robbers. Without their guns they
feel naked, but the US forces insist that everyone
surrender their weapons; not many have met a US-set
deadline for giving up their guns.
It is indeed a festering sore. The US forces is not
only offering safety and protection to the people of
Iraq but is also seeking to deprive Iraqis of the
means to protect themselves.
Power and water supplies are erratic; cost of living
is shooting up and there is no regular pay, and many
families are worse off than the Saddam days when the
regime used to supply monthly rations.
If there was any inkling of an American inclination to
look at ways to address the situation, that is fast
disappearing with the US force's preoccupation dealing
with Iraqi resistance; and if the situation continues,
the vicious circle would only intensify and the US
"administration" of Iraq would prove to be
catastrophic for all.
The declared American drive to set up an interim Iraqi
committee to help govern the country has been a source
of consolation for many Iraqis who welcomed the
involvement of their own people in running the
country. But, the emerging undercurrents in the
intense jockeying for power based on ethnic
considerations and diverse ideologies have convinced
them that having an effective Iraqi say in Iraqi
affairs is not seen anywhere in the near future.
Telecommunications are almost non-existent; the sense
of normality offered by radio and television is
lacking in view of the frequent outages.
The Iraqi frustration is also fuelled by the focus
given to American corporates in reconstruction of
their country. They might not have adequate commercial
foundations and equipment to undertake the job, but
they are incensed by the feeling that Americans are
fleecing their country and their resources and keeping
out all others. Even at that, there is little to show
on the ground that any reconstruction worth the name
is under way.
A recent report prepared by Joost Hiltermann of the
International Crisis Group underlines the mistakes
that the American committed and are continuing to
commit in post-war Iraq.
One of the highlights of the report is the summary
disbandment of the Baathist Party overlooking the
three distinct kinds of Baathists -- diehard Saddam
loyalists, those who joined the party out of
expediency, and ideological followers.
According to the ICG, the vast majority of civil
servants, police, judges, engineers and others belong
to the second category and have the skills to make the
country run again, but they are being sidelines and
indeed taken to task for their past affiliation with
the party.
"By banning all of them without distinction," the US
rulers of Iraq have "ostracised a vital group - and
may even end up uniting opposition to the occupation
rather than alienating the Saddam loyalists," says the
report.
It calls on the US to "seriously reconsider this
order and return qualified senior managers to their
positions if they do not have a proven record of
corruption or abuse."
Disbanding the Iraqi military without offering its
personnel alternative means to make a living was
another major mistake of the Americans, according to
the ICG. As a result, tens of thousands of young men
were turned into the streets without employment,
leaving them the option of a life of crime or joining
resistance groups which give them something to do
rather than wander around in search of non-existent
jobs.
"What is puzzling is that so little advance
preparation appears to have been made for dealing with
the problems that have arisen in Baghdad," says
Hilterman. "Many if not most of them should have been
anticipated based on years of experience with
post-conflict transitions elsewhere.
"The Iraqis' faith in their new rulers is being
undermined by ad hoc decision making, lack of cultural
sensitivity and apparent neglect of the problems that
rile them most. Urgent and focused action is needed if
this discontent is not to be transformed into
widespread and active opposition in the coming
months," warns Hilterman.
weight to its military might than a pacifist approach
of political persuasion in post-war Iraq. Today, it
faces a deep quagmire unless it moves fast against
lost time to stabilise the Iraqis' most basic needs --
personal safety, electricity, water, health care, job
security and regular salaries.
This is the finding of international and regional
experts who are alarmed over the deteriorating
situation in Iraq, where the US military is getting
more aggressive every day in the face of mounting
resistance attacks.
The American military action freed the Iraqis from the
oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein but pushed them into
a much worse situation that the Saddam days in terms
of daily life. The US forces gave prime consideration
to securing oilfields and installations and ignored -
and thereby seen as having encouraged - widespread
looting, robberies rape and murder throughout the
country. In fact, accusasions that the invading force
was more interested Iraq's oil than the welfare of the
Iraqis were heard even on April 9, the day Baghdad
fell to the US force.
The American actions since then have convinced a
majority of Iraqis that the US was not their liberator
beyond the point of removing the Saddam regime to
serve American interests that have little to do with
caring for the people of Iraq or respecting their
rights.
In Baghdad and other Iraqi towns male members of
families keep watch with guns and take shifts to
sleep, fearing armed robbers. Without their guns they
feel naked, but the US forces insist that everyone
surrender their weapons; not many have met a US-set
deadline for giving up their guns.
It is indeed a festering sore. The US forces is not
only offering safety and protection to the people of
Iraq but is also seeking to deprive Iraqis of the
means to protect themselves.
Power and water supplies are erratic; cost of living
is shooting up and there is no regular pay, and many
families are worse off than the Saddam days when the
regime used to supply monthly rations.
If there was any inkling of an American inclination to
look at ways to address the situation, that is fast
disappearing with the US force's preoccupation dealing
with Iraqi resistance; and if the situation continues,
the vicious circle would only intensify and the US
"administration" of Iraq would prove to be
catastrophic for all.
The declared American drive to set up an interim Iraqi
committee to help govern the country has been a source
of consolation for many Iraqis who welcomed the
involvement of their own people in running the
country. But, the emerging undercurrents in the
intense jockeying for power based on ethnic
considerations and diverse ideologies have convinced
them that having an effective Iraqi say in Iraqi
affairs is not seen anywhere in the near future.
Telecommunications are almost non-existent; the sense
of normality offered by radio and television is
lacking in view of the frequent outages.
The Iraqi frustration is also fuelled by the focus
given to American corporates in reconstruction of
their country. They might not have adequate commercial
foundations and equipment to undertake the job, but
they are incensed by the feeling that Americans are
fleecing their country and their resources and keeping
out all others. Even at that, there is little to show
on the ground that any reconstruction worth the name
is under way.
A recent report prepared by Joost Hiltermann of the
International Crisis Group underlines the mistakes
that the American committed and are continuing to
commit in post-war Iraq.
One of the highlights of the report is the summary
disbandment of the Baathist Party overlooking the
three distinct kinds of Baathists -- diehard Saddam
loyalists, those who joined the party out of
expediency, and ideological followers.
According to the ICG, the vast majority of civil
servants, police, judges, engineers and others belong
to the second category and have the skills to make the
country run again, but they are being sidelines and
indeed taken to task for their past affiliation with
the party.
"By banning all of them without distinction," the US
rulers of Iraq have "ostracised a vital group - and
may even end up uniting opposition to the occupation
rather than alienating the Saddam loyalists," says the
report.
It calls on the US to "seriously reconsider this
order and return qualified senior managers to their
positions if they do not have a proven record of
corruption or abuse."
Disbanding the Iraqi military without offering its
personnel alternative means to make a living was
another major mistake of the Americans, according to
the ICG. As a result, tens of thousands of young men
were turned into the streets without employment,
leaving them the option of a life of crime or joining
resistance groups which give them something to do
rather than wander around in search of non-existent
jobs.
"What is puzzling is that so little advance
preparation appears to have been made for dealing with
the problems that have arisen in Baghdad," says
Hilterman. "Many if not most of them should have been
anticipated based on years of experience with
post-conflict transitions elsewhere.
"The Iraqis' faith in their new rulers is being
undermined by ad hoc decision making, lack of cultural
sensitivity and apparent neglect of the problems that
rile them most. Urgent and focused action is needed if
this discontent is not to be transformed into
widespread and active opposition in the coming
months," warns Hilterman.
Saturday, May 24, 2003
Twist of American justice
IN a strange twist of American justice, a federal
judge in New York has found Iraq partly responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks and awarded over $100 million
to the families of two people who died in the aerial
assault against the World Trade Center towers.
However, and despite contradictions, the ruling could
be used by successive US administrations to keep Iraq
under indefinite pressure if the current process in
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq leads to a dilution of the
American grip on the country.
The verdict is expected to trigger hundreds of claims
to be filed with US lawcourts claiming compensation
from Iraq for victims of the attacks, and that would
essentially mean that the Bush administration caught
in its own trap of charges it made implicating Iraq
and Saddam Hussein as sources of international
terrorism with little substantiation.
The ruling was strange because the evidence cited by
lawyers for the families of George Smith andTimothy
Soulas, two of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks
in New York and Washington, was based on public
statements made by senior US officials. These
officials included former CIA director James Woolsey
and from author Laurie Mylroie who have claimed that
Iraq "provided material support" to the Al Qaeda
network of Osama Bin Laden. Also cited was a statement
by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN where
he asserted that Iraq supported "Islamist
terrorism."
The lawyers conceded that the evidence "barely"
established a link
between Al Qaeda and Iraq was enough for a "reasonable
jury," according to a report in the USA Today
newspaper.
The whole episode has an air of superficiality when
seen against the track record of the American
judiciary.
Despite the public claims made by American officials,
no tangible evidence has been found to establish a
link between Al Qaeda and Iraq except unsubstatiated
reports that a senior Iraqi intelligence official had
met with the purported leader of the Sept.11 assault
team, Mohammed Atta, in Eastern Europe in April 2001,
and a claim that was later found to be hollow by an
Iraqi defector that Osama Bin Laden had visited
Baghdad in 1998.
