Friday, December 31, 2004

Year-ender 2004 Palestine

IN SHARP CONTRAST with the situation when we entered the year 2004, the New Year this time around holds out a ray of hope, at least for apperance sake, for some movement in the Israeli-Palestinian track for peace. Let us put aside all our reservations and scepticism for a moment and welcome the year 2004 with guarded optimism that the new realities on the ground would usher in a fresh atmosphere conducive to realistic progress towards peace in Palestine.
However, we should not lose sight of the constants in the equation ie. Israel's predetermined state of mind not to recognise, respect and honour the central pillars of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people — their right to set up an independent state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital and a fair and just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees, a problem that has been haunting the world for more than 56 years now.
The most positive plus point for the Palestinians, the underdogs who are pitted against an country and government backed to the hilt by the world's sole superpower, would be that the person who would lead the effort to make peace with Israel would be undeniably their own choice exercised in transparent democracy. That is what they would be doing on Jan.9.
Israel's hawkish camp led by Ariel Sharon would not be able to argue against whoever emerges the winner in the Palestinian presidential elections next week. They would not be in a position to assert that autocracy is the rule of the day for the Palestinians and brush aside all efforts to renew negotiations for peace.
As things stood this week, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) appeared to be headed for victory in the elections (although the decision by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to throw its weight behind Marwan Barghouthi would indeed have an effect on the elections).
We know Abu Mazen as a man committed to his people's cause. We know of his unwavering rejection of any compromise of his people legitimate political and territorial rights although Sharon seems to be betting that he would be able to twist Abu Mazen around his fat thump.
The responsibility for the course of the peace process from Jan.9 rests with the United States. On Jan.10, the US, and the international community at large, would indeed have a Palestinian president to succeed Yasser Arafat and who is committed not to spare any effort to achieve peace in Palestine based on the rights of the Palestinians.
Despite all criticism of the US bias in favour of Israel, we are aware that the administration in Washington, whether led by George W Bush or anyone else for that matter, has its limitations while dealing with Israel. It requires a sea change in thinking in Washington to be more realistic and objective in its approach to efforts to solve the Palestinian problem.
We have heard Bush reaffirming his vision of a "two-state solution" to the Palestinian problem. Indeed, that is the only solution. But then, what matters is the shape and nature of the Palestinian segment of the two-state solution. If Bush or anyone else believes that the Palestinian state should be confined to the Gaza Strip and some parts of the West Bank then that is no solution. It is only the best recipe for continued bloodshed in Palestine.
We are not appealing to the US to rally behind the Palestinians and take on Israel at whatever cos. Far from it, if anything.
All that Bush and his Mideastern strategists have to do is to step out of the shackles imposed on them by Israel and its powerful supporters and think and act with an independent mindset based, first and foremost, on American interests.
It does not need years of research to figure out that the present US approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict only harms American interests. The Americans should know it themselves without we having to point it out, but then they seem to be in a slumber and it is incumbent upon us to remind them of some of the facts of life.
The American administration is deceiving no one but itself and the American people at large when they argue that the threat of terrorism that they face has to do with a hatred towards their way of life. They are deliberately ignoring the truth that their successive governments' strange commitment to uphold Israeli interests over American interests had given birth of the anti-American sentiment that was evident in the Sept.11 attacks and is very visible in the continuing assaults against American and allied targets around the world.
One does not have to look far to realise that the US-led "war against terror" has collapsed far short of achieving anything tangible in terms of averting the threats that the security of the people of America.
Today, the Americans are living in perpetual fear, conceived or otherwise, that someone, somewhere is plotting terror attacks against them. Is it because the plotters hate the American way of life? Well, that is what the Bush administration would like them to believe and that is exactly where the White House has to do some soul-searching.
The US is a great country founded on the noblest of noble principles that uphold the dignity of people and their right to determine their future without any external influence. All the Bush administration has to do is to ensure that these principles are the basis for all conflicts involving foreign occupation and an occupied people.
We know that it is wishful thinking that things were as simple as that. But then, is that asking for too much?

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

A lying Iraqi for Bremer

pv vivekanand

An Iraqi woman who became a celebrity in the US because of what she described as her decade-long suffering that surpassed the ordeal of any Iraqi under the Saddam Hussein regime has been reportedly proved to be a liar, catching the Bush administration redfaced and fumbling for explanations.
It is the same woman, Jumana Mikhail Hanna, who is in her mid-30s, who was once described by Iraqi newspapers as US overseer Paul Bremer's secret lover and who was taken to the US, along with her two children and her mother Jeanne d'Arc, a few days before Bremer himself left Baghdad after handing over administration of the country to the interim government on June 28, 2003.
Her falsehood was exposed by renowned American freelance writer Sara Solovitch, who was assigned by American publishers backed by the Bush administration to write her story into a book that was supposed to become the best account of how Iraqis suffered under the Saddam regime.
"Hanna became a symbol of survival, of the indomitability of the human spirit in one of the most repressive states in modern history," Solovitch recalls. The writer quotes Donald Campbell, a New Jersey superior court judge who served as the US-led coalition's top judicial advisor in Iraq as saying: "I've been in seventy countries and taken testimony about many atrocities—including right after My Lai. And I have to tell you that I found her story to be the most compelling and tragic I've ever heard."
Solvovitch worked on the project since July 2004 and found out after four months that Jumana, an Iraqi Christian, was lying outright when she told Bremer and other Americans, including senior military officers and civilian officials, of how she was punished by Uday Hussein, Saddam's eldest son, for having dared to decide to marry a man of Indian origin, Haytham Jamil Anwar, son of Indian immigrants who had come to Iraq along with thousands of Indians during the British occupation of 1919 to 1932.
Haytham Jamil Anwar was uneducated and was poor. He was not accepted an Iraqi and Jumana's choice was considered shameful, she told the Americans. Her mother opposed the marriage, but the two got married anyway on Aug.15, 1993, she said. However, Jumana said she was in trouble because, as she claimed, Saddam had made it illegal for Iraqi citizens to marry non-nationals and she wanted help from Uday Hussein in this matter.
But when she took an appointment and went to see Uday Hussein a few weeks later, she told everyone, she was arrested for violating the law, taken into a cell at what she called Al Kelab al Sayba — Loose Dogs Prison — in Baghdad where she was repeatedly raped by prison guards, hung from a rod and mercilessly beaten during her imprisonment for the next three years. "Please," she said she begged her guards. "I'm like your sister."
Solovitch writes recalling from what Jumana had told her:
"After seven months, three men appeared at Jeanne d'Arc's mansion with a handwritten letter from (Jumana) Hanna, asking her mother to sign over her house in order to secure her release. Jeanne d'Arc agreed, eventually signing away two houses. Still, Hanna wasn't returned. For 19 months, the men drained Jeanne d'Arc of all her remaining wealth until, homeless, she was forced to lodge with a poor Muslim man who opened his door in an act of charity. By the time Hanna was released in 1996, her head shaved, Jeanne d'Arc didn't even recognise her.
"Anwar, too, was a changed man. He had been sodomised and beaten, his nose had been broken, and he walked with a heavy limp. He had become a heavy drinker who now beat his wife regularly. For the next seven years, Hanna walked the streets of Baghdad, begging for food and drink. The couple had two children, but because the marriage remained unsanctioned by the state, they were considered illegal aliens. In January 2001, Hanna sent her husband to the Ministry of the Interior to obtain the documentation required for Sabr and Ayyub to attend school. It was a bad idea. Once again, Anwar was arrested and returned to the very cellblock where he was previously held. This time, he never came home."
After the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Jumana hit the headlines when the Washington Post published a heartrending front-page story about her under the headline "A lone woman testifies to Baghdad's terror."
The story was touted by American conservatives as "justification alone for Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom."
And it was because American concern for her safety — since she spoke out — that Bremer moved her to the famous Green Zone in Baghdad along with her mother, 72, and two children, a seven-year-old daughter, Sabr, and a five-year-old son, Ayyub, They stayed there until late June 2004 when they were driven to Jordan and then flown to the US where she was given shelter.
Bremer and other American officials met her and questioned and then moved her to the "Green Zone."
During further questioning, she identified her jailers with such point-blank accuracy that occupation forces ultimately arrested nine Iraqi officers, including a brigadier general, on her word alone.
Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who was in Iraq as senior policy advisor for Bremer, assigned two military investigators to help her prosecute her tormentors. Their investigation lasted four months. Kerik even went to see for himself the prison where Jumana said she was held —  "to be physically there, to look at the barbed wire that was hooked into the trees, to think about the stories she told and then actually see the devices they used...," he said at that time: "It was sickening."
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also toured Loose Dogs Prison and testified about Jumana before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Her courage in coming forward to offer US officials what is very likely credible information," he said, would help the coalition "root out" Baathist killers.
After she and her family were moved to the US, Solovitch regularly met them in order to write a book on her until she discovered that all the stories that Jumana recounted were lies. Yes, she had been in prison for a few days but that was because her mother opposed her marriage and wanted to frighten her, but the man was Iraqi and had nothing to do with India, and there was no Saddam law against Iraqi women marrying foreigners either.
Solovitch writes: "Family members told me that Hanna had gone to prison but that the real reason bore no resemblance to what she told authorities, the Post, or even what she wrote on her application for asylum. She had been jailed, she said, for marrying an Indian, violating an Iraqi law that forbade marriage to a non-national without government permission. In fact, there was never any such law. While intermarriage may have been discouraged, it did not require special approval, a point confirmed for me by a specialist at the Library of Congress."
Solovitch says she developed the first doubt about Jumana when she found that the woman did not have enough understanding of English although she claimed she was an Oxford graduate.
Since then, Solovitch cross-checked with Oxford — and was told they had no record of any Jumana Mikhail Hanna. Since then, everything that Jumana had been telling the Americans unravelled as outright lies, says Solovitch in an article appearing in the January issue of Esquire.
The marks that she alleged were signs of the torture she suffered in prison were discounted. All the names she gave as her fellow inmates turned out to be false and non-existent. And then it turned out that husband is a tramp in Baghdad and is alive.
The nine people that Jumana identified as her tormentors have been released and financially compensated for wrongful imprisonment.
"Far from being a story about the indomitability of the human spirit, Hanna's tale now seemed to open a window on the coalition's naivete — the willingness of its leaders to believe almost anything that fit their agenda," according to Solovitch.
Solovitch says she confronted Jumana and her mother after she learnt the truth about the lies that the Iraqi woman had been spreading.
"Yes, she now admitted, she had lied about the reasons for her imprisonment," Solovitch says. "It was Jeanne d'Arc, determined to teach her daughter a lesson and put a stop to an ill-advised marriage, who had arranged for her arrest on seven charges, including prostitution, theft, spying for the British, and plotting to overthrow the government."
Finally, the writer says, she asked Jumana why she lied about going to Oxford.
"For a second, she looked confused, and I thought, yes, finally, she was going to come clean," Solovitch recalls. "I went to Oxford!" she screamed. "Oxford College of Accounting on Oxford Street in London. It is right next to Louis the Five Hotel. I'll take you there!"

