by pv vivekanand
IF there ever was a fraud, then it is the American
plan to hand over "sovereignty and power to Iraqis" on
June 30, nearly 15 months after invading and occupying
that country. It is only a smokescreen that would help
the US argue that it had ended its occupation of Iraq
and Iraqis are running the country.
The US wants the UN to be part of that smokescreen,
and hence its efforts to have the Security Council
adopt a resolution that legitimises its occupation of
Iraq but with restrictions on what the UN could do in
the country if it were given a role.
Notwithstanding the blatant lies and false
explanations provided by Washington, the reality after
the so-called hand over will be of continued complete
American control and domination of Iraq.
In order to understand the US moves in the Middle
East, it has to be noted that the American foreign
policy in the region has always been based on three
key pillars: Ensuring US energy security, ensuring
Israel's security and ensuring regional security
through friendly governments in the region.
Seen against that backdrop, the fundamental objectives
of the US occupation of Iraq become clear. They are:
— ENERGY SECURITY: The US wants unquestioned control
of Iraq's oil resources in order to use those
resources to control the international energy market
and as a leverage against oil-hungry Europeans and Far
Easterners, including Japan. (It is a wrong notion to
argue that the US wants to steal Iraq's oil resources
and pump billions of dollars in Iraq's oil sales into
the American economy).
In the bargain, the US is also ensuring its own energy
security and also enriching the American multinational
oil conglomerates that form the backbone of financial
support for both Democrats and Republicans. Direct and
indirect control of vast oil deposits of Iraq by
American oil giants gives Washington an unprecedented
and strongest weapons to impose its will on the
international oil market.
— ISRAELI SECURITY: The US wants to ensure that Iraq
would never re-emerge as a military power as pose a
threat to the security of Israel, the strongest
American ally in the Middle East and "strategic
partner." In order to achieve that, the US seeks to
have an "American-friendly" regime in power in Baghdad
after setting in place a new constitution (like that
of post-World War II Japan) and also overriding powers
against any inclination by the "new Iraq" to challenge
Israel.
— REGIONAL SECURITY THROUGH FRIENDLY GOVERNMENTS: The
Sept.11 attacks shook the American reliance on
regional governments for regional security in a manner
that serves American interests. That 15 of the Sept.11
hijackers were Saudi nationals was the biggest jolt
since Saudi Arabia had always been the strongest
American friend in the Gulf. That Saudi nationals —
who deemed to be rich and different from other Arabs
such as Palestinians, Egyptians, Sudanese or another
"poor" Arabs — could take part in such an attack
against the US completely changed the American
perspective towards the Gulf and particularly Saudi
Arabia. Then followed the anti-Western bombings in
Saudi Arabia and strong signs that there is a sizeable
group in Saudi Arabia that opposes American
domination.
That explains why the US has distanced itself from
Saudi Arabia since Sept.11 and, among other things,
moved its military base from Saudi Arabia to Qatar and
imposed strict curbs on US visas being issued to Saudi
nationals. It showed that the US was no longer betting
on ensuring regional stability through its alliance
with "friendly countries" in the region. In the
changed American thinking, it was absolutely necessary
to have a strong American military presence right in
the Gulf region to ensure regional security the
American way, and Iraq was the best choice, and Saddam
Hussein offered the right pretext for invading and
occupying Iraq.
In September 2002, the Bush administration issued its
“National Security Strategy of the United States of
America.” It states that the guiding policy of the
United States is the right to use military force
anywhere in the world, at any time it chooses, against
any country it believes to be, or it believes may at
some point become, a threat to American interests. It
set the ground for the American invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
How is Washington trying to arrive at a point where
Iraq becomes the focal point for all its objectives in
the region:
First: The interim "government" to be in place on July
1 will be hand-picked by Washington, which has already
handed over the list of people it wants in key
positions of power. Every one of them will be
dependent on the US for continuing to remain in power;
one step out of the American-drawn lines, he or she
will be out. US intelligence agencies have enough
damning dossiers that would help the twist the arms of
those in power if and when needed.
Second: The US viceroy in Iraq, Paul Bremer, is
setting up high-power committees, again selected by
American experts and strategists, to act in an
"advisory" capacity to the various ministries and
departments. In reality, the concerned ministries and
departments will have to refer key decisions to the
committee and have to abide by the "recommendations"
of the panels. These committees are an additional
leverage to the US to ensure that independent minded
Iraqis among those hand-picked to be government
ministers would still be controlled by Washington.
Third: All aspects of security, except street
patrolling against petty crimes, will remain in the
hands of American commanders. The pretext here is that
the interim government wants the US military to remain
in Iraq to take care of security until the Iraqis are
able to take charge and run the affairs themselves.
Achieving that could take years. Washington has
already said that the interim government would not
have the authority to ask the US to leave Iraq. Bremer
and Secretary of State Colin Powell have said this
month that the US would quit Iraq if the interim
government asked it that they did not think it would
ask the US to do so. Subsequently, a senior State
Department official, appearing before the US Congress,
affirmed that the interim government would not have
the authority to ask the US to leave.
Fourth, by virtue of its allocations of billions of
dollars of American money to run the occupation of
Iraq, Washington will retain the overall control of
all proceeds from Iraq's oil exports. Bremer argues
that since the US is footing the bill for security and
other aspects of running the country, there could not
be separate accounts for American money and Iraqi
money coming from oil exports. American control of
Iraqi oil revenues means total dilution of any
financial independence for the interim government
expect perhaps to pay their own salaries. No
non-American company will be allowed any oil
exploration contract in Iraq.
Fifth: Bremer is also setting up committees and
watchdogs to control the media. These bodies will be
given blanket power to take whatever action against
newspapers, radios and television channels which do
not toe the American line.
Sixth: The US State Department is taking charge of
running Iraq in colonial style. The US is building the
largest American embassy — "Fortress America" — in
Baghdad. It will have more than 3,500 American staff
and will be the nerve centre for all American
operations in the Gulf region and will be led by John
Negroponte, the current delegate to the UN. Negroponte
is known for ruthlessness in Vietnam and Latin
America, with his main objective being to fight off
regimes hostile to the US in Latin America. He is the
perfect American diplomat to serve the purpose.
What Iraq will have on July 1 is nothing but a puppet
government whose members — who might issue nationalist
statements critical of the US from time to time —
would have no real authority in any sphere of
governance that would have any negative impact on the
American strategic objectives. That is what Washington
is aiming at.
Beyond everything else, the US is seeing Iraq as the
gateway to an emerging American empire. Conceptually,
domination of the Arabian Gulf through Iraq, combined
with effective control of the oil and natural gas
reserves of Central Asia, will offer the US absolute
control of a region that had always posed problems to
American interests. And it is totally unlikely that
the US would let anyone, least of all Iraqi
resistance, to beat it back from its objective. What
does that work out to? Boosting the use of brutal
military force against whoever stands in its way, and
that is what we are seeing and will continue to see
in Iraq — increased bloodshed and military crackdown.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Al Qaeda in Africa
Osama Bin Laden's direct and indirect
associates are opening up in a new front in Africa,
stretching from Djibouti and neighbouring Somalia in
the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic coast of Western
Sahara between Morocco and Algeria. The US, which does
not want to deploy its forces on the ground there, is
trying to counter the perceived threat by training
and equipping local security forces to deal with the
militants who have already started showing their teeth
there.
The region is seen as perfect breeding ground for
militancy because most people living there are denied
social justice and governments of the concerned
countries are deemed apathetic to the poverty and
living conditions in the mostly desert and rural
areas.
"People there see for themselves they have little to
lose since they are impoverished and little to look
forward to in life," comments an African expert, Awol
Usu. "Militant groups find it easy to locate young men
among them ready to wage extremism against governments
and pro-establishment symbols," said Usu.
"Government authority does not reach some of the
interior parts of some of the countries in the
Djibouti-Western Sahara belt," an area that covers
tens of thousands square kilometres, Usu told
Malayalamanorama.
Non-native militants, some them Pakistanis and
Afghanis, are moving through the region, distributing
leaflets and giving lectures exhorting local residents
to rise up and fight against the US and its allies.
Since they move through areas where no policing is
done or no security forces exist, they evade capture;
when confronted, they are fully armed to put up a
fight and account for themselves.
The New York Times reports that American generals
based in Europe see the largely ungoverned region as a
"new Afghanistan."
Intelligence reports indicate that well-finaned
militants are being trained and armed for attacks
similar to the March 11 attacks in Madrid that killed
nearly 200 people. Investigations have brought out a
North African link to the Madrid blasts.
In order to counter the threat, the US, instead of
planning on a heavy military presence, is sending
dispatching Special Operations forces to countries
like Mali and Mauritania in West Africa to train
soldiers and outfit them with pickup trucks, radios
and global-positioning equipment, according to the New
York Times. The US is spending an annual $25 million
for the scheme, which covers Mauritania, Mali, Niger,
Chad, Morocco, Algeria, Burkina Faso and will extend
to Senegal soon.
Other sources said the US was operating a separate
programme for Somalia, where no legal government
exists and clans are ruling their fiefdoms.