Documents said to have been found in the office of the
Iraqi intelligence ministry in post-war Baghdad
indicated that an unidentified Al Qaeda operative had
visited the Iraqi capital in early 1998, but that
could be hardly be evidence -- in any sense of the
word in a court of law -- that Saddam Hussein had any
role in the attacks in the US that occurred more than
three years later.
Indeed, intelligence findings deliberately suppressed
by the American and British government say that there
could not have been any link between Saddam and Bin
Laden if only because of their ideological
differences.
Bin Laden, who followed a puritanical form of Islam,
has never concealed his distaste for Saddam, whom he
had accused of using the faith for political purposes
and consolidate his grip on power. Bin Laden also
publicly blamed Saddam for having given the Americans
a pretext to military intervene in the Gulf and stay
on in the region by invading Kuwait in 1991.
And, indeed, if Al Qaedd is behind the post-war
bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, then one could
bet that they were carried out not because of any
sense for revenge for Saddam's ouster but in
retaliation for the overall American approach to the
Middle East and what many perceive as American
hostility towards Islam.
However, that does not change the reality that the
ruling has been made by a US court implicating Iraq in
the attacks and Iraq is hardly in a position to defend
itself.
The ruling also found Afghanistan's ousted Taliban
regime partly responsible for the attacks -- again a
case where no defence could be put up.
The verdict has to be seen against the backdrop of a
heavy dose of what could be nothing but American spin
that has led to more than half of Americans believing
that Saddam was behind the Sept.11 attacks as
indicated in opinion polls prior to the US war that
toppled him in April this year.
While the American judicial system could not accused
of being politically influenced, the court ruling
strengthens the argument that George W Bush is bent
upon somehow proving to American voters ahead of 2004
elections that he was right in invading Iraq and
toppling Saddam. The argument gathers more
credibility, given that the US occupiers of Iraq have
yet to produce any evidence that Saddam possessed
weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason that
Bush cited for his decision to wage war against Iraq
and oust the Saddam regime from power.
How are the families which have been awarded the claim
going to collect?
That may yet prove to be another landmark turning.
Bush has at his disposal billions of dollars in frozen
Iraqi assets transferred to him, but the funds are
earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction. The US president
could hardly be expected to permit those funds to be
used to settle the claims, particularly that hundreds
of similar lawsuits are being prepared and sent to US
lawcourts.
Ironically, Bush would have gladly used the funds to
settle the claims had the verdict came before he
launched the war and ousted Saddam. Now he and his
people could be expected to fight tooth and nail
against any attempt to touch the booty assigned to
rebuild Iraq as a matter of American priority.
Could the US-endorsed regime that would take power in
Iraq be expected to be held responsible for settling
the claim?
Again the answer could not but be no. Washington has a
vested interest in protecting the regime it would
install in post-war Iraq and it is hardly likely that
Bush would allow it to be exposed to a torrent of
claims that could run into tens of billions of
dollars.
If anything, the US is pressing other countries to
write off even the legitimate debts that Iraq incurred
during the Saddam regime's existence in power. Against
that backdrop, the question could all but be ruled out
whether Washington would care much for Sept.11
compensation since it should know well that Saddam
could not have had any role in the attacks.
Indeed, the Bush administration has left a vulnerable
flank in its haste to implicate Iraq in the attacks
when it set up a separate fund for compensation for
Sept.11 attacks and allowed recipients to file claims
against Al Qaeda as well as Iraq.
One of the obvious explanations of the scenario after
the court verdict is that the US administration could
use the Sept.11-linked claims on Iraq as potential
leverage and pressure on the country for decades,
given that at some point Washington would have to
loosen its military grip on Iraqis.
judge in New York has found Iraq partly responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks and awarded over $100 million
to the families of two people who died in the aerial
assault against the World Trade Center towers.
However, and despite contradictions, the ruling could
be used by successive US administrations to keep Iraq
under indefinite pressure if the current process in
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq leads to a dilution of the
American grip on the country.
The verdict is expected to trigger hundreds of claims
to be filed with US lawcourts claiming compensation
from Iraq for victims of the attacks, and that would
essentially mean that the Bush administration caught
in its own trap of charges it made implicating Iraq
and Saddam Hussein as sources of international
terrorism with little substantiation.
The ruling was strange because the evidence cited by
lawyers for the families of George Smith andTimothy
Soulas, two of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks
in New York and Washington, was based on public
statements made by senior US officials. These
officials included former CIA director James Woolsey
and from author Laurie Mylroie who have claimed that
Iraq "provided material support" to the Al Qaeda
network of Osama Bin Laden. Also cited was a statement
by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN where
he asserted that Iraq supported "Islamist
terrorism."
The lawyers conceded that the evidence "barely"
established a link
between Al Qaeda and Iraq was enough for a "reasonable
jury," according to a report in the USA Today
newspaper.
The whole episode has an air of superficiality when
seen against the track record of the American
judiciary.
Despite the public claims made by American officials,
no tangible evidence has been found to establish a
link between Al Qaeda and Iraq except unsubstatiated
reports that a senior Iraqi intelligence official had
met with the purported leader of the Sept.11 assault
team, Mohammed Atta, in Eastern Europe in April 2001,
and a claim that was later found to be hollow by an
Iraqi defector that Osama Bin Laden had visited
Baghdad in 1998.
Documents said to have been found in the office of the
Iraqi intelligence ministry in post-war Baghdad
indicated that an unidentified Al Qaeda operative had
visited the Iraqi capital in early 1998, but that
could be hardly be evidence -- in any sense of the
word in a court of law -- that Saddam Hussein had any
role in the attacks in the US that occurred more than
three years later.
Indeed, intelligence findings deliberately suppressed
by the American and British government say that there
could not have been any link between Saddam and Bin
Laden if only because of their ideological
differences.
Bin Laden, who followed a puritanical form of Islam,
has never concealed his distaste for Saddam, whom he
had accused of using the faith for political purposes
and consolidate his grip on power. Bin Laden also
publicly blamed Saddam for having given the Americans
a pretext to military intervene in the Gulf and stay
on in the region by invading Kuwait in 1991.
And, indeed, if Al Qaedd is behind the post-war
bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, then one could
bet that they were carried out not because of any
sense for revenge for Saddam's ouster but in
retaliation for the overall American approach to the
Middle East and what many perceive as American
hostility towards Islam.
However, that does not change the reality that the
ruling has been made by a US court implicating Iraq in
the attacks and Iraq is hardly in a position to defend
itself.
The ruling also found Afghanistan's ousted Taliban
regime partly responsible for the attacks -- again a
case where no defence could be put up.
The verdict has to be seen against the backdrop of a
heavy dose of what could be nothing but American spin
that has led to more than half of Americans believing
that Saddam was behind the Sept.11 attacks as
indicated in opinion polls prior to the US war that
toppled him in April this year.
While the American judicial system could not accused
of being politically influenced, the court ruling
strengthens the argument that George W Bush is bent
upon somehow proving to American voters ahead of 2004
elections that he was right in invading Iraq and
toppling Saddam. The argument gathers more
credibility, given that the US occupiers of Iraq have
yet to produce any evidence that Saddam possessed
weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason that
Bush cited for his decision to wage war against Iraq
and oust the Saddam regime from power.
How are the families which have been awarded the claim
going to collect?
That may yet prove to be another landmark turning.
Bush has at his disposal billions of dollars in frozen
Iraqi assets transferred to him, but the funds are
earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction. The US president
could hardly be expected to permit those funds to be
used to settle the claims, particularly that hundreds
of similar lawsuits are being prepared and sent to US
lawcourts.
Ironically, Bush would have gladly used the funds to
settle the claims had the verdict came before he
launched the war and ousted Saddam. Now he and his
people could be expected to fight tooth and nail
against any attempt to touch the booty assigned to
rebuild Iraq as a matter of American priority.
Could the US-endorsed regime that would take power in
Iraq be expected to be held responsible for settling
the claim?
Again the answer could not but be no. Washington has a
vested interest in protecting the regime it would
install in post-war Iraq and it is hardly likely that
Bush would allow it to be exposed to a torrent of
claims that could run into tens of billions of
dollars.
If anything, the US is pressing other countries to
write off even the legitimate debts that Iraq incurred
during the Saddam regime's existence in power. Against
that backdrop, the question could all but be ruled out
whether Washington would care much for Sept.11
compensation since it should know well that Saddam
could not have had any role in the attacks.
Indeed, the Bush administration has left a vulnerable
flank in its haste to implicate Iraq in the attacks
when it set up a separate fund for compensation for
Sept.11 attacks and allowed recipients to file claims
against Al Qaeda as well as Iraq.
One of the obvious explanations of the scenario after
the court verdict is that the US administration could
use the Sept.11-linked claims on Iraq as potential
leverage and pressure on the country for decades,
given that at some point Washington would have to
loosen its military grip on Iraqis.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Verdict Iraq and 9/11
PV Vivekanand
IN a strange twist of American justice, a federal judge in New York has found Iraq partly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and awarded over $100 million to the families of two people who died in the aerial assault against the World Trade Center towers.
However, and despite contradictions, the ruling could be used by successive US administrations to keep Iraq under indefinite pressure if the current process in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq leads to a dilution of the American grip on the country.
The verdict is expected to trigger hundreds of claims to be filed with US lawcourts claiming compensation from Iraq for victims of the attacks, and that would essentially mean that the Bush administration caught in its own trap of charges it made implicating Iraq and Saddam Hussein as sources of international terrorism with little substantiation.
