Muqtada, the Future of Iraq?

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Islam and the West

02 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Muqtada, the Future of Iraq?

By Robert S. Eshelman, In These Times. Posted July 29, 2008. Veteran Iraq reporter Patrick Cockburn presents a historical portrait of the man leading the only true mass political movement in Iraq. "Firebrand." It was the ubiquitous moniker used to describe Iraq’s fiercely anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr when, in March 2004, his leering portrait became commonplace among American media reports of Iraq. American Viceroy L. Paul Bremer III had just shut down al-Sadr’s Baghdad newspaper, al-Hawza, and hinted at arresting him, ushering in the first of several confrontations with al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army. More recently, this label has given way to that of "Iranian-backed" — conjuring comparisons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s besieged Hamas party. In both cases, these depictions serve to portray al-Sadr as an irrational, extremist proxy, who, to a great degree, has contributed to Iraq’s instability and continues to be a major obstacle to peace in Iraq, if not across the Middle East. But as Patrick Cockburn, the Iraq correspondent for The Independent of London, argues convincingly in Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival and the Struggle for Iraq (Scribner, May 2008), such representations overlook the causes of al-Sadr’s rise to political prominence. More importantly, they grossly misrepresent his unique blend of Shiite religious doctrine and Iraqi nationalism, as well as the fact that he leads the only truly mass political movement in Iraq. "Part of the mystery concerning Muqtada has its origin in simple ignorance," writes Cockburn. Muqtada’s emergence as a central figure in Iraq, he continues, is surprising only if one is unfamiliar with "the bloody and dramatic story of resistance to Saddam Hussein by Iraqi Shia as a whole and the al-Sadr family in particular." Over the first several chapters of Muqtada, Cockburn traces this largely untold, and, indeed, bloody chronicle. At the heart of Muqtada’s backstory are his father-in-law — Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr — and his father — Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr. Both attained the honorific of Grand Ayatollah and were killed by Saddam’s regime. Baqir was executed in 1980 and Sadiq was assassinated in 1999, along with two of Muqtada’s brothers. These two figures — who remain highly revered by Iraqi Shiite today — bequeathed Muqtada a bounty of religious and political legitimacy upon becoming the leader of the Sadrist movement. Bound up with the Sadr family biography is an intricate history of modern Iraq: intra-Shiite rivalries; the brutal Iran-Iraq war in the ’80s; the collapse of secular, Iraqi nationalism under Saddam; and the failed Shiite uprising of 1991. Cockburn, who has been reporting from Iraq since 1977, nimbly weaves together these developments, which are essential to understanding contemporary Iraqi politics, without ever straying far from his central object of inquiry — Muqtada’s ascension to political significance. American dailies churn out stories of a centralized, albeit struggling, political system — where power emanates from the American Embassy, the military and, nominally, from Iraqi governmental institutions. But Cockburn’s articles convey a more complicated, troubling view of the dysfunctional occupation, and expose the deep wounds of Iraq’s sectarian bloodletting. (His previous book on Iraq, The Occupation, was short-listed for a National Book Critics Circle award in 2007.) Following the U.S. invasion, Muqtada’s keen political and military sensibilities allowed him to step into a central position on the political landscape. During the spring and summer of 2004, he and his Mehdi Army faced down American forces in Najaf and the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad, taking heavy losses. Since then, his army has developed from rag-tag groups of irregulars into a more coherent and capable, although not yet highly organized, fighting force. During that time, Muqtada skillfully played his hand vis-à-vis the United States and the interim Iraqi government. He sometimes took forceful stands while at other times made tactical retreats. At the dawn of Iraq’s 2005 elections, he entered the electoral realm, when large political gains where almost certain. Muqtada does not appear as a principal character in Cockburn’s book until the ninth chapter, roughly halfway through, and is rarely quoted directly, not to mention interviewed at length. This may seem odd at first but is, in fact, what makes this book so strikingly relevant. Like his backstory of the Iraqi Shiite and the Sadr family, Cockburn shows that Muqtada’s rise has as much, perhaps more, to do with the setting