The paper quoted Lieutenant-Colonel Powl Smith, head
of the US European Command's anti-terrorism force, as
saying: "We want to be preventative, so that we don't
have to put boots on the ground here in North Africa
as we did in Afghanistan.By assisting local
governments to do the fighting themselves, "we don't
become a lightning rod for popular anger that radicals
can capitalise on," he said.
Intelligence sources believe that Al Qaeda militants
who fled in the wake of the Afghan war are now
travelling overland through the region contacting
local units to carry out attacks.
The most dreaded and organised militant group in the
region is believed to be the Salafist Group for
Preaching and Combat, whose leader Nabil Sahraoui
alias Abu Ibrahim Mustafa is said to be close to Bin
Laden and his deputies. The group kidnapped 32
Germans near the Algerian border and transported
some of them to northern Mali and collected $6 million
in ransom for their release last year in an episode
that gripped the region for several weeks. The man who
led the kidnap operations was identified as Ammari
Saifi, also known as Abderrezak Al Para. The $6
million he received are being spent on recruting,
training and arming militants.
Among the other regional groups known to have links
with Al Qaeda are Morocco's Islamic Combat Group,
which is blamed for the Casablanca bombings in May
2003 and the March 11 blasts in Madrid; Tunisia's
Combatant Group, whose leader Sami Ben Khemais was
arrested and jailed for plotting to bomb the US
embassy in Rome in 2001; the Armed Islamic Group of
Algeria; and the Islamic Fighting Group of Libya,
which had tried to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar
Qadhafi and stir local passion to rise up against the
regime.
The common factor among these groups is that most of
their leaders are known to have been among the
followers of Bin Laden — the so-called Arab Afghans
— and fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
during the 80s before returning home and setting up
their own outfits following the departure of Soviet
forces from Afghanistan in 1989.
Among the most prominent Al Qaeda activist whose
appearance signalled militant operations in the region
was Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan, also known as Abu
Mohamed, who travelled across Africa in 2002 to help
plan attacks. A Yemeni, Alwan was a a close associate
of Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, and was said
to have taken part in the October 2000 attack on the
American warship Cole off the Yemeni coast.
He was killed in late 2002 in a clash with Algerian
security forces. At that time he was said to be
planning an attack on the US embassy in Mali's
capital, Bamako.
In recent months, Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian
authorities have seized sizeable shipments of weapons
and explosives, including mortar launchers,
rocket-propelled grenade launchers and surface-to-air
missiles, from suspected militants.
One of the central pillars of the American strategy is
to bring in security chiefs of the concerned countries
to sit down together and hold unprecedented talks on
security and transborder co-operation. Several such
meetings have already been held.
There is a sense of urgency to the American effort,
since the developments in Iraq and the worsening
crisis there are seen to prompt militants throughout
the region to wage attacks against American and
allied targets.
However, the anti-US sentiments are already
deep-rooted and Washington would find it difficult to
keep pace with the militants who have the advantage of
the discontent of the local population as well as the
obvious anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias that is showing
in American policy.
associates are opening up in a new front in Africa,
stretching from Djibouti and neighbouring Somalia in
the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic coast of Western
Sahara between Morocco and Algeria. The US, which does
not want to deploy its forces on the ground there, is
trying to counter the perceived threat by training
and equipping local security forces to deal with the
militants who have already started showing their teeth
there.
The region is seen as perfect breeding ground for
militancy because most people living there are denied
social justice and governments of the concerned
countries are deemed apathetic to the poverty and
living conditions in the mostly desert and rural
areas.
"People there see for themselves they have little to
lose since they are impoverished and little to look
forward to in life," comments an African expert, Awol
Usu. "Militant groups find it easy to locate young men
among them ready to wage extremism against governments
and pro-establishment symbols," said Usu.
"Government authority does not reach some of the
interior parts of some of the countries in the
Djibouti-Western Sahara belt," an area that covers
tens of thousands square kilometres, Usu told
Malayalamanorama.
Non-native militants, some them Pakistanis and
Afghanis, are moving through the region, distributing
leaflets and giving lectures exhorting local residents
to rise up and fight against the US and its allies.
Since they move through areas where no policing is
done or no security forces exist, they evade capture;
when confronted, they are fully armed to put up a
fight and account for themselves.
The New York Times reports that American generals
based in Europe see the largely ungoverned region as a
"new Afghanistan."
Intelligence reports indicate that well-finaned
militants are being trained and armed for attacks
similar to the March 11 attacks in Madrid that killed
nearly 200 people. Investigations have brought out a
North African link to the Madrid blasts.
In order to counter the threat, the US, instead of
planning on a heavy military presence, is sending
dispatching Special Operations forces to countries
like Mali and Mauritania in West Africa to train
soldiers and outfit them with pickup trucks, radios
and global-positioning equipment, according to the New
York Times. The US is spending an annual $25 million
for the scheme, which covers Mauritania, Mali, Niger,
Chad, Morocco, Algeria, Burkina Faso and will extend
to Senegal soon.
Other sources said the US was operating a separate
programme for Somalia, where no legal government
exists and clans are ruling their fiefdoms.
The paper quoted Lieutenant-Colonel Powl Smith, head
of the US European Command's anti-terrorism force, as
saying: "We want to be preventative, so that we don't
have to put boots on the ground here in North Africa
as we did in Afghanistan.By assisting local
governments to do the fighting themselves, "we don't
become a lightning rod for popular anger that radicals
can capitalise on," he said.
Intelligence sources believe that Al Qaeda militants
who fled in the wake of the Afghan war are now
travelling overland through the region contacting
local units to carry out attacks.
The most dreaded and organised militant group in the
region is believed to be the Salafist Group for
Preaching and Combat, whose leader Nabil Sahraoui
alias Abu Ibrahim Mustafa is said to be close to Bin
Laden and his deputies. The group kidnapped 32
Germans near the Algerian border and transported
some of them to northern Mali and collected $6 million
in ransom for their release last year in an episode
that gripped the region for several weeks. The man who
led the kidnap operations was identified as Ammari
Saifi, also known as Abderrezak Al Para. The $6
million he received are being spent on recruting,
training and arming militants.
Among the other regional groups known to have links
with Al Qaeda are Morocco's Islamic Combat Group,
which is blamed for the Casablanca bombings in May
2003 and the March 11 blasts in Madrid; Tunisia's
Combatant Group, whose leader Sami Ben Khemais was
arrested and jailed for plotting to bomb the US
embassy in Rome in 2001; the Armed Islamic Group of
Algeria; and the Islamic Fighting Group of Libya,
which had tried to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar
Qadhafi and stir local passion to rise up against the
regime.
The common factor among these groups is that most of
their leaders are known to have been among the
followers of Bin Laden — the so-called Arab Afghans
— and fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
during the 80s before returning home and setting up
their own outfits following the departure of Soviet
forces from Afghanistan in 1989.
Among the most prominent Al Qaeda activist whose
appearance signalled militant operations in the region
was Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan, also known as Abu
Mohamed, who travelled across Africa in 2002 to help
plan attacks. A Yemeni, Alwan was a a close associate
of Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, and was said
to have taken part in the October 2000 attack on the
American warship Cole off the Yemeni coast.
He was killed in late 2002 in a clash with Algerian
security forces. At that time he was said to be
planning an attack on the US embassy in Mali's
capital, Bamako.
In recent months, Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian
authorities have seized sizeable shipments of weapons
and explosives, including mortar launchers,
rocket-propelled grenade launchers and surface-to-air
missiles, from suspected militants.
One of the central pillars of the American strategy is
to bring in security chiefs of the concerned countries
to sit down together and hold unprecedented talks on
security and transborder co-operation. Several such
meetings have already been held.
There is a sense of urgency to the American effort,
since the developments in Iraq and the worsening
crisis there are seen to prompt militants throughout
the region to wage attacks against American and
allied targets.
However, the anti-US sentiments are already
deep-rooted and Washington would find it difficult to
keep pace with the militants who have the advantage of
the discontent of the local population as well as the
obvious anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias that is showing
in American policy.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Torture the US way
May 6, 2004
Torture, the US way
PV Vivekanand
NO AMERICAN expression of regret over the abuse of Iraqis held at US-run prisons in occupied Iraq will convince the world that the Washington leadership, both political and military, was unaware of what was going on until the tell-tale images of prisoners being mistreated, tortured and humiliated were hit the media last month. It defies logic that those who draw up strategies and make decisions and policies failed to take note that Washington had authorised torture and abuse of prisoners as warranted in its post-Sept.11 "war against terrorism." Few around the world would ever buy the argument that the top echelons in Washington represent the "American conscience" that abhors violations of human rights and are numbed into shock by the images of the abuses in Iraq, writes PV Vivekanand.
"We want to know the truth," says US President George Bush referring to the spiralling scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in American detention in occupied Iraq. US Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condolleezza Rice say the US is sorry about the abuse but stop short of offering an apology for the abuse, humiliation and torture the Iraqis suffered in American hands.
Other senior Bush administration officials repeat the same thing — that no one in the corridors of political power in Washington was aware that Iraqi prisoners were mistreated — to put it mildly of course — until the telling images appeared on CBS Television.