The ruling was strange because the evidence cited by lawyers for the families of George Smith andTimothy Soulas, two of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks in New York and Washington, was based on public statements made by senior US officials. These officials included former CIA director James Woolsey and from author Laurie Mylroie who have claimed that Iraq "provided material support" to the Al Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden. Also cited was a statement by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN where he asserted that Iraq supported "Islamist terrorism."
The lawyers conceded that the evidence "barely" established a link
between Al Qaeda and Iraq was enough for a "reasonable jury," according to a report in the USA Today newspaper.
The whole episode has an air of superficiality when seen against the track record of the American judiciary.
Despite the public claims made by American officials, no tangible evidence has been found to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq except unsubstatiated reports that a senior Iraqi intelligence official had met with the purported leader of the Sept.11 assault team, Mohammed Atta, in Eastern Europe in April 2001, and a claim that was later found to be hollow by an Iraqi defector that Osama Bin Laden had visited Baghdad in 1998.
Documents said to have been found in the office of the Iraqi intelligence ministry in post-war Baghdad indicated that an unidentified Al Qaeda operative had visited the Iraqi capital in early 1998, but that could be hardly be evidence -- in any sense of the word in a court of law -- that Saddam Hussein had any role in the attacks in the US that occurred more than three years later.
Indeed, intelligence findings deliberately suppressed by the American and British government say that there could not have been any link between Saddam and Bin Laden if only because of their ideological differences.
Bin Laden, who followed a puritanical form of Islam, has never concealed his distaste for Saddam, whom he had accused of using the faith for political purposes and consolidate his grip on power. Bin Laden also publicly blamed Saddam for having given the Americans a pretext to military intervene in the Gulf and stay on in the region by invading Kuwait in 1991.
And, indeed, if Al Qaedd is behind the post-war bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, then one could bet that they were carried out not because of any sense for revenge for Saddam's ouster but in retaliation for the overall American approach to the Middle East and what many perceive as American hostility towards Islam.
However, that does not change the reality that the ruling has been made by a US court implicating Iraq in the attacks and Iraq is hardly in a position to defend itself.
The ruling also found Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime partly responsible for the attacks -- again a case where no defence could be put up.
The verdict has to be seen against the backdrop of a heavy dose of what could be nothing but American spin that has led to more than half of Americans believing that Saddam was behind the Sept.11 attacks as indicated in opinion polls prior to the US war that toppled him in April this year.
While the American judicial system could not accused of being politically influenced, the court ruling strengthens the argument that George W Bush is bent upon somehow proving to American voters ahead of 2004 elections that he was right in invading Iraq and toppling Saddam. The argument gathers more credibility, given that the US occupiers of Iraq have yet to produce any evidence that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason that Bush cited for his decision to wage war against Iraq and oust the Saddam regime from power.
How are the families which have been awarded the claim going to collect?
That may yet prove to be another landmark turning.
Bush has at his disposal billions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets transferred to him, but the funds are earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction. The US president could hardly be expected to permit those funds to be used to settle the claims, particularly that hundreds of similar lawsuits are being prepared and sent to US lawcourts.
Ironically, Bush would have gladly used the funds to settle the claims had the verdict came before he launched the war and ousted Saddam. Now he and his people could be expected to fight tooth and nail against any attempt to touch the booty assigned to rebuild Iraq as a matter of American priority.
Could the US-endorsed regime that would take power in Iraq be expected to be held responsible for settling the claim?
Again the answer could not but be no. Washington has a vested interest in protecting the regime it would install in post-war Iraq and it is hardly likely that Bush would allow it to be exposed to a torrent of claims that could run into tens of billions of dollars.
If anything, the US is pressing other countries to write off even the legitimate debts that Iraq incurred during the Saddam regime's existence in power. Against that backdrop, the question could all but be ruled out whether Washington would care much for Sept.11 compensation since it should know well that Saddam could not have had any role in the attacks.
Indeed, the Bush administration has left a vulnerable flank in its haste to implicate Iraq in the attacks when it set up a separate fund for compensation for Sept.11 attacks and allowed recipients to file claims against Al Qaeda as well as Iraq.
One of the obvious explanations of the scenario after the court verdict is that the US administration could use the Sept.11-linked claims on Iraq as potential leverage and pressure on the country for decades, given that at some point Washington would have to loosen its military grip on Iraqis.
IN a strange twist of American justice, a federal judge in New York has found Iraq partly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and awarded over $100 million to the families of two people who died in the aerial assault against the World Trade Center towers.
However, and despite contradictions, the ruling could be used by successive US administrations to keep Iraq under indefinite pressure if the current process in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq leads to a dilution of the American grip on the country.
The verdict is expected to trigger hundreds of claims to be filed with US lawcourts claiming compensation from Iraq for victims of the attacks, and that would essentially mean that the Bush administration caught in its own trap of charges it made implicating Iraq and Saddam Hussein as sources of international terrorism with little substantiation.
The ruling was strange because the evidence cited by lawyers for the families of George Smith andTimothy Soulas, two of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks in New York and Washington, was based on public statements made by senior US officials. These officials included former CIA director James Woolsey and from author Laurie Mylroie who have claimed that Iraq "provided material support" to the Al Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden. Also cited was a statement by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN where he asserted that Iraq supported "Islamist terrorism."
The lawyers conceded that the evidence "barely" established a link
between Al Qaeda and Iraq was enough for a "reasonable jury," according to a report in the USA Today newspaper.
The whole episode has an air of superficiality when seen against the track record of the American judiciary.
Despite the public claims made by American officials, no tangible evidence has been found to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq except unsubstatiated reports that a senior Iraqi intelligence official had met with the purported leader of the Sept.11 assault team, Mohammed Atta, in Eastern Europe in April 2001, and a claim that was later found to be hollow by an Iraqi defector that Osama Bin Laden had visited Baghdad in 1998.
Documents said to have been found in the office of the Iraqi intelligence ministry in post-war Baghdad indicated that an unidentified Al Qaeda operative had visited the Iraqi capital in early 1998, but that could be hardly be evidence -- in any sense of the word in a court of law -- that Saddam Hussein had any role in the attacks in the US that occurred more than three years later.
Indeed, intelligence findings deliberately suppressed by the American and British government say that there could not have been any link between Saddam and Bin Laden if only because of their ideological differences.
Bin Laden, who followed a puritanical form of Islam, has never concealed his distaste for Saddam, whom he had accused of using the faith for political purposes and consolidate his grip on power. Bin Laden also publicly blamed Saddam for having given the Americans a pretext to military intervene in the Gulf and stay on in the region by invading Kuwait in 1991.
And, indeed, if Al Qaedd is behind the post-war bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, then one could bet that they were carried out not because of any sense for revenge for Saddam's ouster but in retaliation for the overall American approach to the Middle East and what many perceive as American hostility towards Islam.
However, that does not change the reality that the ruling has been made by a US court implicating Iraq in the attacks and Iraq is hardly in a position to defend itself.
The ruling also found Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime partly responsible for the attacks -- again a case where no defence could be put up.
The verdict has to be seen against the backdrop of a heavy dose of what could be nothing but American spin that has led to more than half of Americans believing that Saddam was behind the Sept.11 attacks as indicated in opinion polls prior to the US war that toppled him in April this year.
While the American judicial system could not accused of being politically influenced, the court ruling strengthens the argument that George W Bush is bent upon somehow proving to American voters ahead of 2004 elections that he was right in invading Iraq and toppling Saddam. The argument gathers more credibility, given that the US occupiers of Iraq have yet to produce any evidence that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason that Bush cited for his decision to wage war against Iraq and oust the Saddam regime from power.
How are the families which have been awarded the claim going to collect?
That may yet prove to be another landmark turning.
Bush has at his disposal billions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets transferred to him, but the funds are earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction. The US president could hardly be expected to permit those funds to be used to settle the claims, particularly that hundreds of similar lawsuits are being prepared and sent to US lawcourts.
Ironically, Bush would have gladly used the funds to settle the claims had the verdict came before he launched the war and ousted Saddam. Now he and his people could be expected to fight tooth and nail against any attempt to touch the booty assigned to rebuild Iraq as a matter of American priority.
Could the US-endorsed regime that would take power in Iraq be expected to be held responsible for settling the claim?
Again the answer could not but be no. Washington has a vested interest in protecting the regime it would install in post-war Iraq and it is hardly likely that Bush would allow it to be exposed to a torrent of claims that could run into tens of billions of dollars.
If anything, the US is pressing other countries to write off even the legitimate debts that Iraq incurred during the Saddam regime's existence in power. Against that backdrop, the question could all but be ruled out whether Washington would care much for Sept.11 compensation since it should know well that Saddam could not have had any role in the attacks.
Indeed, the Bush administration has left a vulnerable flank in its haste to implicate Iraq in the attacks when it set up a separate fund for compensation for Sept.11 attacks and allowed recipients to file claims against Al Qaeda as well as Iraq.
One of the obvious explanations of the scenario after the court verdict is that the US administration could use the Sept.11-linked claims on Iraq as potential leverage and pressure on the country for decades, given that at some point Washington would have to loosen its military grip on Iraqis.
Friday, May 02, 2003
War in making for long
PV Vivekanand
THE BEANS are out now. It has now been made clear that the Bush administration took the decision to invade Iraq on Sept.17, 2001, six days after the aerial assaults in New York and Washington offered the perfect opportunity to wage war against America's enemies and bag the biggest oil price of all - Iraq. The only question that remained was the timing of the war and the build-up to justifying military action.