Monday, December 27, 2004

Questions for Rumsfeld

pv vivekanand

US Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld has told American soldiers in Iraq that the insurgency there needs an Iraqi solution and that he does not expect the guerrilla attacks against the US-led forces to fade away with the elections next month.
Of course, it reflects an increasing understanding of the irrefutable realities on the ground today, but it raises one prime question: Who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq today and how does the US expect the Iraqis to come up with a solution?
The ideal scenario for the US is quite simple: All the 25 million people of Iraq do nothing other than support next month's elections without reservation, elect the people that Washington could count on to protect American interests, and then endorse the constitution the elected 275-member assembly would draft by the end of 2005.
They should not complain about the lack of security, jobs, food, water and power; nor should they object to the high-handed and contemptuous manner the US military is dealing with them; they should report without fail every "foreign militant" who enters the country, and they should allow their country to be turned into an Israeli Trojan horse in the Arab World.
In his recent tour of the region, Rumsfeld conceded that the insurgency has staying power and a seemingly endless supply of weapons, and the time has come for ordinary Iraqis to realise that they not the Americans will ultimately decide who prevails in this conflict.
He also admitted that it would be unrealistic to predict that the level of violence will recede once the Jan.30 elections are held. In the end, he said, it will be a "uniquely Iraqi solution," not American.
But then, wasn't it an American solution that the Bush administration sought to impose on Iraq with last year's war? Isn't the worsening crisis in the country is the direct result of the US attempting to play out its own script for the future of Iraq that has more to do with external interests than Iraqi interests?
How could Rumsfeld say that ending the crisis is an Iraqi responsibility when the beginning of the crisis was American initiated?
And how exactly does Rumsfeld envisage the divided Iraqi society coming together to solve the problem which the mighty US military failed to address?
While one could not really assert that the US did wrong when it toppled Saddam Hussein, given his regime's oppression of the people of Iraq, the world holds Washington responsible for the spiralling crisis in the occupied country. The international community knows that it was not the welfare of the people of Iraq or any great love for democracy in the Arab World — or anywhere else for that matter — that the Bush administration had in mind when it sent in its military to invade Iraq and that it wrong wholesale in its approach to dealing with the people of Iraq.
Washington had and still has its secret agenda in Iraq. These include using Iraq as an advanced military base in the Gulf region as part of its quest to dominate the globe, employing the oil resources of Iraq to ensure America's energy security and as a weapon to manipulate the international oil market to counter other industrialised countries in the race for global business, and removing Iraq, once among the strongest in the Arab World, as a potential threat to Israel, the staunchest American ally in the region.
Few would be ready to accept that it was any great sympthy for the "oppressed" people of Iraq that prompted the US to launch war against that country and all that Washington wanted was to save Iraqis from Saddam Hussein.
Indeed, the people of Iraq do have their role in containing the insurgency and put their country on track towards an atmosphere conducive to address some of the root problems they face. However, they were rendered unable to do so from the word go when the US took them for granted and invaded Iraq without taking into consideration the realities on the ground except that the country was ruled by a regime which challenged American interests in the region and stood in the way of an American ally's quest for regional domination.
Let us also not forget that it is the first time the people of Iraq are faced with the question of how to shape their future and the US-designed plans for them are alien to their thinking and political mindset.
Some of the key questions (not necessarily in the order given here) that would have to be answered by Rumsfeld and others in the US administration as well as the neoconservative hawks who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq include:
—  Did the people of Iraq invite the US to "liberate" them from Saddam Hussein and do the half-baked job that it did?
—  Did the people of Iraq ask Washington to resort to whatever deception it took — weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda links included — to justify the invasion of their country and thus lose world support for its action in Iraq?
— Did the people of Iraq ask Rumsfeld to keep down the number of American soldiers to be deployed in the war so that they were kept spread too thin and too wide to make an impact against the expected insurgency?
— Why did the US fail to realise that while its military had the ability to invade and occupy another country, it did not have any experience or expertise in administering another people with sharp cultural, social, economic, and religious differences with the American style?
— Why did the US fail to realise that it stood in absolute need of the UN in Iraq? Why did it dump the world body on the wayside and assume for itself its self-assumed supremacy of the world was enough to claim legitimacy for the illegal war?
— Why did the US fail to accept the wisdom in inviting the UN and the Arab League to take over post-Saddam Iraq with all transparency?
— Wasn't it Rumsfeld who led the Washington camp in blindly backing Iraqi exiles who hoodwinked him into believing that they had enough influence and popularity among Iraqis in order to take charge of running the country and insisted on disbanding the Iraqi armed forces and purging the administrative establishment of Baathists as a priority in post-Saddam Iraq?
— Why did the US intelligence agencies fail to establish that the American military would not be able to ride on the wave of being "liberators" for more than a few days after the ouster of the Saddam regime unless it ensured, with proper planning, that the life of Iraqis was disrupted to the minimum?
— Why did the US military fail to realise that the infrastructure that it was destroying as if with a vengeance in the war — water and power installations and facilities that US intelligence agencies knew to be genuine industrial establishments — was vital to any reconstruction effort in post-Saddam Iraq?
— Why did the US military make a beeline for Iraq's oil installations and deploy soldiers to protect them rather than preventing the chaos in the country's civil society in the days immediately after the Saddam regime fell?
— Why did the US fail to take prompt action towards ensuring the security and safety of the Iraqis and allow anarchy to reign in the country after ousting Saddam?
— Why did the US fail to realise that uncontrollable violence and chaos would follow any military action that ousts a regime unless accompanied by a well-planned strategy to deal with such a situation?
— Why did the US fail to realise that the Iraqis, like all other Arabs, are a proud people who draw immense strength and pride from their history and would not cower before the hamburger or the fish and chip culture?
— Why did the US fail to take careful note of the fact that the history of Iraq was always bloody and full of upheavals that had turned the people of Iraq into being perpetually rebellious?
— Why did the US fail to realise that the tribal roots of Iraqis are stronger than any relation that an external force would try to impose on them and they would fight the external force first before fighting their own people?
— Why did the US military adopt actions that were predictably seen as anti-people in its drive for the elusive security in Iraq, including summary storming of family homes with little regard of Arab pride and that inflicted utter humiliation on the Iraqi society?
— Why did the US adopt an obvious attitude that everything was permissible in action against Iraqis, however tough and humiliating and wherever and whenever?
— Why did the US fail to check actions that clearly implied that benefiting American corporations with tens of billions of dollars both in American as well as Iraqi money was among its top priorities in Iraq?
— Why did the US fail to see that it would be treading on the interests of others in the world, Europeans prominent among them, with the invasion of a strategically placed, oil-rich Arab country and thus alienating them into opposing American plans for the country and staying away from helping Washington?
— Why did the US fail to realise that its biased approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict had already deprived it of credibility among the Arabs, including the Iraqis, to an extent beyond repair when it tried to portray an image of honest intentions?
The sum total of answers to these questions would clearly show that the Americans went into Iraq in order to serve their own interests as well as those of their strategic partner,  Israel, but made a total mess of things there beyond any hope of repair and got themselves into a Vietnam-like trap. And now their defence minister says that the problem needs an Iraqi solution.
Indeed, it has to be an Iraqi solution, but then, in order for that to happen the field should be cleared for the Iraqis to play the leading role, and the Iraqis have to decide who among them should lead them in that role. What the US has been doing and continuing to do is usurping that right from the people of Iraq.
Any hope of justifiably addressing the crisis in Iraq today needs direct Iraqi, Arab and international involvement in total transparency, and any American effort to deal with the problem while it zealously considers the country as its backyard is doomed to fail.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

No zero-sum game in Iraq

December 24, 2004

Iraq No zero- sum game


The ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq and of the US military in tackling the guerrillas has gone several notches up in recent months. We have seen it happening. It is also understandable why it is happening on both sides. Both sides are desperate.