The whole scenario of arguments is deceptive since it had been established that the US government had authorised the use of torture of detainees since Sept.11, 2001, and if any administration official dealing with the issue says he or she did not know it, then it could not be taken except with a large dose of salt and vinegar.
Bush does not have to look anywhere for the truth that he wants to know. It is there, simple and straight: The way top decision makers and strategists the US dealt with Iraq in the 13 years to the run-up to the invasion and occupation of that country last year and since then in the occupied country was characterised by contempt for Arabs and Muslims, as if they were sub-standard human beings. And that had set the ground for the gross abuse of Iraqi prisoners in occupied Iraq since the attitude in Washington had been seeping down through the ranks.
Those who engaged in abuses knew well that they could get away with it; they were given the order to do whatever it takes to extraact information; and in the bargain they engaged in sadistic practices perhaps for personal pleasure as much as for terrifying the victims into revealing information (which often they might not have had).
How is it possible that top administration officials did not know what was going on in US-administered Iraqi prisons in light of the revelations that the US Army had filed a report about abuses in November last year?
Are we to believe that the confidential report filed by Major General Antonio Taguba in February saying there was "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse" of prisoners to soften them up for interrogation did not reach the defence secretary and upwards?
According to Taguba, US army intelligence officers, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and private contractors "actively requested that military police guards set physical and mental conditions for favourable interrogation of witnesses."
It is not surprising at all since it fits in with the shift in the American approach to such issues since Sept.11, when "everything changed." It became a free-for-all when it came to countering the threat of terror against the US.
Obviously, the US does not consider itself be bound by any international law. The best example is Washington's allout campaign to exclude the US from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and to sign bilateral deals that offer immunity to US soldiers against charges of war crimes or human rights violations.
Mainstream newspapers like the Washington Post and Briton's Guardian reported in 2002 that the administration had authorised the use of torture of prisoners held in the Afghan war.
It was only a matter of convenience for the administration not to bring in the prisoners to the US mainland and then take the chance of exposing itself to charges of abuse of prisoners that it decided to send them to Guantanamo Bay where no rule applies except those set to serve intelligence purposes.
It was also not strange that American security agents took suspects arrested outside the US to special centres set up in "friendly countries" where they were free to use any interrogation method they chose without any question being asked.
Roughly 3,000 suspects are held in detention outside mainland US but under direct or indirect American control since Sept.11 and the Afghanistan war. They are not given access to legal help and are not provided any status at all.
The Washington Post, in a March 11, 2002 article, cited unnamed American diplomats and Indonesian and Pakistani government officials who recounted how American security agents kidnapped individuals abroad and transferred them, without extradition procedures, to other countries, where they were often imprisoned, tortured, and, in some cases, put to death.
In a Dec.26, 2002 report, the Washington Post said that the US had also supervised interrogation under torture of prisoners in occupied Afghanistan. It said that Afghan and Arab prisoners at a top security facility inside the US military’s Bagram air base were “sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles.”
“At times they are held in awkward, painful positions or deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights—subject to what are known as ‘stress and duress’ techniques," said the report.
According to Amnesty International, the London-based international human rights watchdog, “Many detainees i(n Iraq) have alleged they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods reported often include beatings; prolonged sleep deprivation; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding and exposure to bright light.”
Mind you, Amnesty said this in a 2003 report and not after the latest revelations. How come no one in Washington gave the report a second thought and did not order an inquiry? Fact is, they knew but could not care less.
In his state of the union address, Bush referred to the abuses that Iraqis suffered during the Saddam Hussein era. It definitely signalled that thoughts about the present situation of Iraqis in detention in post-war Iraq could not have escaped his mind and invalidates the argument that it never occurred to him that abuses could be continuing even today until the CBS images took him by surprise and shocked him.
It is now known that General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had managed to convince CBS to delay the release of the images by two weeks. What happened during the two weeks? Did Myers try to handle the issue on his own without informing the president, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States? Did Myers keep it away from Rumsfeld knowing very well that he had not blocked the release of the images but had only delayed it?
No matter how one scrutinises the scenario, it is next to impossible to accept any explanation that the abuses were isolated incidents and unruly servicemen and women were behind it without their bosses being aware of what was going on.
Are we to believe that the top American officials now trying fantically to pin the crime on a few "rogue" soldiers and military police had no idea whatsover of what was going on in Iraq and that the treatment given to Iraqi prisoners was different than that given to detainees linked to the war in Afghanistan?
Against such a backdrop, it is not at all unfair for anyone to take it for granted that torture was rampant in US-held Iraqi prisoners as American strategists desperately sought every bit of intelligence information that they could possibly use in their fight against Iraqi resistance.
The ongoing effort in Washington to convince the world that the "civilised United States" does not approve of torture and abuse of of anyone anywhere in the world is a washed out bid as far as the Arabs and Muslims are concerned.
For the Arabs on the street, the near apologies and regrets and vows to punish those "guilty" of abusing Iraqi prisoners mean very little. They are convinced that everyone in power in Washington knew perfectly well what was going on in prisons in post-war Iraq and now all are trying to feign ignorance and pass the buck.
Interestingly, the only countries to try to suppress the images and keep them away from the broader media were the US and Iraq itself.
Almost all major American newspapers are deemed to have made a deliberate attempt not to allow the images influence the American public. Indeed, they carried reports about the abuses but it could be discerned that there was an effort by many to point the accusing fingers only at those who were actually engaged in the sadistic abuses in Iraq. Few papers ever bothered to ask the quessential question: Did the people at the top know about the abuses?
A telling editorial was carried by the New York Times early this week. Titled Abuses at Abu Ghraib," the May 1 editorial said “President Bush spoke for all Americans of conscience yesterday when he expressed disgust” over the images.
According to the editorial, the torture and abuse defied “the accepted conventions of war” and were the work merely of a “few soldiers” who would be “taken care of.”
Why did the paper overlook that no administration official had denied the 2002 and 2003 reports of rampant torture and abuse of Afghan war detainees? Wasn't it obvious that the standing order was to use whatever it took to extract intelligence information from the detainees? Did anyone need any emphatic reminder that the same was applied in Iraq?
The Washington Post also implictly sought to tone down the reality of the situation..
“Taken together, the photographs demonstrate some of the most demeaning, humiliating and shameful treatment of prisoners imaginable, short of actual physical torture,” said the paper.
Oh! oh! oh! How does the Post then define "physical torture?" Perhaps, it wants more human suffering than what was reported by General Taguba , who wrote of "breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape...sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”
We witnessed in the US since Sept.11 a dedicated and non-compromising approach to waging war against Iraq no matter what. The UN was pushed aside and every conceivable ruse was used to make it appear that the US had no choice but to invade Iraq, topple Saddam Hussein and occupy the country until such time it is shaped to suit American interests.
In reality, the Arab and Muslim world clearly saw through the game orchestrated by the Washington war camp run by the pro-Israeli neoconsevatives at every stage but no Arab or Muslim was able to prevent them from realising their objective of gaining military control of Iraq. Indeed, a majority in the international community knew that the American justifications for the war — whether weapons of mass destruction, international terorrism, human rights or democracy — were cited whenever it suited Washington to do so.
And today, the US has gained military control of Iraq in a broader sense, but is slipping more and more into a quagmire with defies logical solutions in view of the strategic and political objectives of the Bush administration.
The images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib have dealt one the biggest blows to the US designs in post-war Iraq. It has totally undermined American credibility in the world scene and there is no short-, medium-, or long-term solutions to repair the damage.
The images have exposed the American contention that the US wants the welfare of the people of Iraq and help them turn their country to a democracy where human rights would be most sacred.
The images — coupled by moumnting relevations that abuse by former detainees in post-war Iraq — have turned a massive majority of the people of Iraq against the US occupation.
The only logical turn that the course of events in Iraq is increased guerrilla attacks and resistance that would put to a severe test the American resolve to realising its strategic goals of the invasion and occupation of that country. However, we would not bet on Washington deciding to cut and run from Iraq since consolidating the foothold it has gained in the Middle East through its presence in Iraq is the central pillar of the US quest for global domination.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Mideast - an overview
pv vivekanand
IF ANYONE thinks things could not get any worse than
what they are today in the Middle East — the crises in
Palestine and Iraq being the most critical — then the
thinking has to be reviewed. The reasons are very
clear, and I'd try to simplify them here:
Palestine: No compromise ever
The key to starting to solve the Palestinian problem
is for Israel to accept the legitimate rights of the
Palestinans to set up an independent state in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip — the territories Israel
occupied in the 1967 war. Groups like Hamas and
Islamic Jihad which call for the total elimination of
the state of israel would gradually come around to
accepting that they could not regain the whole of
Palestine as it existed in 1948 and have to accept the
1967 lines. There are enough political indications
that there are enough forces in both groups which tend
to think that way and influence their actions.
But Israel, which is ready to withdraw from Gaza if
only because the coastal strip is the most problematic
to be kept under occupation, will never give up the
West Bank for a Palestinian state to be created there.