On Sept.17, 2001, President George Bush signed a top- secret directive to the Pentagon to
begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq, according to highly reliable sources in Washington.
The directive was signed at a meeting attended by hawks like Defence Secretary Ronald Rumseld and National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice. Secretary of State Colin Powell had reservations about the move and he was bluntly told that he was free to quit the administration if he did not like the decision, said the sources. Obviously, Powell opted to stay on and became part of the plot as anyone else involved.
Since then, it was a question of justifying the planned invasion and building up the scenario to launch the invasion of Iraq and a group of pro-Israeli hawks were more than glad to oblige by fabricating evidence and drumming up Israeli-inspired political influence in Congress and intellgence services to do the groundwork of the war.
However, Afghanistan figured in between; military experts say that the war that the US waged against Afghanistan beginning in October 2001 was as much as a "dress rehearsal" for the invasion of Iraq as military action aimed at destroying Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda and its Taliban backers. Never mind that not a single hijacker on Sept.11 came from Afghanistan.
Part of that build-up to war against Iraq was establishing reasons. And that entailed dramatic reversals of Washington's firm assertions that Saddam Hussein was a caged lion that could be manipulated at will and was kept "contained" since the 1991 war that ousted Iraq from Kuwait.
Bush administration officials had declared before Sept.11, 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no longer a threat to anyone - the international community, the Middle East and the Gulf states.
After all, it was then an American need to convince the world that Washington's stragey of "containing" both Iraq and Iran were working.
In February 2001, Powell said in Cairo: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
In May 2001, Powell reiterated that Saddam had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years." Washington's firm policy, he claimed, had been successful in keeping the Iraqi leader "in a box."
In June 2001, Rice said iraq had been rendered weak, divided and militarily defenceless, with Saddam deprived of control the northern part ofthe country.
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt," she said.
How come the situation changed so dramatically in less than a few months, with the same Powell and Rice, as well as Bush himself and others in Washington, declaring that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat not only to his neighbours but also to the region and the international community, including mainland US?
In November 2001, more than a month into the war, the writing was clear on the wall that the US was going to invade Iraq, when Bush included Iraq in his "war against terror" by saying that any country which had weapons of mass destruction to "terrify its neighbours" was a legitimate target.
The broader plot came to the fore a few months later, when Bush described iraq, iran and North Korea as the "axis of evil."
The course of events since a few hours after the Sept.11 attack has been brought out by investigations, interviews and research that went into making a British television documentary -- Breaking the Silence. It makes clear that the Bush administration as well as the British government of Tony Blair collaborated and created falsehoods and reasons justifying the invasion of iraq and hoodwinking the American public and distracting the media from exposing the real reason for the military action.
In secret meetings that were never reported in the mainstream media, US officials had indeed referred to the real reasons, starting with Rumsfeld himself.
According to John Pilger, who made the documentary, the idea that the Sept.11 attacks could be turned into a reason for attacking Iraq came from Rumsfeld.
Pilger writes in London's Mirror newspaper:
"At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld... said he wanted to 'hit' Iraq — even though not a shred of evidence existed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. 'Go massive,' the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. 'Sweep it all up. Things related and not.'
"Iraq was given a brief reprieve when it was decided instead to attack Afghanistan," writes Pilger. "This was the 'softest option' and easiest to explain to the American people - even though not a single September 11 hijacker came from Afghanistan. In the meantime, securing the 'big prize' Iraq, became an obsession in both Washington and London."
Pilger also says that in April last year Condoleezza Rice said in a secret meeting in April last year that the the Sept.11 attacks were an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities."
Indeed, Iraq, with 11 per cent of the world's oil known oil reserves and with immense potential to challenge Israel - the US' strategic partner in the Middle East -- was on top of all those "new opportunities."
How did Blair enter the picture?
It is almost certain that Blair was told of the American resolve to invade Iraq in a few weeks after the decision was made in Washington, and the British prime minister plunged into campaigning for war immediately there after.
At times Blair appeared to be more determined that Bush himself to invade Iraq and topple Saddam. That should explain the series of British government efforts, including proved falsification of intelligence documents and "sexing up" of a dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, that followed.
In September, Blair told his parliament that intelligence documents showed that Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing.
"The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down. It is up and running now."
It has now been established beyond any reasonable doubt that Saddam did not have any weapons of mass destruction and former chief UN weapon expert Hans Blix has publicly stated that the ousted Iraqi leader could have destroyed whatever he had in 1991 itself.
The Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, which searched through US-occupied Iraq since June has failed to uncover any evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Subsequently, it was not surprising that the US and UK decided to delay indefinitely the publication of the team's report, which was supposed to have been released in mid-September.
American efforts to link Saddam with Al Qaeda also failed miserably, and it was ironic that Rumsfeld said in September 2003 that he had never said that the Iraqi leader had ties with Osama Bin Laden. In reality, Bush himself and all his aides, including Rumsfeld, had clearly stated or implied that Saddam was in collusion with Bin Laden in the Sept.11 attacks and further plans for similar attacks. It was those assertions and implied affirmations that led more than two-thirds of Americans to believe -- as pre-war opinion polls showed -- that Saddam was the mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks.
In mid-September 2003, Rumsfeld was asked at a press encounter why he thought most Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of Sept.11, he replied: "I've
not seen any indication that would lead me to believe I could say that."
In the Breaking the Silence documentary, Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and personal friend of George Bush senior, the president's father, says on record that a group of "crazies" were behind the plot to invade Iraq.
"They were referred to in the circles in which I moved when I was briefing at the
top policy levels as 'the crazies'," he says.
"The crazies," says McGovern citing "plenty of documented evidence," were planning the (invasion of iraq) for a long time and that 9/11 accelerated their plan. (The weapons of mass
destruction issue) was all contrived, so was the connection of Iraq with al Qaeda. It was all PR... Josef Goebbels had this dictum: If you say something often enough, the people will believe it."
The "crazies" – or "neoconseratives" — as it has turned out since theen, could be seen to include Vice-President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Bolton, under-secretary of state, Douglas Feith, under-secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy to Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, former chairman and current member of the Defence Advisory Board, and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, and Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser.
Collaborating with the "neocons" from outside the administration are former CIA chief James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman, a former official in the Ford and Reagan administrations.
L Paul Bremer, the current head of the US occupation of Iraq, has come from the ranks of the "neocons."
Reports in the American media have said that the "neo-cons" had set up their own intelligence network -- taking in material provided by Israel's Mossad agency -- to build a case for military action against Iraq and often overlooking or ignoring CIA-gathered information that would not have suited their case for US occupation of Iraq.
THE BEANS are out now. It has now been made clear that the Bush administration took the decision to invade Iraq on Sept.17, 2001, six days after the aerial assaults in New York and Washington offered the perfect opportunity to wage war against America's enemies and bag the biggest oil price of all - Iraq. The only question that remained was the timing of the war and the build-up to justifying military action.
On Sept.17, 2001, President George Bush signed a top- secret directive to the Pentagon to
begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq, according to highly reliable sources in Washington.
The directive was signed at a meeting attended by hawks like Defence Secretary Ronald Rumseld and National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice. Secretary of State Colin Powell had reservations about the move and he was bluntly told that he was free to quit the administration if he did not like the decision, said the sources. Obviously, Powell opted to stay on and became part of the plot as anyone else involved.
Since then, it was a question of justifying the planned invasion and building up the scenario to launch the invasion of Iraq and a group of pro-Israeli hawks were more than glad to oblige by fabricating evidence and drumming up Israeli-inspired political influence in Congress and intellgence services to do the groundwork of the war.
However, Afghanistan figured in between; military experts say that the war that the US waged against Afghanistan beginning in October 2001 was as much as a "dress rehearsal" for the invasion of Iraq as military action aimed at destroying Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda and its Taliban backers. Never mind that not a single hijacker on Sept.11 came from Afghanistan.
Part of that build-up to war against Iraq was establishing reasons. And that entailed dramatic reversals of Washington's firm assertions that Saddam Hussein was a caged lion that could be manipulated at will and was kept "contained" since the 1991 war that ousted Iraq from Kuwait.
Bush administration officials had declared before Sept.11, 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no longer a threat to anyone - the international community, the Middle East and the Gulf states.
After all, it was then an American need to convince the world that Washington's stragey of "containing" both Iraq and Iran were working.
In February 2001, Powell said in Cairo: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
In May 2001, Powell reiterated that Saddam had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years." Washington's firm policy, he claimed, had been successful in keeping the Iraqi leader "in a box."
In June 2001, Rice said iraq had been rendered weak, divided and militarily defenceless, with Saddam deprived of control the northern part ofthe country.
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt," she said.
How come the situation changed so dramatically in less than a few months, with the same Powell and Rice, as well as Bush himself and others in Washington, declaring that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat not only to his neighbours but also to the region and the international community, including mainland US?
In November 2001, more than a month into the war, the writing was clear on the wall that the US was going to invade Iraq, when Bush included Iraq in his "war against terror" by saying that any country which had weapons of mass destruction to "terrify its neighbours" was a legitimate target.
The broader plot came to the fore a few months later, when Bush described iraq, iran and North Korea as the "axis of evil."