America Is Already Committing Acts of War Against Iran

Islam and the West

02 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

America Is Already Committing Acts of War Against Iran

By Scott Ritter, Truthdig. Posted July 30, 2008. Our taxpayer dollars are funding activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded and Iranian property destroyed — acts of war. The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today. Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating "accident" involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran. The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in 1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days. However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981, all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war. Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is virtually impossible to completely eradicate. It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran, at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran. The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities. Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in division-size military operations against Iran. The organization represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its fighters are even given "protected status" under the Geneva Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active paramilitary organization that uses "refugee camps" inside Iraq as its bases. The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer, being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA, both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is questioned by many, including me. Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and Defence Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer, byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data on the computer were assembled. Check the "logic" of the data, making sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs. The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant. However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the one in trouble. And if the defence is able to demonstrate that the entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons. The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to legitimize this illegitimate source of information. A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are treated as a giant "non-event," the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone pretends isn’t really there. Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document "alarming," Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to centrifuges. Far from being a "top-secret" document protected by Iran’s security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran. For Heinonen to call the document "alarming," at this late stage in the game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any "sudden fear brought on by the sense of danger," nor does it provide any "warning of existing or approaching danger," unless one is speaking of the danger of military action on the part of the United States derived from Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words. Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S. government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, "As today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to build a bomb." Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted that "Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on weaponization." Schulte did not bother to note that it would be difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not done. "This is particularly troubling," Schulte went on, "when combined with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich uranium." Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, "Uranium enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into a bomb." This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The spectre of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible. A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of "diplomacy," on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department. I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy. Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to "observe" a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a "significant concession" on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration. Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no manoeuvring room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran. Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran "was not serious" about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan). The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that "a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war." Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression. One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, "How did that happen?" The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it. Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran. http://www.alternet.org/audits/93239/america_is_already_committing_acts_of_war_against_iran/?page=entire

Man Suspected in Anthrax Attacks Said to Commit Suicide

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Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

02 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Man Suspected in Anthrax Attacks Said to Commit Suicide