After all, the US launched an unprecedented high-stake game when it invaded and occupied Iraq last year after toppling the Saddam Hussein regime. The next month's elections in the country are crucial to the continuation of the script, and Washington has all the reason to make sure that Iraq is pacified ahead of the polls.

The deceptions, lies and concocted intelligence findings that American and British officials cited to justify the war against Iraq clearly showed how high the Bush administration and the Blair government considered the stakes to be.

It is not every second day that a country, regardless of it being the sole superpower in the world, gets to lay its hands on another nation, regardless of how small or militarily weak it might be, with a view to absolutely controlling it as part of its quest for global domination and serve its strategic ally in the region, Israel. Add to the equation the natural resources of the country under occupation and its strategic location.

Quest for control

"Failure" in Iraq is not an eventuality in the American scheme of things. To beat down any and every challenge to the US quest for absolute control of Iraq, directly or through proxies, is an American priority and part and parcel of the roots of the US approach to the Middle East in the immediate term and to the international scene in the long term. As such, it is absolutely committed to do what it takes to turn the occupied country around to the desired shape, and it would not flinch at a dozen of Fallujahs.

For the insurgents, it is vital to thwart the US plans regardless of who and what ideology (or none at all) that they represent or their perceptions of the future of the country and its people. One could come up with many reasons. They include: Allowing the election to go ahead without hindrance will, in the first place, deal a severe blow to their efforts to show the world that the US and its allied forces are no longer in control of the country; the elections would see the emergence of a Shiite-led leadership at the expense of the minority Sunnis who held the sway since the early years of last century; permitting the chaos to subside will allow the US and its ally Israel to shape Iraq to suit their interests and undermine Arab interests at large; and, for many of the "foreign militants," the US military presence in Iraq is nothing but a rare opportunity to vent their anti-American hostility by targeting American soldiers. Then there are the self-assumed "international jihadists" -- the likes of Abu Musab Zarqawi, who -- it is a strong bet -- would not be able to produce a cohesive, realistic answer to the question what they want in Iraq. Add to the equation those external players who fear that allowing the US to pacify Iraq would only lead to the American guns being turned around to be trained on them for "regime change."

It is against that backdrop that fresh evidence has emerged that the White House had authorised the use of torture against detainees in Iraq in order to extract information on insurgents. It clearly fits into the picture where American strategists are dead bent upon using every avenue available to the heart of the insurgency with a view to quelling it.

Torture approval

It should also explain why the administration even took the risk of being accused of -- as it is today -- of violating the eighth amendment of the US constitution which says:

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Wouldn't an executive authorisation of torture of detainees be a violation of the US constitution? Well, it is a question that Americans should ask their administration and demand an answer. Indeed, some, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , are already asking.

Bush had declared on June 26, 2003, marking UN Torture Victims Recognition Day: "The US is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the US and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating and prosecuting all acts of torture."

Isn't the same president who is now accused by the ACLU of having issued the order authorising the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq?

The ACLU charge is backed by reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that characterise methods used by the US military as "torture."

A two-page e-mail refers to an executive order stating that the president directly authorised interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is demanding that the White House confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately release the order if it exists.

Other documents detail the methods of torture based on reports filed by field agents.

A sample is an FBI document dated June 24, 2004 -- two months after the extent of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison was fully revealed to the world -- which contains the account of an FBI agent who observed "serious physical abuses" in Iraq. Marked "urgent" and sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller, the document described strangulation, beatings and the placing of lit cigarettes into detainees' ears.

Blaming game

When the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib was revealed in graphic details, the White House defended itself by contenting that a few "rotten apples" in the US military establishment and private contractors were responsible for the gross violations of human rights that the pictures portrayed and those who perpetrated would be punished.

Little was said -- nor is it said now -- about how successive US administrations had laid the ground for such abuses by giving an impression that the Arabs were less than human beings and it is no big deal if they were treated as animals.

Then again, we have people like Republican Senator Jim Inhofe who has said during a debate on the abuse and torture of Iraqis: "I have to say I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cellblock 1A or 1B these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents, many of them probably have American blood on their hands, and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."

Obviously, Inhofe was not aware or chose to ignore the reality that many Abu Ghraib detainees were Iraqi civilians who had little to do with the insurgency and were picked up for petty crimes and even traffic violations.

If a proper accounting was done over why American military personnel and private contractors felt they would get away with abusing, torturing and humiliating Arabs and Muslims -- as they did in Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay -- then the ball would have gone to the very top. The White House would have had to explain that its attitude, the manner in which the invasion and occupation of Iraq was carried out, and the instructions given to lower ranks of the military through the various layers had not bred an air of contempt for Arabs and Muslims that led to the despicable treatment of Iraqi, Afghan, Arab and Muslim prisoners under American detention.

What values?

Somehow, with all-too-indignant comments and lofty declarations about American values and principles, Bush himself and his close aides like Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and other senior Pentagon officials, eased themselves out of blame. For good measures, they picked a handful of soldiers and charged them for the crimes at Abu Gharib.

However, the political leadership might not be able to squirm out of the latest fallout.

It should also not be surprising that interrogators also humiliated Arab detainees by wrapping them in Israeli flags. Indeed, in all probability, that "method" was suggested by Israelis who were hired to interrogate Iraqi detainees.

An article written by Wayne Madsen appearing on the website counterpunch.org in May 2004 noted: "With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defence Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified 'carve out' sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, 'if these images (of torture in Abu Ghraib) are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse'."

The article quotes a "political appointee" within the Bush administration and US intelligence sources as saying that "the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped US interrogators develop the 'R2I' (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself."

That might indeed not be news to many, given the record of the "strategic partnership" between the US and Israel.

Desperate situation

The reality on the ground in Iraq today is that the US is finding the going tough, to put it mildly. Washington planners have realised that they desperately need to wage a ruthless, make-or-break military campaign in order to show some semblance of things under control by Jan.30, when Iraq would go to the polls.

The insurgents are determined not to allow that to happen and the Americans are determined to hit the insurgents wherever they appear. The trouble is that the ranks of those who challenge the US role in Iraq are swelling, not necessarily because of any in-built hatred towards the Americans but because he life in the country has become unbearable, contrary to expectations that the removal of Saddam would have signalled a turn to the better and an end to sufferings.

Apart from the perpetual terror of having to live with the uncertainty when, where and how a stray or intended missile, bomb or bullet could kill or maim them or destroy their homes, Iraqis are suffering in all aspects of life, and there does not seem to be any way out.

In a shambles

Forget about the elections. Iraqis are worrying about how to live let alone vote. The economy of the country is in a shambles. Crude-oil exports average 1.6 million barrels a day, around half of what the country exported before the war. Sabotage against oil pipelines is a daily occurrence, and oil exports remain frozen for days after attacks while repairs are carried out. Quite simply, oil cannot be expected to generate the income to run the economy of Iraq which has 11 per cent of the world's known reserves of oil.

There is an acute crisis sparked by shortage of petrol and diesel for the average Iraqis.

Before the war, agriculture accounted for more than one-quarter of the country's gross domestic product and 20 per cent of employment. It is now in ruins. The World Bank says it would take $3.6 billion to restore the agriculture sector.

Power generation has been halved by the war. Repairs are going on, but even before the war there was not enough power since power generation facilities were destroyed during the 1991 war. The system that existed before the 2003 war was mostly patchworked.

Clean drinking water is scarce in many parts of the country. Sewage plants, hit in the first war and never repaired, have been further damaged. Sewage from Baghdad is flowing untreated into the Tigris River.

Some 1,000 Iraqi schools need to be rebuilt as a result of damage and looting, and almost 20 per cent of the country's 18,000 school buildings need comprehensive or partial repair.

Unemployment is put somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent.

State-run hospitals are suffering from chronic shortages of all kinds. Health workers are unable to move around freely and medical supplies could not be sent to most places because of unsafe streets.

Doctors in major hospitals continue to complain of shortages of drugs used in surgery and emergency operations, anti-inflammatory drugs, vital antibiotics, and cancer drugs.