The course of events since a few hours after the Sept.11 attack has been brought out by investigations, interviews and research that went into making a British television documentary -- Breaking the Silence. It makes clear that the Bush administration as well as the British government of Tony Blair collaborated and created falsehoods and reasons justifying the invasion of iraq and hoodwinking the American public and distracting the media from exposing the real reason for the military action.
In secret meetings that were never reported in the mainstream media, US officials had indeed referred to the real reasons, starting with Rumsfeld himself.
According to John Pilger, who made the documentary, the idea that the Sept.11 attacks could be turned into a reason for attacking Iraq came from Rumsfeld.
Pilger writes in London's Mirror newspaper:
"At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld... said he wanted to 'hit' Iraq — even though not a shred of evidence existed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. 'Go massive,' the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. 'Sweep it all up. Things related and not.'
"Iraq was given a brief reprieve when it was decided instead to attack Afghanistan," writes Pilger. "This was the 'softest option' and easiest to explain to the American people - even though not a single September 11 hijacker came from Afghanistan. In the meantime, securing the 'big prize' Iraq, became an obsession in both Washington and London."
Pilger also says that in April last year Condoleezza Rice said in a secret meeting in April last year that the the Sept.11 attacks were an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities."
Indeed, Iraq, with 11 per cent of the world's oil known oil reserves and with immense potential to challenge Israel - the US' strategic partner in the Middle East -- was on top of all those "new opportunities."
How did Blair enter the picture?
It is almost certain that Blair was told of the American resolve to invade Iraq in a few weeks after the decision was made in Washington, and the British prime minister plunged into campaigning for war immediately there after.
At times Blair appeared to be more determined that Bush himself to invade Iraq and topple Saddam. That should explain the series of British government efforts, including proved falsification of intelligence documents and "sexing up" of a dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, that followed.
In September, Blair told his parliament that intelligence documents showed that Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing.
"The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down. It is up and running now."
It has now been established beyond any reasonable doubt that Saddam did not have any weapons of mass destruction and former chief UN weapon expert Hans Blix has publicly stated that the ousted Iraqi leader could have destroyed whatever he had in 1991 itself.
The Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, which searched through US-occupied Iraq since June has failed to uncover any evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Subsequently, it was not surprising that the US and UK decided to delay indefinitely the publication of the team's report, which was supposed to have been released in mid-September.
American efforts to link Saddam with Al Qaeda also failed miserably, and it was ironic that Rumsfeld said in September 2003 that he had never said that the Iraqi leader had ties with Osama Bin Laden. In reality, Bush himself and all his aides, including Rumsfeld, had clearly stated or implied that Saddam was in collusion with Bin Laden in the Sept.11 attacks and further plans for similar attacks. It was those assertions and implied affirmations that led more than two-thirds of Americans to believe -- as pre-war opinion polls showed -- that Saddam was the mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks.
In mid-September 2003, Rumsfeld was asked at a press encounter why he thought most Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of Sept.11, he replied: "I've
not seen any indication that would lead me to believe I could say that."
In the Breaking the Silence documentary, Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and personal friend of George Bush senior, the president's father, says on record that a group of "crazies" were behind the plot to invade Iraq.
"They were referred to in the circles in which I moved when I was briefing at the
top policy levels as 'the crazies'," he says.
"The crazies," says McGovern citing "plenty of documented evidence," were planning the (invasion of iraq) for a long time and that 9/11 accelerated their plan. (The weapons of mass
destruction issue) was all contrived, so was the connection of Iraq with al Qaeda. It was all PR... Josef Goebbels had this dictum: If you say something often enough, the people will believe it."
The "crazies" – or "neoconseratives" — as it has turned out since theen, could be seen to include Vice-President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Bolton, under-secretary of state, Douglas Feith, under-secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy to Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, former chairman and current member of the Defence Advisory Board, and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, and Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser.
Collaborating with the "neocons" from outside the administration are former CIA chief James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman, a former official in the Ford and Reagan administrations.
L Paul Bremer, the current head of the US occupation of Iraq, has come from the ranks of the "neocons."
Reports in the American media have said that the "neo-cons" had set up their own intelligence network -- taking in material provided by Israel's Mossad agency -- to build a case for military action against Iraq and often overlooking or ignoring CIA-gathered information that would not have suited their case for US occupation of Iraq.
Lockerbie verdict challenged
PV Vivekanand
THE world is awaiting anxiously to hear the prosecutors present their version of how two Libyans planned and executed a plan that resulted in a mid-air explosion on a Pan Am flight from London to New York 12 years ago at the hearings of the case beginning on May 3 at a former US Air Force base in the Netherlands by Scottish judges under Scottish law.
Equally interesting will be how the defence goes about picking holes in every point made by the prosecution, if pre-hearing reports and results if extensive research conducted by the US television network CBS as well as newpapers.
The crash, which took place over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on the night of Dec.21-22, 1988, killed 270 people - 259 of them aboard the plane and 11 others on the ground when the Boeing crashed down on them.
But by the time the case gets even before the half way mark, more questions are likely to be raised than answered at the trial, where a Pandora's box is expected to be opened once it gets into the core of the affair.
Most important of all, the prosecution case is believed to be weak and its arguments have already been found lacking in substantiating evidence before the case went to court.
Particularly of importance here is that under Scottish law the charge of murder is tough to prove and Scottish judges are known to be proud of their independence.
The charge sheet against the two — Abdelbasset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi and Al Lameen Khalifa Fhima _ says that Megrahi prepared a suitcase containing a bomb rigged into a Toshiba radio cassette player, and Fhima, who worked for the Libyan Arab Airlines, used planted that suitcase on an Air Malta plane to Frankfurt, Germany.
In Frankfurt the unaccompanied suitcase was loaded on to a Pan Am flight to London. At Heathrow, it was finally transferred to the New York-bound Pan Am 747 which exploded in mid-air half an hour after take-off at a hight of 31,000 feet.
The prosecution is expected to argue that the bombing was in relatiation for a 1985 April US air attack on the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Tripoli, which killed up to five people, including the adopted daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.
That air raid, which fitted into a pattern of US-Libyan confrontations, was ordered by the then president Ronald Reagan to punish Libya for its alleged role in the bombing of a disco in Berlin frequented by US Marines.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the blast is only one of the many theories that were raised at the very outset of investigations into the crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug underworld, and even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and there is a widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya is the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case against Tripoli.
The burden of proving the case against Libya beyond any reasonable doubt rests solely with the prosecution. By definition, that helps the the defence because all it has to do is to pick convincing holes in the prosecution case. And that should be relatively easy, given the abundance of theories and red herrings in the case.
The defence strategy, as one of the lawyers for the Libyan suspects hinted during a pre-trial hearing in court last week, is expected to be based on laying out a well-built case where the accusing fingers point in several directions. The defence will seek to prove that several other parties had as good motives and opportunity (supported by circumstantial evidence) as Libya to carry out the bombing.
The key piece of evidence expected to be presented in court in the Lockerbie case is a tiny piece of a timer that allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a Toshiba cassettee player and the fragement was found in part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie, the prosecution says.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich, Switzerland.
That is the main pillar of the prosecution argument, but it could be shaken at it foundations in court because the company argues that similar timers were supplied to several parties, including the Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
If serious doubts are cast on the alleged link between the timer and Libya, then that pulls the rug from under the feet of the prosecution, according to European legal experts.
Major Owen Lewis, a former British army explosive expert and now an independent security consultant, said in an interview with the US television network CBS that he could not fathom how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya because of some fundamental differences in the construction of the devices bought by LIbya and those sold by MEBO to others.
The prosecution argument is expected to be weakened further by a challenge to the credibility, a record of misguided conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, told the same CBS programe "60 Minutes" that the fragment could have come from one of two timers he had sold to Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had those blueprints could have manufactured a similar timer.
The Stasi connection opens up another avenue. A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was among the first suspects named by US authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite other circumstantial evidence, did have close links with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer from the East Germans.
Again, that is anticipated as another pillar of the defence argument.
The prosecution is expected to present evidence that clothes found in the wreckage and supposedly came from the suitcase that contained the explosives came from a shop in the Mediterrenean island of Malta and purchased by one of the two Libyan defendants.
Defendant Abdel Basset Al Megrahi, who was the head of security for Libyan Arab
airlines, was known for visiting Malta frequently. The second defendant, Al Lameen
Khalifa Fhima, worked for the Libyan airline at the airport in Malta.
The prosecution contends that the two were Libyan intelligence agents and prepared the bomb that exploded the Pan Am plane, and Megrahi bought the clothes found in the suitcase from Mary's Shop in Malta.
A major hole in that argument is expected to be made with the defence arguing that the shopkeeper could not positively identify the purchaser as Megrahi and the description he provided fitted another man, Mohammed Abu Talb, who was a PFLP-GC member.
A former Libyan intelligence is expected to be produced by the prosecution to testify that he saw al Megrahi and Fhima at the airport on that day of the explosion, and to claim that they put the suitcase containing the bomb aboard an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt the suitcase was put aboard the ill-fated airliner.
But the ex-agent's testimony could be challenged on grounds that he has a vested interest in lying because is living under a witness protection programme in the US and stands to be rewarded by upto $4 million from the US government.
In strict legal terms, the ex-agent's testimony needs to be corraborated by another witness and that is believed, at this point, to be missing in the prosecution presentation.