By DAVID STOUT and MITCHELL L. BLUMENTHAL, New York Times Published: August 2, 2008 WASHINGTON — The seven-year investigation into the anthrax attacks that traumatized and baffled the nation just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks has taken a stunning new turn with the apparent suicide of a scientist who was the prime suspect in the case. With investigators close to filing charges against him, the scientist — Bruce E. Ivins, 62 — apparently took his own life with a prescription painkiller, Tylenol mixed with codeine. He died Tuesday at a hospital in Frederick, Md., about an hour’s drive north of Washington. Dr. Ivins, who was a biodefense researcher at Fort Detrick, had been told of the investigation into the anthrax incidents, said his lawyer, Paul F. Kemp of Rockville, Md., who issued a statement insisting that his client was innocent. “For six years, Dr. Ivins fully cooperated with that investigation, assisting the government in every way that was asked of him,” Mr. Kemp said. “The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways on different people, as has already been seen in this investigation. In Dr. Ivins’ case, it led to his untimely death.” Dr. Ivins, who the Associated Press said had received three degrees, including a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati, appeared to have been a brilliant but deeply troubled man, according to a portrait emerging from legal documents and the recollections of friends and acquaintances. He was a church-going family man, and a dozen of his fellow parishioners gathered Friday morning to pray for him at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick, where the Rev. Richard Murphy recalled him as “a quiet man … always very helpful and pleasant,” the A.P. said. But he was clearly in great mental anguish in recent weeks. Maryland court documents show he had been under psychiatric treatment and had been served with a restraining order directing him to stay away from a woman he was accused of stalking and threatening. And a lab colleague told the A.P. he was recently removed from his workplace by the police because of fears that he had become a danger to himself or others. One of his scientific specialties was working on a vaccine that would be effective against anthrax infection, even in difficult cases in which different strains of anthrax were mixed. In a scientific journal last month, Dr. Ivins wrote of the limited supply of monkeys available for testing the vaccine, and how, in any event, testing on animals would not necessarily indicate how humans would react. The death of Dr. Ivins, who grew up in Ohio, is the most dramatic development in the case of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people and made 17 others ill in the fall of 2001 when they were exposed to anthrax spores sent through the mails. Letters containing anthrax powder was also sent to lawmakers’ offices on Capitol Hill, causing great alarm in the capital when it was still jittery from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Letters were also found containing a similar-looking powder but no anthrax. Little more than a month ago, the Justice Department agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit by another bio-defence researcher at the same facility, Steven J. Hatfill. The settlement ended a five-year legal battle over Dr. Hatfill’s allegations that investigators violated his privacy by leaking information on the investigation to journalists. At the time, the Department of Justice emphatically denied any liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill’s claims, despite agreeing to settle with him, and it was far from clear whether the suicide of Dr. Ivins might bring an end to the anthrax case — or point the way to further developments. Justice Department officials have not decided whether to close the investigation. Federal officials were caught off guard by Dr. Ivins’s death, and were limited in what they could say by grand jury secrecy rules. “All of that stuff is sealed — we have nothing we can talk about,” an official said, adding that federal officials also needed to brief the victims’ families before making any public statements. Dr. Ivins, who was married and the father of two, died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital, according to an obituary published Friday in The Frederick News-Post, which said that he is survived by his wife of 33 years, Diane, and by a son and a daughter. The obituary said Dr. Ivins had worked at Fort Detrick for 36 years, was a member of the American Red Cross, and was a parishioner at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick, “where he was as a musician for many years for church services.” The Los Angeles Times first reported the investigation of Dr. Ivins and the apparent connection to his death on Friday. But it was clear from the comments of Dr. Ivins’s lawyer and officials close to the case that the researcher had been under suspicion for many months. The White House said President Bush had been informed that a major new chapter in the case was about to unfold. Thomas R. Ivins Jr., Bruce Ivins’ brother, said that another brother, Charles Ivins, called him earlier this week and said that Bruce had died of the overdose, and that the death was believed to be a suicide. Thomas Ivins, who at 73 is the eldest of the three brothers, said in an interview Friday morning from his home in Middletown, Ohio, that F.B.I. agents had contacted him about 18 months ago to ask about Bruce. He said he had been estranged from his youngest brother and had not spoken to him in 20 years, so he could tell the agents little about him or his work. “I gave them family background and history,” he said. He said his father, T. Randall Ivins, ran a pharmacy in Lebanon, Ohio, where the brothers grew up. A relative who answered the phone at Charles Ivins’ house said he was unable to talk because he was recovering from open-heart surgery following a recent heart attack. “It’s a very difficult time,” said the relative, who declined to give her name. The laboratory at Fort Detrick, officially known as the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, has been at the centre of the F.B.I. and in fact Dr. Ivins had assisted in analyzing samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks. “We are not at this time making any official statements or comments regarding this situation,” Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I’s Washington field office, which is investigating the anthrax attacks, told The Associated Press on Friday. The A.P. reported that prosecutors were planning to seek the death penalty in the case. The 2001 anthrax mailings were baffling in several ways, not least because the victims — whetherthey were chosen or were struck at random — seemed to have nothing in common. The dead included an editor at a tabloid newspaper based in Florida, a woman in New York City, another woman in Connecticut, and two postal workers at a huge mail-sorting building in Washington, D.C. Targets of the mailings included Tom Brokaw of NBC and two Democratic senators: Tom Daschle of South Dakota, then his party’s Senate leader, and Patrick J. Leahy, a leading member of the Senate Judiciary Committee but arguably not an instantly recognizable figure outside Washington and his home state. The letters were traced to a post office near Trenton, N.J., and had return addresses that, while fictional, suggested some knowledge of local geography. Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting from Washington. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/washington/02anthrax.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

2009/7/28 Asadullah Syed <syedmdasadullah@gmail.com>

Islam and the West

02 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Will Bush Bully Maliki Into Backing Off a Withdrawal Timeline — Again?