As far as Israel is concerned the entire land between
the Mediterranen Sea and the River Jordan is land that
God "promised" to the Jews. Therefore, any solution
that entails surrendering the territory for a
Palestinian state is totally out of question for
Israelis. Furthermore, the Palestinian demand for Arab
East Jerusalem touches upon the very core of Jewish
religious sentiments because of what the Jews consider
as the remnants of Solomon's Temple there which they
want to rebuild.
The best Israel will accept, whether under Ariel
Sharon or any other prime minister, is to grant the
Palestinians "autonomy" in parts of the West Bank
where Jewish settlements do not exist while the
Israeli army will retain absolute control of the
entire land and its exit and entry points as well as
access roads linking Palestinian towns.
Israel will allow the Palestinians to clean streets of
their towns, collect local taxes, run schools and
hospitals, and maintain death, birth and marriage
records. Nothing beyond that.
Israel will never accept the Palestinian demand that
those Palestinians who lost their homes and were
forced to flee their land during the 1948 war
following the creation of Israel and who now live as
refugees should be allowed to return home. Their
return, as far as Israel is concerned, will totally
negate the very concept of the Jewish state. The homes
and land that the Palestinian refugee wish to return
to are now in Israel proper and are inhabited by Jews.
The Palestinians will not accept any of these Israeli
positions at whatever cost, and hence the war of
resistance will only be intensified with no end in
sight as long as Israel maintains its position (which
no Israeli leader would be able to change anyway).
Thousands of Palestinians are standing ready to be
human bombs ready to sacrifice themselves in the
struggle for freedom, and no Israeli security measure
could check a determined fighter ready to blow himself
up.
Iraq: US will never quit
A review of the situation in Iraq also indicates a
deadlock when we consider the considerations behind
the US decision to wage war and occupy the country.
American policy in the Middle East has always been
based on three priorities: Energy security, Israeli
security and regional stability based on alliance with
countries in the region. On all three counts, it is
essential that the US maintains its military presence
in Iraq and ensure that an "America-friendly" regime
is running the country in a manner that serves US
interests
The key to starting to solve the crisis in Iraq is to
have the UN take over administration of the war-torn
country with absolute authority, with enough military
force to keep peace and enough funds to restore basic
infrastructure while the rest of the financial
requirement will come from exports of Iraqi oil.
The UN could administer Iraq for a predetermined
period during which it could help build a democratic
political system and then hand over sovereignty to the
people of Iraq.
Although it sounds simple, it is too complex.
Handing over Iraq to be run by the UN contradicts the
very objective of the United States, which led the
invasion and occupation of that country on the pretext
that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
and was linked to Al Qaeda.
The US wants to set up a military base in Iraq to keep
watch over the region and to intervene whenever it
feels its interests are challenged. It wants absolute
control of Iraq's oil resources to not only to benefit
American oil companies but also to ensure its own
energy security.
It has already neutralised Iraq as a potential threat
to Israel's designs in the region but wants to ensure
that the situation remains that way.
On the third count, the US finds that it could no
longer count on its traditional allies such as Saudi
Arabia to maintain regional stability as Amerca's
friends. The US got its biggest jolt when it found
that 15 of the Sept.11, 2001 hijackers were Saudi
nationals and it warranted a new thinking. And it
explains why the US moved its military bases to Qatar
from Saudi Arabia last year. The American fears were
further heightened with the extremist attacks in Saudi
Arabia in the last one year and the rising
anti-American sentiments in the kingdom. Therefore,
the US has to remain in Iraq in order to ensure
regional stability to serve its interests since it
feels that it could no longer rely on regional
countries to do so.
Finally, the invasion and occupation of Iraq is very
much corporate oriented. Apart from the billions of
dollars that American private contractors are
collecting for their missions in post-war Iraq,
American oil companies, traditional bankrollers of US
politicians, also stand to gain tens of billions of
dollars from the Iraqi oil industry. Any move by the
Bush administration or its possible Kerry successor
to quit Iraq would be politically disasterous.
Quite simply, a departure from Iraq is not even
thinkable for the US. It would only pour in more
military firepower to overcome Iraqi resistance and
get more bogged down in the quagmire.
The overall picture
The crises in Palestine and Iraq would never be solved
without a dramatic volte-face in priorities, policy,
approach and strategies of the occupiers, Israel and
the US. However, such a shift is next to impossible.
Controlling Palestine in absolute terms is too crucial
for Israel to even consider accepting the Palestinian
rights to set up an independent state in the West Bank
just as maintaining its stranglehold on Iraq is
crucial to Washington's quest for global dominance,
politically, financially and militarily.
Both Israel and the US believe that the answer to
their respective problems is military force. They are
not willing to consider that freedom struggles could
not be put down through the barrel of guns and that
the occupier has to bow out at some point, sooner or
later.
They are ready to sacrifice whatever it
entails — casualties among their soldiers included —
to press for the realisation of their goals, which
means more and more military power being employed
against resistance, which could only gain strength and
intensity with every military blow from the occupier.
The net equation only means one thing: More and more
deaths and casualties on all sides, more so among the
Palestinians and Iraqis but enough on the Israeli and
American side to keep the situation boiling for the
foreseeable future.
in both cases and
THE Bush administration was caught unawares when the
scandal of prisoner abuse in Iraq blew up on its
face. It was already facing a worsening crisis, with
the majority Shiites showing their clout against
American designs in post-war Iraq, mounting casualties
among American forces deployed there and growing
international condemnation of its occupation of the
Arab Muslim country. However, there is no way out
since an Iraq under the American sphere of absolute
influence is the central pillar of the US strategy and
this means continued occupation of that country, ready
to taken on anything that challenges the American
strategic objectives. It is very similar to the
situation in Palestine, with Israel having no option
but to continue its occupation and suppression of the
Palestinian people since leaving the Palestinian
territories will question what people like Ariel
Sharon believe to be their raison d'etre.
In the meantime, the Bush administration is engaged in
a frantic exercise to cleanse its image in the wake of
the release of images depicting sadistic and
humiliating treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
However, the blemish will never be washed away and it
will go down in world history alongside the Nazi
practices and similar tales of gross disrespect for
human dignity and of cruelty against hapless human
beings overpowered through massive military force and
detained in conditions unfit even for the worst animal
on earth.
Indeed, Washington has announced court martial and
other proceedings against what it describes a
"handful" of American soldiers who were shown engaging
in abuses, torture and humiliation of Iraqis held in
its detention facilities in post-war Iraq. However,
more and more such images are emerging despite
Washington's efforts to suppress them. Worse still are
reports that American soldiers have been raping Iraqi
female prisoners detained on silly charges as refusing
to show identity cards at checkpoints. One account
says that at least two of the rape victims have gone
missing, presumably dead and buried somewhere in the
vast expanse of the Iraqi desert.
Adding to those are the emerging reports of abuses of
prisoners taken in the Afghan war and detained at the
Guantanamo Bay as well as prison camps within
Afghanistan.
Members of the US Congress who viewed fresh photos
and videos of Iraqi prisoner abuse on Wednesday
affirmed that they saw photos of sexual intercourse.
Others showed military dogs snarling at cowering
prisoners, as well as shots of Iraqi women commanded
to expose their breasts, they senators said.
'Congressional responsibility'
Comments by some of the senators, as could be
expected, contained scathing criticism of the
administration. But can they escape the blame, asks
Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who was
the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president.
He says: "Members of Congress decry the fact that the
administration did not inform us of these abuses and
purposely kept Congress out of the information loop.
Yet Congress made it clear to the administration from
the very beginning that it wanted no responsibility
for the war in Iraq.
"If Congress wanted to be kept in the loop it should
have vigorously exercised its responsibilities. This
means, first and foremost, that Congress should have
voted on a declaration of war as required by the
Constitution.
"Congress, after abandoning this responsibility in
October 2002, now complains it is in the dark. Who is
to say the legal ambiguity created by the
congressional refusal to declare war may not have
contributed to the mentality that prisoners need not
be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention?
Until Congress takes up its constitutional
responsibilities, complaints that the administration
is not sufficiently forthcoming with information ring
hollow.
"Congress has the power – and the obligation – to keep
itself better informed. Congress should hold hearings
on the torture allegations, exercising its subpoena
power if necessary. Demanding that the administration
investigate the matter is simply another example of
Congress passing the buck. That's what got us into
trouble in the first place."
Major General Antonio Taguba, who carried out first
investigations into the abuse after an American
soldier blew the whistle on what was going on in Abu
Ghraib, says that the mistreatment resulted from
faulty leadership, a "lack of discipline, no training
whatsoever and no supervision" of the troops.
The photos and videos available with the Pentagon show
American soldiers "having sex with a female Iraqi
prisoner," according to the New Yorker magazine.
The secret report prepared by Taguba says that US
guards videotaped and photographed naked female
prisoners and that "a male MP [military police] guard"
is shown "having sex with a female detainee."
These treatments are now classified as, if you will,
as part of preparing the detainees for interrogation
by subjecting them to stress and humiliation.
London's Guardian newsapaper quoted Huda Shaker, a
political scientist at Baghdad University, as saying
that American soldiers used sexually explicit abuse at
her when she refused to allow them to search her
handbag at a checkpoint.
That is only the lightest of the experience of others,
she told the paper adding that several women held in
Abu Ghraib jail were sexually abused, including one
who was raped by an American military policeman and
became pregnant and who has now disappeared.