Generators break down during surgeries and patients die. There is no clean water even in hospitals.

No wonder there is not much interest among Iraqis over the elections. They want hard answers to their question when they could expect an uplift, assured of their safety and the means to earn a living and lead a dignified life.

In the meantime, the battle between the US and insurgents -- no matter what their motives and objectives and who their supporters are -- is not a zero-sum game. Neither side would win it, but they fight for different considerations and reasons.

The US military would never be able to gain absolute control of Iraq. Of course, sheer military strength might help it to eventually present an atmosphere of relatively better security. But time is on the side of the insurgents, for all they need to do is to scale down their offensive and carry out carefully planned suicide bombings and ambushes that would belie all American claims of a pacified Iraq.

By the same token, the insurgents would never be able to dislodge the US from Iraq even if they were to create another Vietnam there. The US is determined to pay whatever price it takes for it to hammer down its stakes in the Middle East.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Abuse on the ground

December 23, 2004

Blessing from the top for abuse on ground

pv vivekanand


WHEN vivid, irrefutable images of prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison hit international news channels early this year, the White House contented that a few "rotten apples" in the US military establishment and private contractors were responsible for the gross violations of human rights that the pictures portrayed. Little was said about the build-up to the violations i.e. the way successive US administrations had dealt with the Arabs over the decades had given Americans the confidence that a free-for-all and no-holds-barred approach to the Arabs was permissible and accepted without question, and no one would be held accountable.

If a proper accounting was done over why American military personnel and private contractors felt they would be get away with abusing, torturing and humiliating Arabs and Muslims -- as they did in Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay -- then the ball would have gone to the very top. The White House would have had to explain that its attitude, the manner in which the invasion and occupation of Iraq was carried out, and the instructions given to lower ranks of the military through the various layers had not bred an air of contempt for Arabs and Muslims that led to the despicable treatment of Iraqi, Afghan, Arab and Muslims prisoners under American detention.

Somehow, with all-too-indignant comments and lofty declarations about American values and principles, President George W. Bush himself and his close aides like Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and senior Pentagon official, eased themselves out of blame. For good measures, they picked a handful of soldiers and charged them for the crimes at Abu Gharib.

However, they might not be able to squirm out of the latest fallout. Documents which have come to the possession of the American Civil Liberties Union show that Bush himself had issued an executive order authorising the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq.

The ACLU has also released a series of other documents, including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) complaints about the interrogation methods used by the US military and suggest that there has been always been a cover-up of the abuses.

The release of these documents follows a court order that directed government agencies to comply with a year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the ACLU, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero states: "These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests. Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers."

The Los Angeles Times was more blunt: "When will the president respond to the cascading allegations of prisoner abuse by the military?"

It continued: "The cascading allegations of prisoner abuse, of which these are but a few examples, long ago demolished the president's claim that only a few bad apples were responsible. So did reports that soldiers and officers who complained to their superiors about this mistreatment were threatened with reprisals and even physical harm. Yet as reports of unexplained deaths, humiliations and depravity across the services multiply, President Bush has recently remained silent."

Noting that Bush had said shortly after the Abu Ghraib abuses became public that "the cruelty of a few cannot diminish the honour and achievement" of the thousands who have served honourably in Iraq, the Los Angeles Times said: "It is now clear that 'the few' are in fact many. So many that either US troops are not under their commanding officers' control or they are beating, burning and sodomising suspects with the blessing -- or worse, at the direction -- of their commanders and Washington policymakers."

The ACLU has released a two-page e-mail that refers to an executive order stating that the president directly authorised interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is demanding that the White House confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists.

The e-mail is said to note that "all of those (techniques) used in these scenarios" were approved by the deputy secretary of defence in line with the presidential executive order.

The documents also seems explain what was a mystery in Iraq -- the appearance of Israeli flags in Fallujah and several other areas as reported in the Iraqi press.

It was claimed in the reports that Israeli soldiers took part in the assault along with the Americans when bodies draped in the Israeli flag were reportedly seen by many in Fallujah.

The ACLU documents say that using Israeli flags was the US military's way of humiliating Arab captives.

The Iraqi Lawyers Union have said that they had eyewitness accounts of Israeli-flag-draped bodies in Fallujah. Iraqi sources said that they had seen insurgents captured from Fallujah being shrouded in the Israeli flag in order to humiliate them.

The Los Angeles Times report did not speak about any Israeli flag in Fallujah.

The ACLU-released documents include reports of instances in which FBI officials said military interrogators pretended to be FBI agents and used the scheme as a "ruse" to glean intelligence information from prisoners.

An FBI agent said in a report to his seniors that he had witnessed military interrogators and government contract employees at the US Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using "aggressive treatment and improper interview techniques" on prisoners. Prisoners taken in Afghanistan are held there.

Another FBI field agent described abuses such as "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorised interrogations."

Another FBI report said that an Abu Ghraib detainee was "cuffed" and placed into a position the military called "the Scorpion" hold. Then he was doused with cold water, dropped onto barbed wire, dragged by his feet and punched in the stomach.

The prisoner was spat upon and then beaten when he attempted to roll onto his stomach to protect himself. American soldiers were "beating him and grabbed his head and beat it into the cell floor," knocking him unconscious.

Another agent reported that he often saw detainees chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor "with no chair, food or water."

"Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left for 18-24 hours or more," the agent wrote, according to the documents.

Sometimes, the room was chilled to where a "barefooted detainee was shaking with cold." Other times, the air-conditioning was turned off and the temperature in the unventilated room rose to well over 100 degrees.

"The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him," the agent reported. "He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

Add to these charges reports coming from Fallujah that the US military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians during the recent American assault against the restive town. Eyewitnesses quoted in the international media speak of unrestrained use of missiles, rockets and bomb and of American military trucks simply rolling over wounded civilians in the streets.

Every vehicle in the town was bombed out because of fears that they might be rigged with explosives as reported in a London paper before the Americans launched the offensive, and caught in the bombing spree were hundreds of bystanders.

Several American news organisations and newspapers have reported that the US soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians holding white flags trying to flee the conflict zones of Fallujah. In an incident that is a classic example, American soldiers on the shores of the Euphrates called in helicopter gunships to sink boats carrying civilians, including women and children, who were frantically seeking refuge from the fighting.

There are scores of reports of such horrifying incidents that have appeared in the mainstream media.

American military commanders have revealed their troops had orders to shoot all males of fighting age seen on the streets, armed or unarmed, and ruined homes across the city attest to a strategy of overwhelming force.

The military behaviour in Fallujah was such that many American soldiers themselves were traumatised by the sight of appalling injuries, the screams of wounded comrades, the fear of death, or simply the chaotic hell of combat, according to psychologists.

So what do we have here? The military of the world's sole superpower is running amok in an occupied country against the occupied people with no constraints or rules of conduct and with the blessing of their government and the world is unable to do anything about it.

In a civilised world, not only those who carried out such heinous attacks but also those who gave them the green light would be put on trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But then, it does not apply to the US, which had foreseen the eventuality and excluded its nationals from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and made sure most other countries of the world would not send Americans to the ICC by signing bilateral agreements with them.

For all we know, what has emerged so far might only be the tip of an iceberg, and more might surface, including the existence of concentration camp like facilities in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

Someone, somewhere has to answer the charges and the White House is silent.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Unrealisable US dreams