By Gareth Porter, IPS News. Posted July 31, 2008. Now is not the first time the Iraqi Prime Minister sought a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. Tools WASHINGTON, Jul 28 (IPS) — Many official and unofficial proponents of a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq are dismissing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand for a U.S. timeline for withdrawal as political posturing, assuming that he will abandon it under pressure. But that demand was foreshadowed by an episode in June 2006 in which al-Maliki circulated a draft policy calling for negotiation of just such a withdrawal timetable and the George W. Bush administration had to intervene to force the prime minister to drop it. The context of al-Maliki’s earlier advocacy of a timetable for withdrawal was the serious Iraqi effort to negotiate an agreement with seven major Sunni armed groups that had begun under his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari in early 2006. The main Sunni demand in those talks had been for a timetable for full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Under the spur of those negotiations, al-Jaafari and Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaei had developed a plan for taking over security in all 18 provinces of Iraq from the United States by the end of 2007. During his first week as prime minister in late May, al-Maliki referred twice publicly to that plan. At the same time al-Maliki began working on a draft "national reconciliation plan", which was in effect a road map to final agreement with the Sunni armed groups. The Sunday Times of London, which obtained a copy of the draft, reported Jun. 23, 2006 that it included the following language: "We must agree on a time schedule to pull out the troops from Iraq, while at the same time building up the Iraqi forces that will guarantee Iraqi security, and this must be supported by a United Nations Security Council decision." That formula, linking a withdrawal timetable with the build-up of Iraqi forces, was consistent with the position taken by Sunni armed groups in their previous talks with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, which was that the timetable for withdrawal would be "linked to the timescale necessary to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces and security services". One of the Sunni commanders who had negotiated with Khalilzad described the resistance position in those words to the London-based Arabic-language Alsharq al Awsat in May 2006. The Iraqi government draft was already completed when Bush arrived in Baghdad June 13 without any previous consultation with al-Maliki, giving the Iraqi leader five minutes’ notice that Bush would be meeting him in person rather than by videoconference. The al-Maliki cabinet sought to persuade Bush to go along with the withdrawal provision of the document. In his press conference upon returning, Bush conceded that Iraqi cabinet members in the meeting had repeatedly brought up the issue of reconciliation with the Sunni insurgents. In fact, after Bush had left, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, said he had asked Bush to agree to a timetable for withdrawal of all foreign forces. Then President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, released a statement of support for that request. Nevertheless, Bush signalled his rejection of the Iraqi initiative in his June 14 press conference, deceitfully attributing his own rejection of a timetable to the Iraqi government. "And the willingness of some to say that if we’re in power we’ll withdraw on a set timetable concerns people in Iraq," Bush declared. When the final version of the plan was released to the public June 25, the offending withdrawal timetable provision had disappeared. Bush was insisting that the al-Maliki government embrace the idea of a "conditions-based" U.S. troop withdrawal. Khalilzad gave an interview with Newsweek the week the final reconciliation plan was made public in which he referred to a "conditions-driven roadmap". Washington Post columnist David Ignatius further revealed in a June 28 column that Khalilzad had told him that Gen. George Casey, then commander of the Multi-National Force — Iraq, was going to meet with al-Maliki about the formation of a "joint U.S.-Iraqi committee" to decide on "the conditions related to a road map for an ultimate withdrawal of U.S. troops". Thus al-Maliki was being forced to agree to a negotiating body that symbolized a humiliating dictation by the occupying power to a client government. The heavy pressure that had obviously been applied to al-Maliki on the issue during and after the Bush visit was resented by al-Maliki and al-Rubaie. The Iraqi rancor over that pressure was evident in the op-ed piece by al-Rubaei published in the Washington Post a week after Bush’s visit. Although the article did not refer directly to al-Maliki’s reconciliation plan and its offer to negotiate a timetable for withdrawal, the very first line implied that the issue was uppermost in the Iraqi prime minister’s mind. "There has been much talk about a withdrawal of U.S. and coalition troops from Iraq," wrote al-Rubaie, "but no defined timeline has yet been set."Al-Rubaei declared "Iraq’s ambition to have full control of the country by the end of 2008". Although few readers understood the import of that statement, it was an indication that the al-Maliki regime was prepared to negotiate complete withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2008. Then the national security adviser indicated that the government already had its own targets for the first two phases of foreign troop withdrawal: withdrawal of more than 30,000 troops to under 100,000 foreign troops by the end of 2006 and withdrawal of "most of the remaining troops" — i.e., to less than 50,000 troops — by end of the 2007. The author explained why the "removal" of foreign troops was so important to the Iraqi government: it would "remove psychological barriers and the reason that many Iraqis joined the resistance in the first place"; it would also "allow the Iraqi government to engage with some of our neighbours that have to date been at the very least sympathetic to the resistance …" Finally, al-Rubaie asserted, it would "legitimize the Iraqi government in the eyes of its own people." He also took a carefully-worded shot at the Bush administration’s actions in overruling the centrepiece of Iraq’s reconciliation policy. "While Iraq is trying to gain independence from the United States," he wrote, "some influential foreign figures" were still "trying to spoon-feed our government and take a very proactive role in many key decisions." The 2006 episode left a lasting imprint on both the Bush and al-Maliki regimes, which is still very much in evidence in the present conflict over a withdrawal timetable. The Bush White House continues to act as though it is confident that al-Maliki can be pressured to back down as he was forced to do before. And at least some of al-Maliki’s determination to stand up to Bush in 2008 is related to the bitterness that he and al-Rubaie, among others, still feel over the way Bush humiliated them in 2006. It appears that Bush is making the usual dominant power mistake in relations to al-Maliki. He may have been a pushover in mid-2006, but the circumstances have changed, in Iraq, in the U.S.-Iraq-Iran relations and in the United States. The al-Maliki regime now has much greater purchase to defy Bush than it had two years ago. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/93466/will_bush_bully_maliki_into_backing_off_a_withdrawal_timeline_–_again/?page=entire