According to Shaker, several Iraqi women taken to Abu
Gharib for questioning and freed after weeks of
detention are unwilling to discuss their experience,
indicating that they were sexually abused.
Rumsfeld has defended military interrogation
techniques, rejecting complaints that they violate
international rules and may endanger Americans taken
prisoner.
He says that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods
such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well
as rules permitting guards to make prisoners assume
stressful positions.
The Arab media were implictly criticised for playing
down the images that appeared on a website which
showed an American being beheaded by masked militants
who said they were avenging the abuse at the Abu
Ghraib prison.
Well, let us put the criticism in perspective. Some
of the reports critical of the Arab media treatment of
the video-taped "execution" suggested that the Arabs
could even be jubilant that an American was killed in
revenge for the abuse at Abu Gharib.
Indeed, that assertion might indeed be true. But it
needs an explanation that those who might have thought
it was befiting that an American was killed come from
a background of untold misery caused by direct
American action (in Iraq) or indirect American action
(in Palestine). For them, it is the US-Israeli
alliance that is behind the troubles of the Middle
East and Israel's denial of Arab and Palestinian
rights.
For the Arabs and a majority in the international
community, there is no question whether the top
echelons of the US government and military knew of the
abuses in Iraq. They see as hoodwinking the repeated
affirmations and declarations, including those by
President George W Bush, Defence Secretary Ronald
Rumsfled and Secretary of State Colin Powell, that the
American political and military leadership was not
aware of what was going on in the Iraqi prisons.
As far as they are concerned, everyone on Washington
was aware what was going on and kept it concealed
until they had no choice when confronted by
irrefutable evidence of the abuses. And now they are
trying to save their own skin by blaming the abuses on
a few and putting up a public relations exercise
through the court martials and other proceedings.
Nothing more, nothing less.
No apologies, no excuses, no regrets and no other
exercise will convince the world majority otherwise.
It is not because they believe it is in American blood
to be sadistic and inhuman while dealing with
prisoners. It is not because they think Bush or
Rumsfeld gave direct orders to their soldiers to abuse
the prisoners.
It is because of the backdrop to the invasion and
occupation of Iraq and the obvious American bias
against the Arabs and close alliance with Israel,
which is flouting every international convention and
law and UN resolutions, continuing to occupy Arab
territories and waging a brutal war against the
Palestinians under its occupation.
Indeed, the invasion and occupation of Kuwait is seen
as an "Israeli project" as much as an "American
project" since it removed a potential Arab military
threat against the Jewish state as much as it allowed
the US to set up an advanced military base in the
Gulf.
The all-too-powerful umbrella of protection that the
US is offering Israel and Washington's almost-blanket
endorsement of every Israeli action and decision have
made it clear to the Arabs that they could not expect
fairness and justice in any effort to solve the
Arab-Israeli conflict. It is as if the US and Israel
are working together to oppress the Arabs and dominate
the Arab World, and, in the bargain, both treat the
Arabs as worthless beings who need to be given any
human consideration.
Reports have also come out that an Israeli team of
former security officials is training the American
military in Iraq on how to deal with the Iraqis along
the same lines as the Israeli military deals with the
Palestinians.
As evident from some of the images from Abu Gharib,
the US has indeed borrowed many of Israel's
"techniques," including hooding of prisoners,
depriving prisoners of sleep, humiliating them and
subjecting them to gross abuses.
The report of the treatment given to a 23-year old
Palestinian held on "administrative detention" by the
Israelis is most telling.
The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day
for 120 days . . . [(he) had his head covered with a
sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards
played loud music right next to his ears and
frequently taunted him with threats of physical and
sexual violence."
The Taguba report cites many similarities between
Israeli treatment of Palestinians and American
treatment of Iraqi prisoners, thus clearly
establishing an Israeli connection to the abuses in
Iraq.
The case of a person identified as John Israel is an
example. The name is said to be phoney and the man
did not have top security clearance, but was somehow
given unfettered access to every knook and corner of
Abu Ghraib.
Why did he not have top security clearance?
Under American regulations, interrogators of Iraqi
prisoners have to US citizens and should be given a
top security clearance.
That does not mean that people like Israel, or
whatever his true name is, could be turned away, as
the Taguba report states.
Taguba has said that non-US and non-Iraqi
interrogators were present at Abu Ghraib. The report
states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel,
third country nationals, and local contractors do not
appear to be properly supervised within the detention
facility at Abu Ghraib." Clearly, intelligence
priorities warranted sharp interrogation skills and
these in turn were acquired by US military personnel
from Israelis, the unbeaten experts in that trade.
Indeed, any perception of American actions in Iraq
could not be seen without the Israeli aura, and that
in itself is the strongest argument yet that the US
military and political leadership care little for the
human rights of the people of Iraq just as the Israeli
attitude towards the Palestinians and Arabs.
The developments in Palestine and Iraq are closely
linked. If the United States fails in its endeavours
to stabilise iraq, consolidate its grip on the country
and set up a regional military base there, with a
"US-friendly" regime in power, then Israel's plans to
swallow Palestinian land would also falter.
If the situation in Palestine turns worse, as it is
happening now with the latest round of killings, then
it would inflame the crisis in Iraq, with the
intensity of the Iraqi resistance against occupation
continuing to grow, pushing the US into adopting
further actions similar to those which occurred in
Germany during World War II.
The fundamentals on the ground are clear: There is no
way Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon retract from
his drive to deny the Palestinian people their rights
if only because that would undermine what he believes
to the rights of Israel in Palestine.
Similarly, it is unthinkable for US President George
Bush to even consider withdrawing American forces from
Iraq since it departure from the beleaguered country
would pull the rug under the feet of Washington's
drive to unchallengingly dominate the international
scene. Leaving unfinished business in Iraq also means
setting a breeding ground for militancy and adding
fuel to the already bitter anti-American sentiments
among Arabs and Muslims.
Against the impossibility of the US deciding to quit
Iraq and Sharon deciding to respect Palestinian rights
and giving up his grand designs for Palestine, the
situation in the Middle East would turn from worse to
worst (if that is possible at all, given that what
could be worse than what we are witnessing in
Palestine and Iraq today). Regional stability will be
two words alien to the Middle East, with the cycle of
violence getting completely out of control, with
neither Sharon or Bush — or the next occupant of the
White House — unable to apply any brakes.
IF ANYONE thinks things could not get any worse than
what they are today in the Middle East — the crises in
Palestine and Iraq being the most critical — then the
thinking has to be reviewed. The reasons are very
clear, and I'd try to simplify them here:
Palestine: No compromise ever
The key to starting to solve the Palestinian problem
is for Israel to accept the legitimate rights of the
Palestinans to set up an independent state in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip — the territories Israel
occupied in the 1967 war. Groups like Hamas and
Islamic Jihad which call for the total elimination of
the state of israel would gradually come around to
accepting that they could not regain the whole of
Palestine as it existed in 1948 and have to accept the
1967 lines. There are enough political indications
that there are enough forces in both groups which tend
to think that way and influence their actions.
But Israel, which is ready to withdraw from Gaza if
only because the coastal strip is the most problematic
to be kept under occupation, will never give up the
West Bank for a Palestinian state to be created there.
As far as Israel is concerned the entire land between
the Mediterranen Sea and the River Jordan is land that
God "promised" to the Jews. Therefore, any solution
that entails surrendering the territory for a
Palestinian state is totally out of question for
Israelis. Furthermore, the Palestinian demand for Arab
East Jerusalem touches upon the very core of Jewish
religious sentiments because of what the Jews consider
as the remnants of Solomon's Temple there which they
want to rebuild.
The best Israel will accept, whether under Ariel
Sharon or any other prime minister, is to grant the
Palestinians "autonomy" in parts of the West Bank
where Jewish settlements do not exist while the
Israeli army will retain absolute control of the
entire land and its exit and entry points as well as
access roads linking Palestinian towns.
Israel will allow the Palestinians to clean streets of
their towns, collect local taxes, run schools and
hospitals, and maintain death, birth and marriage
records. Nothing beyond that.
Israel will never accept the Palestinian demand that
those Palestinians who lost their homes and were
forced to flee their land during the 1948 war
following the creation of Israel and who now live as
refugees should be allowed to return home. Their
return, as far as Israel is concerned, will totally
negate the very concept of the Jewish state. The homes
and land that the Palestinian refugee wish to return
to are now in Israel proper and are inhabited by Jews.
The Palestinians will not accept any of these Israeli
positions at whatever cost, and hence the war of
resistance will only be intensified with no end in
sight as long as Israel maintains its position (which
no Israeli leader would be able to change anyway).
Thousands of Palestinians are standing ready to be
human bombs ready to sacrifice themselves in the
struggle for freedom, and no Israeli security measure
could check a determined fighter ready to blow himself
up.
Iraq: US will never quit
A review of the situation in Iraq also indicates a
deadlock when we consider the considerations behind
the US decision to wage war and occupy the country.