THE BATTLE between the US-led coalition forces in Iraq and insurgents will never produce a winner. So decked are the elements at play. All sides are determined to fight on. Elections scheduled for January have only given an additional impetus to all sides. The US is dead bent upon showing that is has the situation under control by the time Iraqis vote on Jan.30 while the insurgents have vowed not to let that happen, not because the elections are in an end in themselves, but because they want to inflict as much damage as possible on the Americans and still keep going. It is no wonder that both sides have stepped up their activities, but the escalating violence goes beyond the US goal of ensuring the smooth conduct of the elections or the insurgents' drive to undermine the polls. Caught in the middle are the majority of the people of Iraq, writes PV Vivekanand
THE ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq and of the US military in tackling the insurgents has gone several notches up in recent months. We have seen it happening. It is also understandable why it is happening on both sides. After all, the US launched an unprecedented high-stake game when it invaded and occupied Iraq last year after toppling the Saddam Hussein regime, and next month's election in the country is crucial to the continuation of the script, and Washington has all the reason to make sure that the country is pacified ahead of the polls.
The deceptions, lies and concocted intelligence findings that US and British officials cited to justify the war against Iraq clearly showed how high the Bush administration and the Blair government in London considered the stakes to be.
It is not every second day that a country, regardless of it being the sole superpower in the world, gets to lay its hands on another country, regardless of how small or militarily weak it might be, with a view to absolutely controlling it as part of its quest for global domination an serve its strategic ally in the region. Add to the equation the natural resources of the country under occupation and its strategic location in the region.
"Failure" in Iraq is not an eventuality in the American scheme of things. To beat down any and every challenge to the US quest for absolute control of Iraq, directly or through proxies, is an American priority and part and parcel of the roots of the US approach to the Middle East in the immediate term and to the international scene in the long term. As such, it is absolutely committed to do what it takes to turn the occupied country around to the desired shape, and it would not flinch at a dozen of Fallujas.
For the insurgents, it is vital to thwart the US plans regardless of who and what ideology (or none at all) that they represent or their perceptions of the future of the country and its people. One could come up with many reasons. They include: Allowing the election to go ahead without hindrance will, in the first place, deal a severe blow to their efforts to show the world that the US and its allied forces are no longer in control of the country; the elections would see the emergence of a Shiite-led leadership of the country at the expense of the minority Sunnis who held the sway since the early years of last century; permitting the chaos to subside will allow the US and its ally Israel to shape Iraq to suit their interests and undermine Arab interests at large; and, for many of the "foreign militants," the US military presence in Iraq is nothing but a rare opportunity to vent their anti-American hostility by targeting American soldiers. Then there are the self-assumed "international jihadists" — the likes of Abu Musab Zarqawi, who — it is a strong bet — would not able to produce a cohesive, realistic answer to the question what they want in Iraq. Add to the equation those external players who fear that allowing the US to pacify Iraq would only lead to the American guns being turned around to be trained on them for "regime change."
It is against that backdrop that fresh evidence has emerged that the White House had authorised the use of torture against detainees in Iraq in order to extract information on insurgents. It clearly fits into the picture where American strategists are dead bent upon using every avenue available to the heart of the insurgency with a view to quelling it.
It should also explain why the administration even took the risk of being accused of — as it is today — of violating the eighth amendment of the US constitution which says:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
Wouldn't an executive authorisation of torture of detaiees be a violation of the US constitution? Well, it is a question that Americans should ask their administration and demand an answer. Indeed, some, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , are already asking.
US President George Bush declared on June 26, 2003, marking UN Torture Victims Recognition Day:
"The US is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the US and the community of law abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating and prosecuting all acts of torture." 
Isn't the same president who is now accused by the ACLU of having issued the order authorising the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq?
The ACLU charge is backed by reports gained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that characterise methods used by the US military as "torture."
A two-page e-mail refers to an executive order stating that the president directly authorised interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is demanding that the White House confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists.
Other documents details the methods of torture based on reports filed by field agents.
A sample is an FBI document dated June 24, 2004 —  two months after the extent of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison was fully revealed to the world — which contains the account of an FBI agent who observed "serious physical abuses" in Iraq. Marked "urgent" and sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller, the document described strangulation, beatings and the placing of lit cigarettes into detainees' ears.
When the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib was revealed in graphic details, the White House defended itself by contenting that a few "rotten apples" in the US military establishment and private contractors were responsible for the gross violations of human rights that the pictures portrayed and those who perpetrated would be punished.
Little was said – nor is it said now — about how successive US administrations had laid the ground to such abuses by giving an impression that the Arabs were less than human beings and it is no big if they were treated as animals.
Then again, we have people like Republican Senator Jim Inhofe who has said during a debate on the abuse and torture of Iraqis:
"I have to say I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cellblock 1A or 1B these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents, many of them probably have American blood on their hands, and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
Obviously, Inhofe was not aware or chose to ignore the reality that many Abu Ghraib detainees were Iraqi civilians who had little to do with the insurgency and were picked up for petty crimes and even traffic violations.
If a proper accounting was done over why American military personnel and private contractors felt they would get away with abusing, torturing and humiliating Arabs and Muslims — as they did in Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay — then the ball would have gone to the very top. The White House would have had to explain that its attitude, the manner in which the invasion and occupation of Iraq was carried out, and the instructions given to lower ranks of the military through the various layers had not bred an air of contempt for Arabs and Muslims that led to the despicable treatment of Iraqi, Afghan, Arab and Muslims prisoners under American detention.
Somehow, with all-too-indignant comments and lofty declarations about American values and principles, Bush himself and his close aides like Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and senior Pentagon official, eased themselves out of blame. For good measures, they picked a handful of soldiers and charged them for the crimes at Abu Gharib.
However, they might not be able to squirm out of the latest fallout.
It should also not be surprising that interrogators also humiliated Arab detainees by wraping them in Israeli flags. Indeed, in all probability, that "method" was suggested by Israelis who were hired to interrogate detainees in Iraq.
An article written by Wayne Madsen appearing on the website counterpunch.org in May 2004 noted: "With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defence Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified 'carve out' sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, 'if these images (of torture in Abu Ghraib) are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse'."
The article quotes a "political appointee" within the Bush administration and US intelligence sources as saying that "the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped US interrogators develop the 'R2I' (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself."
That might indeed not be news to many, given the record of the "strategic partnership" between the US and Israel.
The reality on the ground in Iraq today is that the US is finding the going tough, to put it mildly. Washington planners have realised that they need to wage a ruthless, make-or-break military campaign in order to show some semblance of things under control by Jan.30, when the country would go to the polls.
The insurgents are determined not to allow that to happen and the Americans are determined to hit the insurgents wherever they appear. The trouble is that the ranks of those who challenge the US role in the country are swelling, not necessarily because of any in-built hatred towards the US but because life in the country has become unbearable, contrary to expectations that the removal of Saddam would have signalled a turn to the better and an end to suffering.
Apart from the perptual terror of having to live with the uncertainty when, where and how a stray or intended missile, bomb or bullet could kill or maim them or destroy their homes, Iraqis are suffering in all aspects of life, and there does not seem to be any way out.
Forget about the elections. Iraqis are worrying about how to live let alone vote.
The economy of the country is in shambles.
Crude-oil exports average 1.6 million barrels a day, around half of what the country exported before the war. Sabotage against oil pipelines isa daily occurrence, and oil exports remain frozen for days after attacks while repairs are carried out. Quite simply, oil cannot be expected to generate the income to run the economy in the country which has 11 per cent of the world's known reserves of oil.
There is an acute crisis sparked by shortage of petrol and diesel for average Iraqis.
Before the war, agriculture accounted for more than one-quarter of the country's gross domestic product and 20 percent of employment. It is now in ruins. The World Bank says it would take $3.6 billion to restore the agriculture sector.
Electricity production was halved by the war. Repairs are going on, but even before the war there was not enough power since power generation facilities were destroyed during the 1991 war. The system that existed before the 2003 war was mostly patchworked.
Clean drinking water is scarce in many parts of the country. Sewage plants, hit in the first war and never repaired, have been further damaged. Sewage from Baghdad is flowing untreated into the Tigris River.
Some 1,000 Iraqi schools need to be rebuilt as a result of damage and looting, and almost 20 percent of the country's 18,000 school buildings need comprehensive or partial repair.
Enemployment is put somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent.
State-run hospitals are suffering from chronic shortages of all kinds. Health workers are unable to move around freely and medical supplies could be not sent to most places because of unsafe streets.
Doctors in major hospitals continue to complain of shortages of drugs used in surgery and emergency operations, anti-inflammatory drugs, vital antibiotics, and cancer drugs.
Generators break down during surgeries and patients die. There is no clean water even in hospitals.
No wonder there is not much interest among Iraqis over the elections. They want hard answers to their question when they could expect an uplift, assured of their safety and the means to earn a living and lead a dignified life.
In the meantime, the battle between the US and insurgents — no matter what their motives and objectives and who their supporters are — is not a zero sum game. Neither side would win it, but for different considerations and reasons.
The US military would never be able to gain absolute control of Iraq. Of course, sheer military strength might help it to eventually present an atmosphere of relatively better security, but time is on the side of the insurgents, for all they need to do is to scale down their offensive and carry out carefully planned suicide bombings and ambushes that would belie all American claims of a pacified Iraq.
By the same token, the insurgents would never be able to dislodge the US from Iraq even if they were to create another Vietnam there. The US is determined to pay whatever price it takes for it to hammer down its stakes in the Middle East.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Refreshing forum but what next?

December 16, 2004

Refreshing forum, but what next?