More bad news from Iraq: Female and dressed to kill

Islam and the West

02 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

More bad news from Iraq: Female and dressed to kill

Khaleej Times 30 July 2008 THERE’S more bad news from Iraq. A new phenomenon of female suicide bombers has added itself to the long list of woes of the Middle East country. Three female suicide bombers killed more than 60 people in triple devastating attacks across Iraq on Monday. The bombers targeted a crowd of Shia devotees and a protest rally in Kirkuk in the north. These attacks have shaken the Iraqi government and the coalition that had begun to cautiously celebrate relative improvement in security situation in recent times. Of course, this is not the first time female suicide bombers have struck in Iraq. And it is not the first country to witness the phenomenon either. Human body as a weapon had been first used in the Middle East by the Palestinians. The Palestinians were in turn inspired and trained by the Tamil Tigers or LTTE of Sri Lanka who put the tactic to deadly use turning it into a lethal art. Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian PM, was blown up by a female bomber in early ’90s. But coming as it does after weeks and months of relative peace in Iraq, the female suicide bombing has left everyone stunned reminding them of the extremely fragile nature of peace. It is being suggested that since the massive influx of foreign fighters has of late been reduced to a trickle, thanks to increased vigil and crackdown by security forces and cooperation of Iraq’s neighbours of course, the insurgents are increasingly turning to women as their weapon of choice. Whatever the explanation, this is very disturbing. These desperate and despicable tactics by the insurgents must be condemned in strongest terms by everyone. Women are not only homemakers, they build a critical role in building and nurturing society. Using them to destroy homes and innocent bystanders is most shameful. That said, the new phenomenon must come as a wake-up call to Iraq’s leaders. But, instead of cracking down on the families of the female bombers, the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition must take a serious look at why women are taking to these desperate measures. If the Iraqi authorities are keen to prevent such tragedies in the future, it’s important to understand what is driving such women. Invariably, at the heart of all such tragedies are victims of grave injustice. Since the Invasion in 2003, there have been myriad cases of ordinary Iraqis routinely suffering atrocities and human rights abuse at the hands of the coalition troops as well as the Iraqi militias and security forces. How can the Iraqi people, and the rest of the world, ever forget the shame of Abu Ghraib and much else that has happened after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime? Iraq has been bleeding for five years now and will continue to bleed for years to come. It should surprise no one if all those victimised by this pointless war are now returning to pay back in kind. http://khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/editorial/2008/July/editorial_July62.xml&section=editorial&col=

Islamic Malaysia in Asean club?

Radical Islamism & Jihad

02 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Islamic Malaysia in Asean club?