American policy in the Middle East has always been
based on three priorities: Energy security, Israeli
security and regional stability based on alliance with
countries in the region. On all three counts, it is
essential that the US maintains its military presence
in Iraq and ensure that an "America-friendly" regime
is running the country in a manner that serves US
interests
The key to starting to solve the crisis in Iraq is to
have the UN take over administration of the war-torn
country with absolute authority, with enough military
force to keep peace and enough funds to restore basic
infrastructure while the rest of the financial
requirement will come from exports of Iraqi oil.
The UN could administer Iraq for a predetermined
period during which it could help build a democratic
political system and then hand over sovereignty to the
people of Iraq.
Although it sounds simple, it is too complex.
Handing over Iraq to be run by the UN contradicts the
very objective of the United States, which led the
invasion and occupation of that country on the pretext
that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
and was linked to Al Qaeda.
The US wants to set up a military base in Iraq to keep
watch over the region and to intervene whenever it
feels its interests are challenged. It wants absolute
control of Iraq's oil resources to not only to benefit
American oil companies but also to ensure its own
energy security.
It has already neutralised Iraq as a potential threat
to Israel's designs in the region but wants to ensure
that the situation remains that way.
On the third count, the US finds that it could no
longer count on its traditional allies such as Saudi
Arabia to maintain regional stability as Amerca's
friends. The US got its biggest jolt when it found
that 15 of the Sept.11, 2001 hijackers were Saudi
nationals and it warranted a new thinking. And it
explains why the US moved its military bases to Qatar
from Saudi Arabia last year. The American fears were
further heightened with the extremist attacks in Saudi
Arabia in the last one year and the rising
anti-American sentiments in the kingdom. Therefore,
the US has to remain in Iraq in order to ensure
regional stability to serve its interests since it
feels that it could no longer rely on regional
countries to do so.
Finally, the invasion and occupation of Iraq is very
much corporate oriented. Apart from the billions of
dollars that American private contractors are
collecting for their missions in post-war Iraq,
American oil companies, traditional bankrollers of US
politicians, also stand to gain tens of billions of
dollars from the Iraqi oil industry. Any move by the
Bush administration or its possible Kerry successor
to quit Iraq would be politically disasterous.
Quite simply, a departure from Iraq is not even
thinkable for the US. It would only pour in more
military firepower to overcome Iraqi resistance and
get more bogged down in the quagmire.
The overall picture
The crises in Palestine and Iraq would never be solved
without a dramatic volte-face in priorities, policy,
approach and strategies of the occupiers, Israel and
the US. However, such a shift is next to impossible.
Controlling Palestine in absolute terms is too crucial
for Israel to even consider accepting the Palestinian
rights to set up an independent state in the West Bank
just as maintaining its stranglehold on Iraq is
crucial to Washington's quest for global dominance,
politically, financially and militarily.
Both Israel and the US believe that the answer to
their respective problems is military force. They are
not willing to consider that freedom struggles could
not be put down through the barrel of guns and that
the occupier has to bow out at some point, sooner or
later.
They are ready to sacrifice whatever it
entails — casualties among their soldiers included —
to press for the realisation of their goals, which
means more and more military power being employed
against resistance, which could only gain strength and
intensity with every military blow from the occupier.
The net equation only means one thing: More and more
deaths and casualties on all sides, more so among the
Palestinians and Iraqis but enough on the Israeli and
American side to keep the situation boiling for the
foreseeable future.
in both cases and
THE Bush administration was caught unawares when the
scandal of prisoner abuse in Iraq blew up on its
face. It was already facing a worsening crisis, with
the majority Shiites showing their clout against
American designs in post-war Iraq, mounting casualties
among American forces deployed there and growing
international condemnation of its occupation of the
Arab Muslim country. However, there is no way out
since an Iraq under the American sphere of absolute
influence is the central pillar of the US strategy and
this means continued occupation of that country, ready
to taken on anything that challenges the American
strategic objectives. It is very similar to the
situation in Palestine, with Israel having no option
but to continue its occupation and suppression of the
Palestinian people since leaving the Palestinian
territories will question what people like Ariel
Sharon believe to be their raison d'etre.
In the meantime, the Bush administration is engaged in
a frantic exercise to cleanse its image in the wake of
the release of images depicting sadistic and
humiliating treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
However, the blemish will never be washed away and it
will go down in world history alongside the Nazi
practices and similar tales of gross disrespect for
human dignity and of cruelty against hapless human
beings overpowered through massive military force and
detained in conditions unfit even for the worst animal
on earth.
Indeed, Washington has announced court martial and
other proceedings against what it describes a
"handful" of American soldiers who were shown engaging
in abuses, torture and humiliation of Iraqis held in
its detention facilities in post-war Iraq. However,
more and more such images are emerging despite
Washington's efforts to suppress them. Worse still are
reports that American soldiers have been raping Iraqi
female prisoners detained on silly charges as refusing
to show identity cards at checkpoints. One account
says that at least two of the rape victims have gone
missing, presumably dead and buried somewhere in the
vast expanse of the Iraqi desert.
Adding to those are the emerging reports of abuses of
prisoners taken in the Afghan war and detained at the
Guantanamo Bay as well as prison camps within
Afghanistan.
Members of the US Congress who viewed fresh photos
and videos of Iraqi prisoner abuse on Wednesday
affirmed that they saw photos of sexual intercourse.
Others showed military dogs snarling at cowering
prisoners, as well as shots of Iraqi women commanded
to expose their breasts, they senators said.
'Congressional responsibility'
Comments by some of the senators, as could be
expected, contained scathing criticism of the
administration. But can they escape the blame, asks
Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas who was
the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president.
He says: "Members of Congress decry the fact that the
administration did not inform us of these abuses and
purposely kept Congress out of the information loop.
Yet Congress made it clear to the administration from
the very beginning that it wanted no responsibility
for the war in Iraq.
"If Congress wanted to be kept in the loop it should
have vigorously exercised its responsibilities. This
means, first and foremost, that Congress should have
voted on a declaration of war as required by the
Constitution.
"Congress, after abandoning this responsibility in
October 2002, now complains it is in the dark. Who is
to say the legal ambiguity created by the
congressional refusal to declare war may not have
contributed to the mentality that prisoners need not
be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention?
Until Congress takes up its constitutional
responsibilities, complaints that the administration
is not sufficiently forthcoming with information ring
hollow.
"Congress has the power – and the obligation – to keep
itself better informed. Congress should hold hearings
on the torture allegations, exercising its subpoena
power if necessary. Demanding that the administration
investigate the matter is simply another example of
Congress passing the buck. That's what got us into
trouble in the first place."
Major General Antonio Taguba, who carried out first
investigations into the abuse after an American
soldier blew the whistle on what was going on in Abu
Ghraib, says that the mistreatment resulted from
faulty leadership, a "lack of discipline, no training
whatsoever and no supervision" of the troops.
The photos and videos available with the Pentagon show
American soldiers "having sex with a female Iraqi
prisoner," according to the New Yorker magazine.
The secret report prepared by Taguba says that US
guards videotaped and photographed naked female
prisoners and that "a male MP [military police] guard"
is shown "having sex with a female detainee."
These treatments are now classified as, if you will,
as part of preparing the detainees for interrogation
by subjecting them to stress and humiliation.
London's Guardian newsapaper quoted Huda Shaker, a
political scientist at Baghdad University, as saying
that American soldiers used sexually explicit abuse at
her when she refused to allow them to search her
handbag at a checkpoint.
That is only the lightest of the experience of others,
she told the paper adding that several women held in
Abu Ghraib jail were sexually abused, including one
who was raped by an American military policeman and
became pregnant and who has now disappeared.
According to Shaker, several Iraqi women taken to Abu
Gharib for questioning and freed after weeks of
detention are unwilling to discuss their experience,
indicating that they were sexually abused.
Rumsfeld has defended military interrogation
techniques, rejecting complaints that they violate
international rules and may endanger Americans taken
prisoner.
He says that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods
such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well
as rules permitting guards to make prisoners assume
stressful positions.
The Arab media were implictly criticised for playing
down the images that appeared on a website which
showed an American being beheaded by masked militants
who said they were avenging the abuse at the Abu
Ghraib prison.
Well, let us put the criticism in perspective. Some
of the reports critical of the Arab media treatment of
the video-taped "execution" suggested that the Arabs
could even be jubilant that an American was killed in
revenge for the abuse at Abu Gharib.
Indeed, that assertion might indeed be true. But it
needs an explanation that those who might have thought
it was befiting that an American was killed come from
a background of untold misery caused by direct
American action (in Iraq) or indirect American action
(in Palestine). For them, it is the US-Israeli
alliance that is behind the troubles of the Middle
East and Israel's denial of Arab and Palestinian
rights.
For the Arabs and a majority in the international
community, there is no question whether the top
echelons of the US government and military knew of the
abuses in Iraq. They see as hoodwinking the repeated
affirmations and declarations, including those by
President George W Bush, Defence Secretary Ronald
Rumsfled and Secretary of State Colin Powell, that the
American political and military leadership was not
aware of what was going on in the Iraqi prisons.
As far as they are concerned, everyone on Washington
was aware what was going on and kept it concealed
until they had no choice when confronted by
irrefutable evidence of the abuses. And now they are
trying to save their own skin by blaming the abuses on
a few and putting up a public relations exercise
through the court martials and other proceedings.