Down the line, the prosecution has to prove that the circumstances were also ideal for the accused to put aboard the Air Malta flight the suitcase containing the explosives as unaccompanied baggage.
Air Malta has categorically rejected the possibility of an unaccompanied baggage being aboard the concerned flight to Frankfurt and affirmed that all procedures were strictly followed and the suitcase was not aboard that flight.
A weekly planner is said to contain a phrase allegedly written by Fhima one week before the crash: "Get the taggs from Air Malta." (This has been explained as related to Fhima's routine work, which included getting Libyan Airlines tags printed in Malta and that the reference to Air Malta tag was linked to competitive pricing. There are also other notations in the same weekly planner which refers to an unidentified printer).
The prosecution argues that Fhima used one of these tags to route the suitcase with the bomb from Malta via Frankfurt and London to New York.
But that argument is countered by Air Malta, which points out that if Fhima, with the help of his Libyan Airline security pass, had substituted the suitcase for one belonging to a passenger on the flight, they would have had a claim for a lost bag when the passengers reached
Frankfurt. But no such claim was made, says the airline, adding that every one of the 39 passengers aboard the flight were individually interviewed and they confirmed that there was nothing amiss.
In essence, it has been generally established that there was an unaccounted piece of baggage at Frankfurt that was could have eventually found its way to the Pan Am flight. But there is no concrete evidence that the baggage came from Air Malta - another major dent in the prosecution case.
"If it cannot be stablished that the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 started in Malta, then the evidence is worthless," Robert Black, who heads the law department at Edinburgh University and who devised the plan to have the two suspects tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands, told "60 Minutes."
According to Black, the Scottish authorities could have "allowed themselves to be bounced into the charges against the two named Libyans, who may very well have been Libyan Intelligence agents, known to the intelligence services of Britain and the United States. It became tempting to bring closure to the Lockerbie incident by bringing charges against them."
The weakness of the prosecution case was seen as having prompted the prosecutors to demand postponement of the beginning of the hearings. The court allowed two deferments, but turned down a third prosecution request last week.
The defence is expected to zero in on suspicions that the PFLP was behind the bombings. Defece lawyers will cite the repeated instances where the Syrian-based group's name cropped up during the investigations.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran, which seeking revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was named as having personally undertaken the alleged "contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in Europe several months before the actual attack. Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and several other European countries, months before the Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed shortly thereafter.
The presence in Malta of the PFLP—GC'S Abu Talb, who is now serving term in Sweden on unrelated charges, at the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of Abu Talb as the buyer is seen as another strong nail in the prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran — were involved in the blast, why did the US move away from that direction?
Explanations provided by Western media include a theory that the US wanted to "neutralise" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support" for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing involved a covert CIA operation involving druglords in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. This involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could do with its connections in Europe, says one theory, which is partially supported by the findings of an investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect suitcase contained drugs and allowed its passage through Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the line, somone switched the suitcase with one containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or another group with links to the druglords and this group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained explosives and that McKee was the target but they allowed the blast to take place before the CIA station chief was headed for home with a complaint against them that could have led not only to their dismissal from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid of Major McKee," according to a detailed report carried by the British Guardian newspaper after extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie has reported finding a suitcase containing cellophane packets containing white powder among the debris in his fields, but the suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given. It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
THE world is awaiting anxiously to hear the prosecutors present their version of how two Libyans planned and executed a plan that resulted in a mid-air explosion on a Pan Am flight from London to New York 12 years ago at the hearings of the case beginning on May 3 at a former US Air Force base in the Netherlands by Scottish judges under Scottish law.
Equally interesting will be how the defence goes about picking holes in every point made by the prosecution, if pre-hearing reports and results if extensive research conducted by the US television network CBS as well as newpapers.
The crash, which took place over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on the night of Dec.21-22, 1988, killed 270 people - 259 of them aboard the plane and 11 others on the ground when the Boeing crashed down on them.
But by the time the case gets even before the half way mark, more questions are likely to be raised than answered at the trial, where a Pandora's box is expected to be opened once it gets into the core of the affair.
Most important of all, the prosecution case is believed to be weak and its arguments have already been found lacking in substantiating evidence before the case went to court.
Particularly of importance here is that under Scottish law the charge of murder is tough to prove and Scottish judges are known to be proud of their independence.
The charge sheet against the two — Abdelbasset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi and Al Lameen Khalifa Fhima _ says that Megrahi prepared a suitcase containing a bomb rigged into a Toshiba radio cassette player, and Fhima, who worked for the Libyan Arab Airlines, used planted that suitcase on an Air Malta plane to Frankfurt, Germany.
In Frankfurt the unaccompanied suitcase was loaded on to a Pan Am flight to London. At Heathrow, it was finally transferred to the New York-bound Pan Am 747 which exploded in mid-air half an hour after take-off at a hight of 31,000 feet.
The prosecution is expected to argue that the bombing was in relatiation for a 1985 April US air attack on the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Tripoli, which killed up to five people, including the adopted daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.
That air raid, which fitted into a pattern of US-Libyan confrontations, was ordered by the then president Ronald Reagan to punish Libya for its alleged role in the bombing of a disco in Berlin frequented by US Marines.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the blast is only one of the many theories that were raised at the very outset of investigations into the crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug underworld, and even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and there is a widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya is the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case against Tripoli.
The burden of proving the case against Libya beyond any reasonable doubt rests solely with the prosecution. By definition, that helps the the defence because all it has to do is to pick convincing holes in the prosecution case. And that should be relatively easy, given the abundance of theories and red herrings in the case.
The defence strategy, as one of the lawyers for the Libyan suspects hinted during a pre-trial hearing in court last week, is expected to be based on laying out a well-built case where the accusing fingers point in several directions. The defence will seek to prove that several other parties had as good motives and opportunity (supported by circumstantial evidence) as Libya to carry out the bombing.
The key piece of evidence expected to be presented in court in the Lockerbie case is a tiny piece of a timer that allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a Toshiba cassettee player and the fragement was found in part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie, the prosecution says.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich, Switzerland.
That is the main pillar of the prosecution argument, but it could be shaken at it foundations in court because the company argues that similar timers were supplied to several parties, including the Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
If serious doubts are cast on the alleged link between the timer and Libya, then that pulls the rug from under the feet of the prosecution, according to European legal experts.
Major Owen Lewis, a former British army explosive expert and now an independent security consultant, said in an interview with the US television network CBS that he could not fathom how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya because of some fundamental differences in the construction of the devices bought by LIbya and those sold by MEBO to others.
The prosecution argument is expected to be weakened further by a challenge to the credibility, a record of misguided conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, told the same CBS programe "60 Minutes" that the fragment could have come from one of two timers he had sold to Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had those blueprints could have manufactured a similar timer.
The Stasi connection opens up another avenue. A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was among the first suspects named by US authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite other circumstantial evidence, did have close links with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer from the East Germans.
Again, that is anticipated as another pillar of the defence argument.
The prosecution is expected to present evidence that clothes found in the wreckage and supposedly came from the suitcase that contained the explosives came from a shop in the Mediterrenean island of Malta and purchased by one of the two Libyan defendants.
Defendant Abdel Basset Al Megrahi, who was the head of security for Libyan Arab
airlines, was known for visiting Malta frequently. The second defendant, Al Lameen
Khalifa Fhima, worked for the Libyan airline at the airport in Malta.
The prosecution contends that the two were Libyan intelligence agents and prepared the bomb that exploded the Pan Am plane, and Megrahi bought the clothes found in the suitcase from Mary's Shop in Malta.
A major hole in that argument is expected to be made with the defence arguing that the shopkeeper could not positively identify the purchaser as Megrahi and the description he provided fitted another man, Mohammed Abu Talb, who was a PFLP-GC member.
A former Libyan intelligence is expected to be produced by the prosecution to testify that he saw al Megrahi and Fhima at the airport on that day of the explosion, and to claim that they put the suitcase containing the bomb aboard an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt the suitcase was put aboard the ill-fated airliner.
But the ex-agent's testimony could be challenged on grounds that he has a vested interest in lying because is living under a witness protection programme in the US and stands to be rewarded by upto $4 million from the US government.
In strict legal terms, the ex-agent's testimony needs to be corraborated by another witness and that is believed, at this point, to be missing in the prosecution presentation.
Down the line, the prosecution has to prove that the circumstances were also ideal for the accused to put aboard the Air Malta flight the suitcase containing the explosives as unaccompanied baggage.
Air Malta has categorically rejected the possibility of an unaccompanied baggage being aboard the concerned flight to Frankfurt and affirmed that all procedures were strictly followed and the suitcase was not aboard that flight.
A weekly planner is said to contain a phrase allegedly written by Fhima one week before the crash: "Get the taggs from Air Malta." (This has been explained as related to Fhima's routine work, which included getting Libyan Airlines tags printed in Malta and that the reference to Air Malta tag was linked to competitive pricing. There are also other notations in the same weekly planner which refers to an unidentified printer).
The prosecution argues that Fhima used one of these tags to route the suitcase with the bomb from Malta via Frankfurt and London to New York.
But that argument is countered by Air Malta, which points out that if Fhima, with the help of his Libyan Airline security pass, had substituted the suitcase for one belonging to a passenger on the flight, they would have had a claim for a lost bag when the passengers reached
Frankfurt. But no such claim was made, says the airline, adding that every one of the 39 passengers aboard the flight were individually interviewed and they confirmed that there was nothing amiss.