PV Vivekanand

The Arab Strategy Forum held in Dubai this week offered a refreshing experience in terms of blunt talk about the Arab situation and shortcomings that impede the pace of development and economic progress.
Debate during the three-day event — "The Arab World in 2020 — brought out subjects that are often taboo when discussed at the national level although they are the focus of discussions in private gathering in almost part of the Arab World.
That indeed was the key to the success of the ASF, where participants aired their views on what is wrong in the Arab region and what should and could be done to enable the Arabs to cope with the challenges posed by the fast-moving international and regional developments as well as the shrinking of the world brought about by globalisation.
The sharp reminder of the tough task facing the Arabs came when they were told that there would not many "Arab tigers" along the lines of the "Asian tigers" by the year 2020.
If there would be any, it would be Dubai, and that was an emphatic tribute to the emirate.
The participants were almost unanimous that Arabs would and should decide what was best for them, and that stability and security of the region that are vital for development were inevitably contingent on resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict in all its dimensions.
Consensus was that the Arabs would miss the train if they did not get their act together by launching immediate measures to adopt reforms. However, the reforms should be homegrown, based on the ground realities of the country concerned, said the experts, who spoke out firms against the US-led drive for imposing its version of reform on the Arab World.
Arab countries were warned that increased flow of petrodollars as a result of high oil prices should be not be an impediment to economic and political reforms.
Indeed, there were even suggestions that the oil wealth has actually been a hurdle in the way of the natural growth and development of oil-producing Arab countries whereas non-oil Arab states are prompted by their own imperatives to work hard and bring in the results.
Everyone agreed that educating the people and developing human resources is one of the keys to sustainable development and there should be no second thought about investing in creating education sytems oriented towards absorbing high technologies and benefiting from the experience of other countries.
Dubai Crown Prince and UAE Defence Minister Sheikkh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum set the tone for the forum's indepth review of the Arab World's future by warning Arab rulers that they risked losing power if they did not introduce wide-ranging reforms in their countries.
"I say to my fellow Arabs in (power): If you do not change, you will be changed," Sheikh Mohammed told the opening of the forum on "The Arab World in 2020."
"If you do not initiate radical changes to restore respect to public duties, uphold the principles of transparency, justice and responsibility, your peoples will resent you, and the verdict of history on you will be severe," he told the gathering.
Sheikh Mohammed said reforms have to come from within the region.
"Reform cannot be realised by foreign projects and ready-made plans. It cannot be realised by tanks and cannons," he said.
In separate comments to the press, Sheikh Mohammed rejected "the importation of the Western-style democracy."
"Our democracy stems from our tradition, culture and religious principles, which are eternal legacies passed unto us by our ancestors," he said.
"We are very proud of our democracy which our people practice in a one family spirit, and which distinguishes our society from others," he said.

While former US president Bill Clinton and several other speakers said the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had opened a window of opportunity to solve the Palestinian problem, Saudi Ambassador to the Britain Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud said that there would not be peace in the region unless the US shifted its bias in favour of Israel.
"As long as the world remains passive and America remains a strong supporter of Israel that offers any form of support requested, and accepts anything from any prime minister of Israel regardless of his (or) her extremism, then Israel will never seek to compromise or to reach a settlement," said Prince Turki.
Reviewed during the regular sessions and workshops held on the sidelines of the forum were issues such as future of the Arab oil and gas industry and its international dimensions, political systems, reforms and development, Arab security, fighting terrorism, "clash of civilisations, alignment or conflict," economics and politics, globalisation of economies and business, the Iraq crisis, the Libyan experiment in liberalisation, free trade, family businesses, the impact on the world of the Sept.11 attacks in the US, human development and education in the Arab World, the Arab labour market, and the "rise and fall of countries and corporations."
On terrorism, Prince Turki said organisations like Al Qaeda were exploiting Arab and Muslim youth by brainwashing them and were desparate to prove to the world that they exist in the face of security crackdowns and hence their efforts to stage extremist attacks.
There was almost unanimous opinion that the oil-producing Arab countries should seek to diversify their oil-based economies into industrial production, build funds to sustain themselves in a post-oil era, invest more in developing Arab human resources through well-charted education systems and market-oriented training programmes. Above all in the economic sphere, said the participants, governments should shift focus from themselves to the private sector while retaining its role as a facilitator of economic development and growth.
Speakers after speakers referred to China and India as models that could be emulated by the Arabs in terms of economic development, trade liberalisation and adapation of new technologies.
Political reforms are also vital to development and progress and the people's role in governance should be expanded, they said.
However, heard during the debates were complaints that resolutions and decisions adopted at various Arab forums are either not implemented at all or are implemented at a very slow pace that defeats the purpose. Some commentators said governments felt threatened by adopting changes and hence their reluctance to adopt reforms.
It was predicted that there would not be any "Arab tigers" emerging along the lines of the "Asian tigers" by the year 2020 as Arab countries are not moving ahead with reform and adaptation of new international realities at a pace that is required.
"There might be a few cats but I don't see any Arab tigers in the year 2020," said Dr Ghassan Salameh, former minister of culture of Lebanon, who moderated the concluding session, which was attended by New York Times' Thomas Friedman, Abdul Rahman Rashid of Al Arabiya Television and Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International.
According to Zakaria, high prices of oil meant increased income for Arab governments and this was a negative factor against economic reforms since regimes could use the oil money to ward off calls for changes.
Friedman said the increased pace of globalisation was "levelling the competitive playing field" and this meant increased challenges to everyone, particularly those who are slow to adapt themselves to the situation.
Friedman cited as an example how Chinese manufacturers have taken over from Egyptian companies, the production of ornate Ramadan lamps, with the added attraction of microchips that sing perfect Egyptian folk songs.
To take advantage of a "world becoming flat," Friedman said that it is important to take good ideas and practices from others, while at the same time preserving one's own culture and identity.
"When the world is flat, it is flat for the bad guys as well," he said. Osama Bin Laden planned the Sept.11 attacks using all the tools of the "flat world", said Friedman.
He emphasised the need to "drill" human resources rather than oil and equip the young people of the region to take advantage of the opportunities of the "flat world." The inability to exploit these opportunities, he warned, will end up in people feeling humiliation and frustration and these are perfect recipes for extremism.
In his comments on the opening day, Sheikh Mohammed expressed confidence that the Arab World would witness in the next decade a vigorous change.
"Reforms are inevitably coming to our Arab societies," he said, adding that reforms and the solving of the region's problems are intertwined. "But crisis should not obstruct our march towards development, modernisation and economic, social and political developments," he warned.
He underlined the need to solve the crises in Palestine and Iraq based on the principles of international legitimacy and through "dialogue to give each and every one his right for peace and stability to reign in the region and for the peoples in the region to live in peace and harmony irrespective of their religion, race or sectarian inclination."
Clinton, one of the keynote speakers, said he did not see a solution to the Palestinian problem or the wider Arab-Israeli conflict in the next four years as promised by his successor George W Bush.
However, he called on all parties involved to continue to work for peace based on a two-state solution in Palestine. He said the US could play an effective role only if both sides to the conflict had confidence in American mediation.
Clinton told the Arabs they need to realise that all are living in an interdependent world and that it is upon them to define what the Arab World would be like in 2020.
"All we know for sure that we live in an interdependent region and in an interdependent world. For example, both Israel and Syria are interdependent – it depends on whether there are attacks or whether their children play together," Clinton pointed out.
He said growth and development do not rely on vision alone. There are other factors that are required. Vision needs a concrete strategy to activate the vision. Systems are needed to implement that vision. Leadership is a key component and support is needed from the friends of the Arab World, including the US.
Hanan Ashrawi, secretary general of the Palestinian Initiative for Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy and member of the Palestinian parliament, said the Arab World cannot go forward without reform, but the push for it should come from within the region itself and not from a foreign power.
Ashrawi said: "The Arab World has to transform itself from a system based on the concentration of power to one where power is shared by the people. Power should be directed at establishing collective authority and a pluralistic system that allows free interaction."
However, she said that the power should be legitimised by the people and not by the protection provided by a foreign power.
Fuad Ajami, director of Middle East studies programme at John Hopkins University, also reiterated that reform in the region cannot be a "foreign gift."
"Security can be provided under an American umbrella but not reform," he pointed out.
Ajami's description of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as just and comemnt that it "gives a great chance for political change" in the country sparked a verbal clash.
Ajami said: "There is a real possibility that there will be a pluralistic society in which all communities, including the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds, can participate equally and create a system that will work."' He said many Iraqis are eager to get on with the political process in Iraq and not concerned about questions of the legitimacy of the war.
However, Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, retorted that the US broke all international laws and had ulterior economic motives in the war against Iraq.
"American policy in the Middle East has been determined by oil and Israel in that order," said Boyle. "The US will seek the domination of Arabs and Muslims until there is no oil. As oil runs out, the US and Israel will become more predatory and genocidal towards the Arab people," he predicted.
The US, he said, could care less about democracy. "What they really want is to establish quisling dictators in the region who will serve their purposes," he added.
Education about democratic norms, human rights and rule of law should be high on the agenda of the Arab World. Education, he said, is crucial to the inculcation of these ideas and practices in the region.
Among others attending the forum were Qatari first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Dr Mohammed Al Baradei and retired North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley K. Clark.
Former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al Hariri blasted the West for its approach to the Palestinian problem and affirmed that comprehensive peace in the Middle East hinges on Israeli withdrawal from Syrian and Lebanese territories.
Hariri ridiculed what he described as efforts by Western powers to link statehood for Palestinians with "good behaviour."
"A Palestinian state should not be a prize for good behaviour," Hariri told the conference. "A state is not a piece of chocolate or the promise to take a child to picnic if he behaves well. Arabs are ready for a just peace. I hear that the US and Europe are convinced of a Palestinian state. But Palestinians should have a country today and not tomorrow."
Even if the Palestinian problem was addressed, he said, Israel will have to withdraw its army from Lebanese and Syrian territories in order to achieve comprehensive and just peace in the region,
Speaking on the theme of "Arab World in 2020," Hariri said that he is provisonally optimistic.
The world has to exert efforts and end the Arab-Israeli conflict. "We have to achieve just peace. We have to end Israeli occupation. This is a focal point that will define our future," said Hariri.
He said the Palestinian people have a right to live in peace and security in their own homeland. "There should be confidence building measures. These cannot be built in one day or two or in one year or ten."
Hariri said another pillar of a better future of the Arab World is democracy. "Reform has not been successful because there was no good base for democracy or freedom," he said.