Nothing more, nothing less.
No apologies, no excuses, no regrets and no other
exercise will convince the world majority otherwise.
It is not because they believe it is in American blood
to be sadistic and inhuman while dealing with
prisoners. It is not because they think Bush or
Rumsfeld gave direct orders to their soldiers to abuse
the prisoners.
It is because of the backdrop to the invasion and
occupation of Iraq and the obvious American bias
against the Arabs and close alliance with Israel,
which is flouting every international convention and
law and UN resolutions, continuing to occupy Arab
territories and waging a brutal war against the
Palestinians under its occupation.
Indeed, the invasion and occupation of Kuwait is seen
as an "Israeli project" as much as an "American
project" since it removed a potential Arab military
threat against the Jewish state as much as it allowed
the US to set up an advanced military base in the
Gulf.
The all-too-powerful umbrella of protection that the
US is offering Israel and Washington's almost-blanket
endorsement of every Israeli action and decision have
made it clear to the Arabs that they could not expect
fairness and justice in any effort to solve the
Arab-Israeli conflict. It is as if the US and Israel
are working together to oppress the Arabs and dominate
the Arab World, and, in the bargain, both treat the
Arabs as worthless beings who need to be given any
human consideration.
Reports have also come out that an Israeli team of
former security officials is training the American
military in Iraq on how to deal with the Iraqis along
the same lines as the Israeli military deals with the
Palestinians.
As evident from some of the images from Abu Gharib,
the US has indeed borrowed many of Israel's
"techniques," including hooding of prisoners,
depriving prisoners of sleep, humiliating them and
subjecting them to gross abuses.
The report of the treatment given to a 23-year old
Palestinian held on "administrative detention" by the
Israelis is most telling.
The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day
for 120 days . . . [(he) had his head covered with a
sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards
played loud music right next to his ears and
frequently taunted him with threats of physical and
sexual violence."
The Taguba report cites many similarities between
Israeli treatment of Palestinians and American
treatment of Iraqi prisoners, thus clearly
establishing an Israeli connection to the abuses in
Iraq.
The case of a person identified as John Israel is an
example. The name is said to be phoney and the man
did not have top security clearance, but was somehow
given unfettered access to every knook and corner of
Abu Ghraib.
Why did he not have top security clearance?
Under American regulations, interrogators of Iraqi
prisoners have to US citizens and should be given a
top security clearance.
That does not mean that people like Israel, or
whatever his true name is, could be turned away, as
the Taguba report states.
Taguba has said that non-US and non-Iraqi
interrogators were present at Abu Ghraib. The report
states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel,
third country nationals, and local contractors do not
appear to be properly supervised within the detention
facility at Abu Ghraib." Clearly, intelligence
priorities warranted sharp interrogation skills and
these in turn were acquired by US military personnel
from Israelis, the unbeaten experts in that trade.
Indeed, any perception of American actions in Iraq
could not be seen without the Israeli aura, and that
in itself is the strongest argument yet that the US
military and political leadership care little for the
human rights of the people of Iraq just as the Israeli
attitude towards the Palestinians and Arabs.
The developments in Palestine and Iraq are closely
linked. If the United States fails in its endeavours
to stabilise iraq, consolidate its grip on the country
and set up a regional military base there, with a
"US-friendly" regime in power, then Israel's plans to
swallow Palestinian land would also falter.
If the situation in Palestine turns worse, as it is
happening now with the latest round of killings, then
it would inflame the crisis in Iraq, with the
intensity of the Iraqi resistance against occupation
continuing to grow, pushing the US into adopting
further actions similar to those which occurred in
Germany during World War II.
The fundamentals on the ground are clear: There is no
way Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon retract from
his drive to deny the Palestinian people their rights
if only because that would undermine what he believes
to the rights of Israel in Palestine.
Similarly, it is unthinkable for US President George
Bush to even consider withdrawing American forces from
Iraq since it departure from the beleaguered country
would pull the rug under the feet of Washington's
drive to unchallengingly dominate the international
scene. Leaving unfinished business in Iraq also means
setting a breeding ground for militancy and adding
fuel to the already bitter anti-American sentiments
among Arabs and Muslims.
Against the impossibility of the US deciding to quit
Iraq and Sharon deciding to respect Palestinian rights
and giving up his grand designs for Palestine, the
situation in the Middle East would turn from worse to
worst (if that is possible at all, given that what
could be worse than what we are witnessing in
Palestine and Iraq today). Regional stability will be
two words alien to the Middle East, with the cycle of
violence getting completely out of control, with
neither Sharon or Bush — or the next occupant of the
White House — unable to apply any brakes.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Lockerbie - too many questions
by pv vivekanand
Most people in are now convinced that Libya was behind the 1998 PanAm bombing after Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi agreed to pay compensation and accepted responsibility for the blast. But many in the Arab World, and indeed the international community, continue to believe that was much more than met the eye in the episode. The answers to the very valid questions raised by the sceptics might never be answered.
THE LIBYAN agreement to pay £2.7 billion in compensation and implicit acceptance of responsibility for the 1998 bombing of an American airliner that killed 270 people might close the diplomatic file and rehabilitate Libya into the international circuit, but many questions remain unanswered.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's acceptance of responsibility and compensation payment was a prerequisite in ending the UN and US sanctions imposed against his country in 1990 when he refused to hand over two Libyans suspected of having carried out the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
However, this does not imply acceptance of guilt since without accepting responsibility and paying compensation, Libya would have remained under the sanctions and diplomatically isolated.
Libya, which has been suffering from the sanctions, need foreign investments and technology to develop its untapped oil reserves and therefore it was incumbent upon Qadhafi to end the sanctions through whatever means.
Now it is expected that at least four US oil companies would return to Libya and resume their operations and Libya would also be removed from a US list of countries supporting "terrorism."
That is too strategic a prize for Qadhafi to let go.
However, the file remains open without the question satisfactorily answered who was behind the bombing of the American airliner.
Even European experts and analysts have said that the trial of two Libyans in 1999 after Qadhafi handed them over to a special Scottish court set up in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands was flawed. The trial led to one of the Libyans sentenced to life in a Scottish prison and the other being cleared of all charges.
Notwithstanding the trial and last month's Libyan agreement to accept responsibility and pay damages, many argue that doubts remain open whether Libya was behind the bombing.
Several other theories remain as strong as the one that the PanAm blast was in revenge for a 1985 American bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Bengazhi that killed five people, including Qadhafi's adopted daughter of four years.
That bombing was ordered by the then president Ronald Reagan as punitive measure against Libya for having allegedly ordered a blast at a Berlin disco frequented by American servicemen. A woman died in that blast.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the Pan Am bombing is only one of the many theories that were raised at the very outset of investigations into the crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug underworld, and even the CIA and Eastern Europe.
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and a widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya was the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case against Tripoli.
Indeed, the initial investigation into to the PanAm blast brought out those theories. These include:
-- The bombing was Iranian revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger airline in the Gulf by an American warship at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in the mid-80s.
-- The blast was the work of fearful Central Intelligence Agents (CIA) involved in illegal activities or masterminded by anti-American elements who penetrated a CIA-endorsed drug running operation;
-- The blast had nothing to do with the Middle East or Libya since the target of the bombing was two Eastern European politicians.
Surprisingly, the US investigators shut off all other investigations and focused on Libya instead without explaining why others were eliminated as suspects.
It is believed that Iran was conveniently removed as a potential suspect because taking on Tehran would have been too heavy for the US at that point. Washington was also seeking to pacify the Iranians after having extended support to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Syria, which supported the US in the 1991 war that ended Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, was off the hook since Washington needed Damascus to enter the Middle East peace process launched in late 1991.
All other non-Libya theories about the bombing would have dented what the US saw as an opportunity to have a stranglehold on Qadhafi's Libya, one of the most vociferous critics of US policy in Africa and the Middle East.
A careful scrutiny of the trial held at Camp Zeist indicated major loopholes in the prosecution case and it was surprising that the court found it fit to approve the evidence.
The key piece of evidence introduced during the Camp Zeist trial was a tiny piece of a timer that allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a Toshiba cassette player and the fragment was found in part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich, Switzerland.
But a company official told the court that similar timers were supplied to several parties, including the Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
Experts have questioned how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya because of some fundamental differences in the construction of the devices bought by Libya and those sold by MEBO to others.
Also challenged in court was the record of misguided conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, said that the fragment could have come from one of two timers he had sold to Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had those blueprints could have manufactured a similar timer.
The Stasi connection opened up another avenue.
A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was among the first suspects named by US authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite other circumstantial evidence, did have close links with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer from the East Germans.
Also challenged was the testimony of a former Libyan intelligence that he had seen the two Libyans who were put on trial in Camp Zeist at Malta airport on the day of the explosion.
The testimony was challenged on grounds that he has a vested interest in lying because he was living under a witness protection program in the US and stood to be rewarded by up to $4 million from the US government.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran, which was seeking revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was named as having personally undertaken the alleged "contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in Europe several months before the Pan Am attack.
Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and several other European countries, months before the Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed shortly thereafter.