In essence, it has been generally established that there was an unaccounted piece of baggage at Frankfurt that was could have eventually found its way to the Pan Am flight. But there is no concrete evidence that the baggage came from Air Malta - another major dent in the prosecution case.
"If it cannot be stablished that the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 started in Malta, then the evidence is worthless," Robert Black, who heads the law department at Edinburgh University and who devised the plan to have the two suspects tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands, told "60 Minutes."
According to Black, the Scottish authorities could have "allowed themselves to be bounced into the charges against the two named Libyans, who may very well have been Libyan Intelligence agents, known to the intelligence services of Britain and the United States. It became tempting to bring closure to the Lockerbie incident by bringing charges against them."
The weakness of the prosecution case was seen as having prompted the prosecutors to demand postponement of the beginning of the hearings. The court allowed two deferments, but turned down a third prosecution request last week.
The defence is expected to zero in on suspicions that the PFLP was behind the bombings. Defece lawyers will cite the repeated instances where the Syrian-based group's name cropped up during the investigations.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran, which seeking revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was named as having personally undertaken the alleged "contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in Europe several months before the actual attack. Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and several other European countries, months before the Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed shortly thereafter.
The presence in Malta of the PFLP—GC'S Abu Talb, who is now serving term in Sweden on unrelated charges, at the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of Abu Talb as the buyer is seen as another strong nail in the prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran — were involved in the blast, why did the US move away from that direction?
Explanations provided by Western media include a theory that the US wanted to "neutralise" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support" for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing involved a covert CIA operation involving druglords in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. This involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could do with its connections in Europe, says one theory, which is partially supported by the findings of an investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect suitcase contained drugs and allowed its passage through Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the line, somone switched the suitcase with one containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or another group with links to the druglords and this group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained explosives and that McKee was the target but they allowed the blast to take place before the CIA station chief was headed for home with a complaint against them that could have led not only to their dismissal from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid of Major McKee," according to a detailed report carried by the British Guardian newspaper after extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie has reported finding a suitcase containing cellophane packets containing white powder among the debris in his fields, but the suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given. It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Unanswered Lockerbie questions
PV Vivekanand
This is an intriguing story that was never presented
in this format. The uninformed part of the world is
now convinced that Libya was behind the 1998 PanAm
bombing after Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi agreed to
pay compensation and accepted responsibility (but not
guilt -- there is a big distinction under
international terms between "responsibility" and
"guilt."). But many in the Arab World, and indeed the
international community, continue to believe that was
much more than met the eye in the episode. The answers
to the very valid questions raised by the sceptics
might never be answered. I am not suggesting Libya was
not behind the blast, but that there have been equally
strong indicators to show someone else was behind the
attack.
This report is about 2,200 words. Perhaps, in my
humble suggestion, it could be split into two or three
and run on consecutive days.
In any event, I leave it entirely to your decision
whether to use it at all..
Thanks and best regards
by pv vivekanand
THE LIBYAN agreement to pay £2.7 billion in
compensation and implicit acceptance of responsibility
for the 1998 bombing of an American airliner that
killed 270 people might close the diplomatic file and
rehabilate Libya into the international circuit, but
many questions remain unanswered.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's acceptance of
responsibility and compensation payment was a
prerequisite in ending the UN and US sanctions imposed
against his country in 1990 when he refused to hand
over two Libyans suspected of having carried out the
bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie.
However, this does not imply acceptance of guilt since
without accepting responsibility and paying
compensation, Libya would have remained under the
sanctions and diplomatically isolated.
Libya, which has been suffering from the sanctions,
need foreign investments and technology to develop its
untapped oil reserves and therefore it was incumbent
upon Qadhafi to end the sanctions through whatever
means.
Now it is expected that at least four US oil companies
would return to Libya and resume their operations and
Libya would also be removed from a US list of
countries supporting "terrorism."
That is too strategic a prize for Qadhafi to let go.
However, the file remains open without the question
satisactorily answered who was behind the bombing of
the American airliner.
Even European experts and analysts have said that the
trial of two Libyans in 1999 after Qadhafi handed them
over to a special Scottish court set up in Camp Zeist
in the Netherlands was flawed. The trial led to one of
the Libyans sentenced to life in a Scottish prison and
the other being cleared of all charges.
Notwithstanding the trial and last month's Libyan
agreement to accept responsibility and pay damages,
many argue that doubts remain open whether Libya was
behind the bombing.
Several other theories remain as strong as the one
that the Panam blast was in revenge for a 1985
American bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and
Bengazhi that killed five people, including Qadhafi's
adopted daughter of four years.
That bombing was ordered by the then president Ronald
Reagan as punitive measure against Libya for having
allegedly ordered a blast at a Berlin disco frequented
by American servicemen. A woman died in that blast.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the Pan Am
bombing is only one of the many theories that were
raised at the very outset of investigations into the
crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing
fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug
underworld, and even the CIA and Eastern Europe.
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and a
widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya was
the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli
secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case
against Tripoli.
Indeed, the initial investigation into to the PanAm
blast brought out those theories. These include:
-- The bombing was Iranian revenge for the downing of
an Iranian passenger airline in the Gulf by an
American warship at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in
the mid-80s.
-- The blast was the work of fearful Central
Intelligence Agents (CIA) involved in illegal
activities or masterminded by anti-American elements
who penetrated a CIA-endorsed drug running operation;
-- The blast had nothing to do with the Middle East or
Libya since the target of the bombing was two Eastern
European politicians who were travelling to Washington
for talks on former Yugoslavia and that had their
talks been successful the course of events in that
country would have been totally different today.
Surprisingly, the US investigators shut off all other
investigations and focused on Libya instead without
explaining why others were eliminated as suspects.
It is believed that Iran was conveniently removed as a
potential suspect because taking on Tehran would have
been too heavy for the US at that point. Washington
was also seeking to pacify the Iranians after having
extended support to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war.
Syria, which supported the US in the 1991 war that
ended Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, was off the hook
since Washington needed Damascus to enter the Middle
East peace process launched in late 1991.
All other non-Libya theories about the bombing would
have dented what the US saw as an opportunity to have
a stranglehold on Qadhafi's Libya, one of the most
vociferous critics of US policy in Africa and the
Middle East.
A careful scrutiny of the trial held at Camp Zeist
indicated major loopholes in the prosecution case and
it was surprising that the court found it fit to
approve the evidence.
The key piece of evidence introduced during the Camp
Zeist trial was a tiny piece of a timer that
allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase
aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a
Toshiba cassette player and the fragment was found in
part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was
manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small
electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich,
Switzerland.
But a company official told the court that similar
timers were supplied to several parties, including the
Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
Experts have questioned how the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the
fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya
because of some fundamental differences in the
construction of the devices bought by Libya and those
sold by MEBO to others.
Also challenged in court was the record of misguided
conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of
an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link
between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, said that the fragment
could have come from one of two timers he had sold to
Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for
the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had
those blueprints could have manufactured a similar
timer.
The Stasi connection opened up another avenue.
A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC),
which was among the first suspects named by US
authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite
other circumstantial evidence, did have close links
with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer
from the East Germans.
Also challenged was the testimony of a former Libyan
intelligence that he had seen the two Libyans who were
put on trial in Camp Zeist at Malta airport on the day
of the explosion.
The testimony was challenged on grounds that he has a
vested interest in lying because he was living under a
witness protection program in the US and stood to be
rewarded by up to $4 million from the US government.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said
the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on
behalf of Iran, which was seeking revenge for the
shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers
aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the
Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was
named as having personally undertaken the alleged
"contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in
Europe several months before the Pan Am attack.
Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and
several other European countries, months before the
Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar
nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid
of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to
have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid
yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a
Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb
similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over
Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed
shortly thereafter.
The prosecution was not seen to have proved
conclusively that the suitcase containing the bomb was
indeed loaded to an Air Malta plane at Valetta airport
which was automatically moved to London's Heathrow
from Frankfurt because it had a "through to New York"
baggage tag. As long as that was not proved, the
Libyan connection should have been dropped altogether.
A key the PFLP—GC activist was present in Malta at
the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap
the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of
the buyer was seen as another strong nail in the
prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation
whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran —
were involved in the blast, why did the US move away
from that direction?
Explanations a theory that the US wanted to
"neutralize" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support"
for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant
excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing
involved a covert CIA operation involving drug lords
in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure
the release of American hostages in that country. This
involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound
airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could
do with its connections in Europe, said one theory,
which was partially supported by the findings of an
investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan
Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect
suitcase contained drugs linked to the Lebanon
undercover operation and allowed its passage through
Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the
line, someone switched the suitcase with one
containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or
another group with links to the drug lords and this
group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA
station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard
the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says
that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained
explosives and that McKee was the target but they
allowed the blast to take place since the CIA station
chief was headed for home with a complaint against
them that could have led not only to their dismissal
from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was
sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid
of Major McKee," according to a detailed report
carried by the British Guardian newspaper after
extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie, where the exploded
pieces of the plane landed, had reported finding a
suitcase containing cellophane packets containing
white powder among the debris in his fields, but the
suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given.
It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on
the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names
on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
"There have been many ambiguities in the case from the
very beginning, and they have not been cleared by the
trial...," says James Weatherby, a British lawyer.