UAE Minister of Economy and Planning Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi cited India as a model for development and economic prosperity for the Arab countries while an international expert predicted that there will be 36 million people unemployed in the Arab World by 2020.
"We can learn (from India)," said. Sheikha Lubna. "It has achieved high economic growth despite problems like rapidly increasing population growth."
She said reality does not wait and that she preferred to look five-year chunks ahead rather than 20 years because "Dubai is changing year by year."
Sheikha Lubna identified five key pillars of development: Hard infrastructure (roads, ports, etc.), soft infrastructure (regulation and policy), human capital, transparency and technology.
She said that significant growth requires a government that provides political stability, inspires confidence and injects positive energy. She also called on all governments in the region to measure themselves against a competitive index of technological readiness, macro economic quality, and the international competitiveness of their public institutions.
George T Abed, former director of the Middle East department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggested that investing heavily in English-language education can help the Arab World achieve economic growth.
He also pointed out that India has achieved economic growth and huge successes in the outsourcing industry largely due to its investment in education, specifically English education.
He said that unemployment will continue to be a major problem affecting the Arab World. "With just four per cent growth in the next few years, the inability of paltry economic growth to generate jobs and the competition faced from India and China, the number of unemployed in the Arab World will rise to 36 million," he said.
Abed said that there were four key impediments to economic growth in the Arab World: Bloated governments, a lack of modern institutions, underdeveloped financial institutions and absence of active capital markets.
He said that because the region's population is set to grow at 3.7 per cent the Arab World would need an average economic growth rate of 6.5 per cent. He warned that the region's current and projected growth rates are only four per cent compared to higher rates of growth in India and China. He also noted that the region's performance is declining on a number of key global indicators, including non-oil trade and the use of new technologies such as the Internet. He called on governments in the region to move from being managers and controllers of growth, to become "enablers of growth and guarantors of rights."
He also noted that reforms can not be driven from outside, "by preaching from the United States" that the Arab world must start to reform internally, beginning with the public sector reforms that would create "the moral authority to ask others to reform."
According to Rudiger Grube, member of the board of management of Daimler Chrysler of Germany, the Arab World needs to provide equal opportunities to its citizens to become a political and economic power.
Grube mentioned six "pre-requisites" for development in the Arab World: "Political stability, widespread access to education, inclusion of women in political, economic and social life, reduction of bureaucracy, increase in transparency and a stop to externalisation of the Arab World's problems."
Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom Telecom of Egypt said planned economic integration of the Arab countries will benefit all countries of the region. Although there are great differences among Arab countries, all of them could benefit from integration, he said.
Competitive interests need not prevent effective integration of the Arab region, he said and cited Dubai as a model that the Arab World could emulate.
Sawiris identified a need for three things: Vision, freedom to act, and a government and people prepared to drive reforms. He noted that the children of the Arab World "can compete internationally whenever they are given equal education."
The panelists identified a number of common themes for the Arab World to succeed in 2020: The need for clarity of leadership — that in itself leads to clarity of execution and clarity of governance —  a change in the role of the public sector from control and management to enablement, and a continued focus on international competitiveness.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Knives are out

Dec.13 2004
Knives are out


pv vivekanand

IT IS retribution time for the Bush administration against those who pulled the rug from under the feet of its justification for the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and its plans for action against Iran. That is why people like UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who stood firm against granting UN legitimacy for the war and called it illegal, and Mohammed Al Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who certified Iraq did not have an ongoing programme of nuclear weapons, are finding themselves at the receiving end of allegations and targeted for efforts to remove them.

In Annan's case, the UN chief is facing allegations that his son, Kojo, received upto $150,000 from a Swiss company which had benefited Iraq's oil-for-food programme administered by the UN. Seen against the light of revelations that some senior UN officials had also gained from the same programme, which was allegedly misused by Saddam Hussein to divert funds to illegal beneficiaries, the pressure on Annan was immense. Add to that allegations over a sexual harassment case dismissed by Annan, and of exploitation by peacekeepers in Congo.

For the moment, however, the Bush administration is holdings its horses against Annan after it found an overwhelming majority of world leaders, including American allies such as Tony Blair, rallying behind the UN chief and reaffirming confidence in him and his abilities to lead the world body.

It was a clear volte-face when US Ambassador to the UN John C Danforth said on Thursday that the Bush administration did not want Annan to leave the UN.

"Some have suggested to me that it appears what the US wants to do is to force the resignation of the secretary general," Danforth said. "It is important for us, the United States, to clarify our position. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary general. We have worked well with him in the past. We anticipate working with him very well in the future for the time to come."

Bush's reticence

Danforth's comment had to be seen against President George Bush's reticence, only a week earlier, to support Annan. Bush had repeatedly declined to issue an unambiguous expression of support. Asked whether he believed Annan should resign, Bush said last week "there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the oil-for-food programme" so American taxpayers will "feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations."

Danforth had also defended Bush's stand by asserting that a public expression of confidence in Annan might prejudge investigations into alleged irregularities in Iraq's oil-for-food programme. However, he could not offer any explanation why only the US felt so while almost all other members of the UN expressed confidence in Annan. Those expressions came in the one week between Bush's public statement shying away from voicing confidence in Annan and Danforth's outright statement saying the US "anticipated working with him in the future for the time to come."

Obviously, the world majority's stand on Annan persuaded Washington to publicly freeze its drive to get rid of him.

Some suggest that the neocons are going after the UN through Annan, who has two more years of his second term to serve as UN chief.

Edward Luck, a Columbia University professor who specialises in the UN, said in recent comments carried by the Boston Globe:

"On a strategic level, much of the (Bush) administration rejects what the UN stands for. . . . The secretary general has been a Teflon secretary general and has had a relatively high and positive public profile as a vanguard of multilateralism, while looking for an alternative of American dominance. They haven't had a good way of going after him until now."

No doubt, the neoconservatives of Washington are behind the smear campaign against the UN chief for his firm stand against the war against Iraq. Indeed, Annan has given them additional reasons by calling the war illegal and then denouncing the recent American-led assault against Fallujah.

Annan's warning against the assault was strong. He said: "The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities (in Iraq), but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation."

He also frustrated Washington by refusing to send more than two dozen electoral workers to help with elections in Iraq

The evidence of the neocon drive against Annan is there. The news that Anna's son received payments from the Swiss company that was a contractor in the oil-for-food programme first appeared in The New York Sun, which belongs to Canadian Conrad Black and which is seen to serve as a mouthpiece for the neocons (according to Jude Wanniski, a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal).

Conrad is a long-time associate of Richard Perle, the most prominent neo-con in the Bush camp and a director of the Jerusalem Post, one of Black`s many media holdings, Wanniski points out.

Moving against UN

Richard Holbrooke, the US ambassador to the United Nations under president Bill Clinton and an Annan backer, has said: "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyse the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it."

Annan, like his predecessors, is a bitter critic of Israel and that gives the neocons all the more reason to seek to get rid of him. He has repeatedly condemned Israel's brutal crackdown against the Palestinians and its blatant refusal to abide by UN resolutions and international laws.

In Baradei's case, the Egyptian who assumed the helm of the IAEA in 1997 is facing unofficial charges that he somehow helped Iran escape international punitive measures for developing a programme to make nuclear weapons. However, his real "crime" in the neocons' eyes is that he repeatedly reported the truth to the international community that IAEA inspections had failed to find any sign of Saddam developing nuclear weapons since the 1990s at a time when the Bush administration insisted that he had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

It was reported on Sunday that the administration had secretly recorded Baradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinising them in search of ammunition to oust him as IAEA director.

According to the Washington Post, which broke the story, "the efforts against Baradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned US intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran."

Baradei an obstacle

Obviously, the US sees Baradei as an obstacle in the way of diplomatic as well as military action for "regime change" in Iran -- a priority for Bush in his second term.

While the taped conservations have not produced "any evidence of nefarious conduct" by Baradei, "some within the administration believe they show Baradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programmes."

Baradei, 62, who used to teach international law at New York University before becoming IAEA chief, is known to be well-respected inside the UN. A majority of the members of the IAEA board is said to favour a third term for him beginning next summer.

Many analysts believe that Washington found it difficult to convince the required number of IAEA board members to vote against a third term for Baradei and therefore is seeking material to strengthen its argument that Baradei should be retired so that he no longer poses a hurdle in the way of American action against Iran in the name of Tehran's nuclear programme.