The prosecution was not seen to have proved conclusively that the suitcase containing the bomb was indeed loaded to an Air Malta plane at Valetta airport which was automatically moved to London's Heathrow from Frankfurt because it had a "through to New York" baggage tag. As long as that was not proved, the Libyan connection should have been dropped altogether.
A key the PFLP—GC activist was present in Malta at the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of the buyer was seen as another strong nail in the prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran — were involved in the blast, why did the US move away from that direction?
Explanations a theory that the US wanted to "neutralize" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support" for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing involved a covert CIA operation involving drug lords in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure the release of American hostages in that country. This involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could do with its connections in Europe, said one theory, which was partially supported by the findings of an investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect suitcase contained drugs linked to the Lebanon undercover operation and allowed its passage through Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the line, someone switched the suitcase with one containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or another group with links to the drug lords and this group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained explosives and that McKee was the target but they allowed the blast to take place since the CIA station chief was headed for home with a complaint against them that could have led not only to their dismissal from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid of Major McKee," according to a detailed report carried by the British Guardian newspaper after extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie, where the exploded pieces of the plane landed, had reported finding a suitcase containing cellophane packets containing white powder among the debris in his fields, but the suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given. It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
"There have been many ambiguities in the case from the very beginning, and they have not been cleared by the trial...," says James Weatherby, a British lawyer.
Weatherby cited the "many suggestions and reports indicating other groups or government(s) had the motive to carry out the attack and could have been behind those who planted the bomb" as one of the reasons for scepticism.
"The prosecution swept off all that under the carpet and zeroed in on Libya," he said.
The Libyan who was sentenced after the one-year trial appealed the verdict after fresh evidence emerged that the rigged suitcase could have been planted by those who broke into a Heathrow cargo bay.
The defence lawyers produced two witnesses, a security guard and his supervisor who were on duty at that time, who testified in court that there was a break-in at the cargo bay some 16 hours before the flight took off, that those who broken in had access to genuine Pan Am baggage tags and could have stashed the suitcase among the baggage lined up to be placed aboard Pan Am 103.
Every theory is feasible and every piece of evidence is as strong as the other.
As a British expert put it, the trial was a "process intended for public consumption was played out frontstage while thick curtains sealed off real drama for no one to see."
And indeed, the world might never be convicingly told who blasted Flight 103 out of the skies.
Most people in are now convinced that Libya was behind the 1998 PanAm bombing after Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi agreed to pay compensation and accepted responsibility for the blast. But many in the Arab World, and indeed the international community, continue to believe that was much more than met the eye in the episode. The answers to the very valid questions raised by the sceptics might never be answered.
THE LIBYAN agreement to pay £2.7 billion in compensation and implicit acceptance of responsibility for the 1998 bombing of an American airliner that killed 270 people might close the diplomatic file and rehabilitate Libya into the international circuit, but many questions remain unanswered.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's acceptance of responsibility and compensation payment was a prerequisite in ending the UN and US sanctions imposed against his country in 1990 when he refused to hand over two Libyans suspected of having carried out the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
However, this does not imply acceptance of guilt since without accepting responsibility and paying compensation, Libya would have remained under the sanctions and diplomatically isolated.
Libya, which has been suffering from the sanctions, need foreign investments and technology to develop its untapped oil reserves and therefore it was incumbent upon Qadhafi to end the sanctions through whatever means.
Now it is expected that at least four US oil companies would return to Libya and resume their operations and Libya would also be removed from a US list of countries supporting "terrorism."
That is too strategic a prize for Qadhafi to let go.
However, the file remains open without the question satisfactorily answered who was behind the bombing of the American airliner.
Even European experts and analysts have said that the trial of two Libyans in 1999 after Qadhafi handed them over to a special Scottish court set up in Camp Zeist in the Netherlands was flawed. The trial led to one of the Libyans sentenced to life in a Scottish prison and the other being cleared of all charges.
Notwithstanding the trial and last month's Libyan agreement to accept responsibility and pay damages, many argue that doubts remain open whether Libya was behind the bombing.
Several other theories remain as strong as the one that the PanAm blast was in revenge for a 1985 American bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Bengazhi that killed five people, including Qadhafi's adopted daughter of four years.
That bombing was ordered by the then president Ronald Reagan as punitive measure against Libya for having allegedly ordered a blast at a Berlin disco frequented by American servicemen. A woman died in that blast.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the Pan Am bombing is only one of the many theories that were raised at the very outset of investigations into the crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug underworld, and even the CIA and Eastern Europe.
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and a widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya was the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case against Tripoli.
Indeed, the initial investigation into to the PanAm blast brought out those theories. These include:
-- The bombing was Iranian revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger airline in the Gulf by an American warship at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in the mid-80s.
-- The blast was the work of fearful Central Intelligence Agents (CIA) involved in illegal activities or masterminded by anti-American elements who penetrated a CIA-endorsed drug running operation;
-- The blast had nothing to do with the Middle East or Libya since the target of the bombing was two Eastern European politicians.
Surprisingly, the US investigators shut off all other investigations and focused on Libya instead without explaining why others were eliminated as suspects.
It is believed that Iran was conveniently removed as a potential suspect because taking on Tehran would have been too heavy for the US at that point. Washington was also seeking to pacify the Iranians after having extended support to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Syria, which supported the US in the 1991 war that ended Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, was off the hook since Washington needed Damascus to enter the Middle East peace process launched in late 1991.
All other non-Libya theories about the bombing would have dented what the US saw as an opportunity to have a stranglehold on Qadhafi's Libya, one of the most vociferous critics of US policy in Africa and the Middle East.
A careful scrutiny of the trial held at Camp Zeist indicated major loopholes in the prosecution case and it was surprising that the court found it fit to approve the evidence.
The key piece of evidence introduced during the Camp Zeist trial was a tiny piece of a timer that allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a Toshiba cassette player and the fragment was found in part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich, Switzerland.
But a company official told the court that similar timers were supplied to several parties, including the Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
Experts have questioned how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya because of some fundamental differences in the construction of the devices bought by Libya and those sold by MEBO to others.
Also challenged in court was the record of misguided conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, said that the fragment could have come from one of two timers he had sold to Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had those blueprints could have manufactured a similar timer.
The Stasi connection opened up another avenue.
A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was among the first suspects named by US authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite other circumstantial evidence, did have close links with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer from the East Germans.
Also challenged was the testimony of a former Libyan intelligence that he had seen the two Libyans who were put on trial in Camp Zeist at Malta airport on the day of the explosion.
The testimony was challenged on grounds that he has a vested interest in lying because he was living under a witness protection program in the US and stood to be rewarded by up to $4 million from the US government.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran, which was seeking revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was named as having personally undertaken the alleged "contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in Europe several months before the Pan Am attack.
Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and several other European countries, months before the Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed shortly thereafter.
The prosecution was not seen to have proved conclusively that the suitcase containing the bomb was indeed loaded to an Air Malta plane at Valetta airport which was automatically moved to London's Heathrow from Frankfurt because it had a "through to New York" baggage tag. As long as that was not proved, the Libyan connection should have been dropped altogether.
A key the PFLP—GC activist was present in Malta at the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of the buyer was seen as another strong nail in the prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran — were involved in the blast, why did the US move away from that direction?
Explanations a theory that the US wanted to "neutralize" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support" for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing involved a covert CIA operation involving drug lords in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure the release of American hostages in that country. This involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could do with its connections in Europe, said one theory, which was partially supported by the findings of an investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect suitcase contained drugs linked to the Lebanon undercover operation and allowed its passage through Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the line, someone switched the suitcase with one containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or another group with links to the drug lords and this group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained explosives and that McKee was the target but they allowed the blast to take place since the CIA station chief was headed for home with a complaint against them that could have led not only to their dismissal from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid of Major McKee," according to a detailed report carried by the British Guardian newspaper after extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie, where the exploded pieces of the plane landed, had reported finding a suitcase containing cellophane packets containing white powder among the debris in his fields, but the suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given. It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
"There have been many ambiguities in the case from the very beginning, and they have not been cleared by the trial...," says James Weatherby, a British lawyer.
Weatherby cited the "many suggestions and reports indicating other groups or government(s) had the motive to carry out the attack and could have been behind those who planted the bomb" as one of the reasons for scepticism.
"The prosecution swept off all that under the carpet and zeroed in on Libya," he said.
The Libyan who was sentenced after the one-year trial appealed the verdict after fresh evidence emerged that the rigged suitcase could have been planted by those who broke into a Heathrow cargo bay.
The defence lawyers produced two witnesses, a security guard and his supervisor who were on duty at that time, who testified in court that there was a break-in at the cargo bay some 16 hours before the flight took off, that those who broken in had access to genuine Pan Am baggage tags and could have stashed the suitcase among the baggage lined up to be placed aboard Pan Am 103.
Every theory is feasible and every piece of evidence is as strong as the other.
As a British expert put it, the trial was a "process intended for public consumption was played out frontstage while thick curtains sealed off real drama for no one to see."
And indeed, the world might never be convicingly told who blasted Flight 103 out of the skies.
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