Weatherby cited the "many suggestions and reports
indicating other groups or government(s) had the
motive to carry out the attack and could have been
behind those who planted the bomb" as one of the
reasons for scepticism.
"The prosecution swept off all that under the carpet
and zeroed in on Libya," he said.
The Libyan who was sentenced after the one-year trial
appealed the verdict after fresh evidence emerged that
the rigged suitcase could have been planted by those
who broke into a Heathrow cargo bay.
The defence lawyers produced two witnesses, a security
guard and his supervisor who were on duty at that
time, who testified in court that there was a break-in
at the cargo bay some 16 hours before the flight took
off, that those who broken in had access to genuine
Pan Am baggage tags and could have stashed the
suitcase among the baggage lined up to be placed
aboard Pan Am 103.
Every theory is feasible and every piece of evidence
is as strong as the other.
As a British expert put it, the trial was a "process
intended for public consumption was played out
frontstage while thick curtains sealed off real drama
for no one to see."
And indeed, the world might never know who blasted
Flight 103 out of the skies.
___________________________
This is an intriguing story that was never presented
in this format. The uninformed part of the world is
now convinced that Libya was behind the 1998 PanAm
bombing after Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi agreed to
pay compensation and accepted responsibility (but not
guilt -- there is a big distinction under
international terms between "responsibility" and
"guilt."). But many in the Arab World, and indeed the
international community, continue to believe that was
much more than met the eye in the episode. The answers
to the very valid questions raised by the sceptics
might never be answered. I am not suggesting Libya was
not behind the blast, but that there have been equally
strong indicators to show someone else was behind the
attack.
This report is about 2,200 words. Perhaps, in my
humble suggestion, it could be split into two or three
and run on consecutive days.
In any event, I leave it entirely to your decision
whether to use it at all..
Thanks and best regards
by pv vivekanand
THE LIBYAN agreement to pay £2.7 billion in
compensation and implicit acceptance of responsibility
for the 1998 bombing of an American airliner that
killed 270 people might close the diplomatic file and
rehabilate Libya into the international circuit, but
many questions remain unanswered.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's acceptance of
responsibility and compensation payment was a
prerequisite in ending the UN and US sanctions imposed
against his country in 1990 when he refused to hand
over two Libyans suspected of having carried out the
bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie.
However, this does not imply acceptance of guilt since
without accepting responsibility and paying
compensation, Libya would have remained under the
sanctions and diplomatically isolated.
Libya, which has been suffering from the sanctions,
need foreign investments and technology to develop its
untapped oil reserves and therefore it was incumbent
upon Qadhafi to end the sanctions through whatever
means.
Now it is expected that at least four US oil companies
would return to Libya and resume their operations and
Libya would also be removed from a US list of
countries supporting "terrorism."
That is too strategic a prize for Qadhafi to let go.
However, the file remains open without the question
satisactorily answered who was behind the bombing of
the American airliner.
Even European experts and analysts have said that the
trial of two Libyans in 1999 after Qadhafi handed them
over to a special Scottish court set up in Camp Zeist
in the Netherlands was flawed. The trial led to one of
the Libyans sentenced to life in a Scottish prison and
the other being cleared of all charges.
Notwithstanding the trial and last month's Libyan
agreement to accept responsibility and pay damages,
many argue that doubts remain open whether Libya was
behind the bombing.
Several other theories remain as strong as the one
that the Panam blast was in revenge for a 1985
American bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and
Bengazhi that killed five people, including Qadhafi's
adopted daughter of four years.
That bombing was ordered by the then president Ronald
Reagan as punitive measure against Libya for having
allegedly ordered a blast at a Berlin disco frequented
by American servicemen. A woman died in that blast.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the Pan Am
bombing is only one of the many theories that were
raised at the very outset of investigations into the
crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing
fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug
underworld, and even the CIA and Eastern Europe.
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and a
widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya was
the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli
secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case
against Tripoli.
Indeed, the initial investigation into to the PanAm
blast brought out those theories. These include:
-- The bombing was Iranian revenge for the downing of
an Iranian passenger airline in the Gulf by an
American warship at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in
the mid-80s.
-- The blast was the work of fearful Central
Intelligence Agents (CIA) involved in illegal
activities or masterminded by anti-American elements
who penetrated a CIA-endorsed drug running operation;
-- The blast had nothing to do with the Middle East or
Libya since the target of the bombing was two Eastern
European politicians who were travelling to Washington
for talks on former Yugoslavia and that had their
talks been successful the course of events in that
country would have been totally different today.
Surprisingly, the US investigators shut off all other
investigations and focused on Libya instead without
explaining why others were eliminated as suspects.
It is believed that Iran was conveniently removed as a
potential suspect because taking on Tehran would have
been too heavy for the US at that point. Washington
was also seeking to pacify the Iranians after having
extended support to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war.
Syria, which supported the US in the 1991 war that
ended Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, was off the hook
since Washington needed Damascus to enter the Middle
East peace process launched in late 1991.
All other non-Libya theories about the bombing would
have dented what the US saw as an opportunity to have
a stranglehold on Qadhafi's Libya, one of the most
vociferous critics of US policy in Africa and the
Middle East.
A careful scrutiny of the trial held at Camp Zeist
indicated major loopholes in the prosecution case and
it was surprising that the court found it fit to
approve the evidence.
The key piece of evidence introduced during the Camp
Zeist trial was a tiny piece of a timer that
allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase
aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a
Toshiba cassette player and the fragment was found in
part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was
manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small
electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich,
Switzerland.
But a company official told the court that similar
timers were supplied to several parties, including the
Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
Experts have questioned how the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the
fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya
because of some fundamental differences in the
construction of the devices bought by Libya and those
sold by MEBO to others.
Also challenged in court was the record of misguided
conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of
an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link
between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, said that the fragment
could have come from one of two timers he had sold to
Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for
the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had
those blueprints could have manufactured a similar
timer.
The Stasi connection opened up another avenue.
A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC),
which was among the first suspects named by US
authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite
other circumstantial evidence, did have close links
with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer
from the East Germans.
Also challenged was the testimony of a former Libyan
intelligence that he had seen the two Libyans who were
put on trial in Camp Zeist at Malta airport on the day
of the explosion.
The testimony was challenged on grounds that he has a
vested interest in lying because he was living under a
witness protection program in the US and stood to be
rewarded by up to $4 million from the US government.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said
the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on
behalf of Iran, which was seeking revenge for the
shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers
aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the
Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was
named as having personally undertaken the alleged
"contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in
Europe several months before the Pan Am attack.
Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and
several other European countries, months before the
Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar
nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid
of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to
have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid
yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a
Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb
similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over
Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed
shortly thereafter.
The prosecution was not seen to have proved
conclusively that the suitcase containing the bomb was
indeed loaded to an Air Malta plane at Valetta airport
which was automatically moved to London's Heathrow
from Frankfurt because it had a "through to New York"
baggage tag. As long as that was not proved, the
Libyan connection should have been dropped altogether.
A key the PFLP—GC activist was present in Malta at
the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap
the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of
the buyer was seen as another strong nail in the
prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation
whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran —
were involved in the blast, why did the US move away
from that direction?
Explanations a theory that the US wanted to
"neutralize" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support"
for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant
excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing
involved a covert CIA operation involving drug lords
in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure
the release of American hostages in that country. This
involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound
airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could
do with its connections in Europe, said one theory,
which was partially supported by the findings of an
investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan
Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect
suitcase contained drugs linked to the Lebanon
undercover operation and allowed its passage through
Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the
line, someone switched the suitcase with one
containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or
another group with links to the drug lords and this
group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA
station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard
the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says
that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained
explosives and that McKee was the target but they
allowed the blast to take place since the CIA station
chief was headed for home with a complaint against
them that could have led not only to their dismissal
from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was
sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid
of Major McKee," according to a detailed report
carried by the British Guardian newspaper after
extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie, where the exploded
pieces of the plane landed, had reported finding a
suitcase containing cellophane packets containing
white powder among the debris in his fields, but the
suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given.
It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on
the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names
on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
"There have been many ambiguities in the case from the
very beginning, and they have not been cleared by the
trial...," says James Weatherby, a British lawyer.
Weatherby cited the "many suggestions and reports
indicating other groups or government(s) had the
motive to carry out the attack and could have been
behind those who planted the bomb" as one of the
reasons for scepticism.
"The prosecution swept off all that under the carpet
and zeroed in on Libya," he said.
The Libyan who was sentenced after the one-year trial
appealed the verdict after fresh evidence emerged that
the rigged suitcase could have been planted by those
who broke into a Heathrow cargo bay.
The defence lawyers produced two witnesses, a security
guard and his supervisor who were on duty at that
time, who testified in court that there was a break-in
at the cargo bay some 16 hours before the flight took
off, that those who broken in had access to genuine
Pan Am baggage tags and could have stashed the
suitcase among the baggage lined up to be placed
aboard Pan Am 103.
Every theory is feasible and every piece of evidence
is as strong as the other.
As a British expert put it, the trial was a "process
intended for public consumption was played out
frontstage while thick curtains sealed off real drama
for no one to see."
And indeed, the world might never know who blasted
Flight 103 out of the skies.
___________________________
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
![Iraq counter](http://a href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html" img src="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/images/iraqdeaths.gif" alt="Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator" width="150" height="150" border="0" /a){kind=link}