That the US is planning military action against Iran was made clear by another prominent neoconservative in the Bush administration.

Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas J. Feith, one of the most hawkish neocons who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq citing Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, shrouded the warning against Iran in diplomatic jargon.

In an interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post, Feith, who will stay on with Bush in the president's second term at the White House, says Washington hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear programme, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not.

Follow Libya

According to Feith, the US is now concentrating on "a process to try to get the existing international legal mechanisms -- the (Nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty (and) the International Atomic Energy Agency -- to work, to bring the kind of pressure to bear on Iran that would induce the Iranians to follow the path that Libya took in deciding that they were actually better off in abandoning their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes."

However, he added, "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy."

Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration and is a staunch supporter of Israel. He was co-author of a strategy document drafted for the then Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, advising him to "eliminate" the Saddam Hussein regime first if Israel were to gain domination of the Middle East region against Arab resistance.

Israel is campaigning for military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. However, military strategists say, it would take attacks on at least 300 different sites in Iran to destroy what the US claims as that country's nuclear weapons programme. Tehran denies it is working on developing nuclear weapons, and this position is largely endorsed by the IAEA.

Among those anxious to see Baradei go is Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, whose declarations on Iran have been contradicted by the IAEA chief.

According to Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, "however this effort (to remove Baradei) is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing Baradei because of Iraq and Iran."

The US State Department has already started tapping potential candidates to succeed Baradei and these include, according to the Washington Post, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert.

However, Downer is in the shortlist of one, but he is reportedly unwilling to challenge Baradei. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31.

It is clear that the neoconservatives have pulled out their knives now that Bush has been re-elected, and they are going after anyone and everyone of significance who stand in the way of their designs for American supremacy of the globe in a manner best suited to serve Israeli interests in the bargain.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Annan, Baradei targeted

by pv vivekanand

IT IS retribution time for the Bush administration against those who pulled the rug from under the feet of its justification for the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq and its plans for action against Iran. That is why people like UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who stood firm against granting UN legitimacy for the war and called it illegal, and Mohammed Al Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who certified Iraq did not have an ongoing programme of nuclear weapons, are finding themselves at the receiving end of allegations and targeted for efforts to remove them.
In Annan's case, the UN chief is facing allegations that his son, Kojo, received upto $150,000 from a Swiss company which had benefited Iraq's oil-for-food programme administered by the UN. Seen against the light of revelations that some senior UN officials had also gained from the same programme, which was allegedly misused by Saddam Hussein to divert funds to illegal beneficiaries, the pressure on Annan was immense. Add to that allegations over a sexual harassment case dismissed by Annan, and of exploitation by peacekeepers in the Congo.
For the moment, however, the Bush administration is holdings its horses against Annan after it found an overwhelming majority of world leaders, including American allies such as Tony Blair, rallying behind the UN chief and reaffirming confidence in him and his abilities to lead the world body.
It was a clear volte-face when US Ambassador to the UN John C Danforth said on Thursday that the Bush administration did not want Annan to leave the UN.
"Some have suggested to me that it appears what the US. wants to do is to force the resignation of the secretary general," Danforth said on Thursday. "It is important for us, the United States, to clarify our position. We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary general. We have worked well with him in the past. We anticipate working with him very well in the future for the time to come."
Danforth's comment had to been seen against President George Bush's reticence, only a week earlier, to support Annan. Bush had repeatedly declined to issue an unambiguous expression of support. Asked whether he believed Annan should resign, Bush said last week "there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the oil-for-food programme" so American taxpayers will "feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations."
Danforth had also defended Bush's stand by asserting that a public expression of confidence in Annan might prejudge investigations into alleged irregularities in Iraq's oil-for-food programme. However, he could not offer any explanation why only the US felt so while almost all other members of the UN expressed confidence in Annan. Those expressions came in the one week between Bush's public statement shying away from voicing confidence in Annan and Danforth's outright statement saying the US "anticipated working with him in the future for the time to come."
Obviously, the world majority's stand on Annan persuaded Washington to publicly freeze its drive to get rid of Annan.
Some suggest that the neocons are going after the UN through Annan, who has two more years of his second term to serve as UN chief.
Edward Luck, a Columbia University professor who specialises in the UN, said in recent comments carried by the Boston Globe:
"On a strategic level, much of the (Bush) administration rejects what the UN stands for. . . . The secretary general has been a Teflon secretary general and has had a relatively high and positive public profile as a vanguard of multilateralism, while looking for an alternative of American dominance. They haven't had a good way of going after him until now."
No doubt, the neoconservatives of Washington are behind the smear campaign against the UN chief for his firm stand against the war against Iraq. Indeed, Annan has given them additional reasons by calling the war illegal and then denouncing the recent American-led assault against Fallujah.
Annan's warning against the assault was strong. He said: "The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities (in Iraq), but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation."
He also frustrated Washington by refusing to send more than two dozen electoral workers to help with elections in Iraq
The evidence of the neocon drive against Annan is there. The news that Anna's son received payments from the Swiss company that was a contractor in the oil-for-food programme first appeared in The New York Sun, which belongs to Canadian Conrad Black and which is seen to serve as a mouthpiece for the neocons (according to Jude Wanniski, a former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal).
Conrad is a long-time associate of Richard Perle, the most prominent neo-con in the Bush camp and a director of the Jerusalem Post, one of Black`s many media holdings, Wanniski points out.
Richard Holbrooke, the US ambassador to the United Nations under president Bill Clinton and an Annan backer, has said: "The danger now is that a group of people who want to destroy or paralyse the UN are beginning to pick up support from some of those whose goal is to reform it."
Annan, like his predecessors, is a bitter critic of Israel and that gives the neocons all the more reason to seek to get rid of him. He has repeatedly condemned Israel's brutal crackdown against the Palestinians and its blatant refusal to abide by UN resolutions and international laws.
In Baradei's case, the Egyptian who assumed the helm of the IAEA in 1997, is facing unofficial charges that he somehow helped Iran escape international punitive measures for developing a programme to make nuclear weapons. However, his real "crime" in the neocons' eyes is that he repeatedly reported the truth to the international community that IAEA inspections had failed to find any sign of Saddam developing nuclear weapons since the 1990s at a time when the Bush administration insisted that he had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
It was reported on Sunday that the administration had secretly recorded Baradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinising them in search of ammunition to oust him as IAEA director.
According to the Washington Post, which broke the story, "the efforts against Baradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned US intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran."
Obviously, the US sees Baradei as an obstacle in the way of diplomatic as well as military action for "regime change" in Iran — a priority for Bush in his second term.
While the taped conservations have not produced "any evidence of nefarious conduct" by Baradei, "some within the administration believe they show Baradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programmes."
Baradei, 62, who used to teach international law at New York University before becoming IAEA chief, is known to be well-respected inside the UN. A majority of the members of the IAEA board is said to favour a third term for him beginning next summer.
Many analysts believe that Washington found it difficult to convince the required number of IAEA board members to vote against a third term for Baradei and therefore is seeking material to strengthen its argument that Baradei should be retired so that he no longer poses a hurdle in the way of American action against Iran in the name of Tehran's nuclear programme.
That the US is planning military action against Iran was made clear by another prominent neoconservative in the Bush administration.
Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas J. Feith, one of the most hawkish neocons who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq citing Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, shrouded the warning against Iran in diplomatic jargon.
In an interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post, Feith, who will stay on with Bush in the president's second term at the White House, says Washington hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear programme, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not.
According to Feith, the US is now concentrating on "a process to try to get the existing international legal mechanisms – the (Nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty (and) the International Atomic Energy Agency —  to work, to bring the kind of pressure to bear on Iran that would induce the Iranians to follow the path that Libya took in deciding that they were actually better off in abandoning their WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes."
However, he added, "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy."
Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration and is a staunch supporter of Israel. He was co-author of a strategy document drafted for the then Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, advising him to "eliminate" the Saddam Hussein regime first if Israel were to gain domination of the Middle East region against Arab resistance.
Israel is campaigning for military action against Iran's nuclear facilities. However, military strategists say, it would take attacks on at least 300 different sites in Iran to destroy what the US claims as that country's nuclear weapons programme. Tehran denies it is working on developing nuclear weapons, and this position is largely endorsed by the IAEA.
Among those anxious to see Baradei go is Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John R. Bolton, whose declarations on Iran have been contradicted by the IAEA chief.
According to Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, "however this effort (to remove Baradei) is justified by the administration, the assumption internationally will be that the United States was blackballing Baradei because of Iraq and Iran."
The US State Department has already started tapping potential candidates to succeed Baradei and these include, according to the Washington Post, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean officials and a Brazilian disarmament expert.
However, Downer is in the shortlist of one, but he is reportedly unwilling to challenge Baradei. The deadline for submitting alternative candidates is Dec. 31.
It is clear that the neoconservatives have pulled out their knives now that Bush has been re-elected, and they are going after anyone and everyone of significance who stand in the way of their designs for American supremacy of the globe in a manner best suited to serve Israeli interests in the bargain,