BY FARISH A. NOOR (Asian Edge) 2 August 2008 At present, there are several right-wing conservative Buddhist groups calling for Thailand to be officially declared as the first Buddhist state in the world; a feat unmatched by anyone else thus far for even Sri Lanka has remained a secular state all these years. One wonders what the implications of such a move might be both for Thailand and the region as a whole should it come to pass: Would the rise of right-wing Buddhism have an impact on the Muslim and Christian minorities in the country? Would it further inflame the situation in the South of Thailand where conflict between Thai Buddhists and Malay Muslims has been raging since 2004? One factor that has prevented any country in Asean from unilaterally making such drastic changes to its internal politics has been the checks and balances offered by the region’s plural character itself: A quick look at the map of the Asean region would show that this is a region of many faith communities living together and overlapping. Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei remain predominantly Muslim, but they are flanked by predominantly Buddhist Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and even Vietnam. In turn there is the Philippines, which is Christian as well, and in all these countries — Singapore being a case in point — there are also large pockets of cosmopolitanism mixed with multiculturalism and multi-religiosity too. Historically this may have been one of the factors that prevented countries like Malaysia and Indonesia from unilaterally upping the stakes in the Islamisation process, for it would have raised eyebrows in the neighbouring capitals. How long this state of affairs will remain unchecked, however, is anyone’s guess. In Malaysia and Indonesia the rise of political Islam has also given birth to radical new Islamist groupings like the Hizb’ut Tahrir that are now calling for a pan-Muslim Asean super-state, far-fetched though their ambitions may seem. Malaysia, on the other hand seems to be making tentative steps towards raising the stakes in the Islamisation race further. Following the results of the March 2008 elections that badly damaged the image and standing of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno) party that is led by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, it would seem that the political elite of the country are more in favour than ever for a political compromise between Umno and its former arch foe, the Malaysian Islamic party PAS. For several weeks now the Malaysian political scene has been abuzz with talk about a possible merger between the nationalist Umno party and the Islamist opposition party PAS, on the basis of further developing and ensuring Malay-Muslim unity in the country. But an Islamic state in Malaysia? The implications are manifold and would consume the attention and energy of a legion of political analysts. How would such a merger between the nationalist Umno and the Islamist PAS work? Would Malaysia finally declare itself to be ‘the Islamic state of Malaysia’? What would happen to the existing institutions of state such as the Parliament and the Monarchy? (PAS, for instance, has mooted the idea that the Parliament would be subsumed under a more powerful council of guardians and Ulema since the 1980s.) In Malaysia itself the talk of a possible merger between Umno and PAS has given cause for anxiety among many of its citizens who wish to see the country remain on its secular-democratic track, and who fear that the sudden rise to power of PAS would undermine all the achievements of secular civil society in areas such as multiculturalism, gender equality and freedom of speech. Even among the ranks of the Islamist party itself there are dissenting voices that argue that the latest gambit by Umno to bring PAS closer to it is nothing more than a thinly-disguised attempt by Umno to remain in power at whatever cost. One other factor that has to be raised now is how all this will affect Malaysia’s image abroad and how this may damage Malaysia’s standing as a moderate Muslim state in the region. After all, was it not the government of Prime Minister Badawi that promoted its own brand of ‘moderate’ Islam, dubbed Islam Hadari — that was in turn roundly condemned as un-Islamic by the very same PAS that Umno is now trying to court? For decades the Malaysian government has presented the country as a bastion of moderate Islam while decrying PAS as a ‘fundamentalist’ party. Is this ‘fundamentalist party’ now being courted by Umno to secure Umno’s dominant position in the country? And would this mean that Umno will now allow the very same ‘fundamentalist’ PAS to dictate the form and content of normative Islam in Malaysia? Should the Umno-PAS talks continue, and should PAS ever be brought into the ruling coalition by Umno, the Asean region may have to look closer at Malaysia and consider the implications of this move for the region as a whole. A Malaysia with Islamists in power and a Malaysia that finally commits itself to the creation of an Islamic state will have long-term implications for Asean and the wider community. For a start, the success of the Islamists in Malaysia (should it come to pass) would embolden Islamists in Indonesia and other parts of the region to press ahead with their demands for an Islamic state too. What next? An Islamic state of Indonesia? And where will these moves take Malaysia and Indonesia, two key strategic states that have till recently been cast as ‘model’ ‘moderate’ Muslim states on the geo-political map? It is for these reasons that the behind-the-scenes negotiations between Umno and PAS in Malaysia cannot be seen as domestic concerns alone. Asean today has become too integrated and inter-dependent that any radical shift in any single Asean country is bound to have an impact on the economic viability and political stability of the region. Umno today may be desperate to hold on to power, but even Umno has to realise that there are internal and external limits to the manoeuvrability of any party. Dr. Farish A. Noor is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University and co-founder of the www.othermalaysia.or http://khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2008/August/opinion_August6.xml&section=opinion&col=