A Bloody Lie of George Tenet

by Larry C Johnson

How many lies is George Tenet allowed to tell on TV before he immolates the last shred of credibility? Judging by his latest sad performance on Meet the Press I would say his time is up. Tenet insisted to Tim Russert today that he was crystal clear in debunking the assumption that Al Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots:

Well, Tim, Tim, I will tell you that I had many conversations, particularly on Iraq and al-Qaeda, particularly on the terrorism question, where we drew the line as sharply as we knew how. We were very, very clear about our judgments. We worked very, very hard to make sure that people comported and stayed within the bounds of what the intelligence showed.

But George Tenet can’t keep his stories straight. For example, as has been widely reported, he starts his book off with an inaccurate account of a conversation with neocon and Iraq war advocate Richard Perle. It is the day after 9-11, Perle is stuck in France, yet Tenet writes that he saw Perle exiting the White House and talking about attacking Iraq. Leave it to George Tenet to make Richard Perle sound sane.

George Tenet wants gullible book buyers to believe that he always disputed the notion that Saddam and the 9-11 attackers were working in concert. But the words and actions of George Tenet tell a radically different story. A damning one at that.

In March of 2002 George Tenet said:

"There is no doubt that there have been contacts and linkages of al-Qaeda organization. As to where we are in September 11, the jury is out. . . . . Their ties may be limited by divergent ideologies, but the two sides' mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggest that tactical cooperation between them is possible."

Why did George Tenet leave open the window of doubt on this critical issue when he now insists that there was no there there? But wait, there is more.

CIA Deputy Director, John McLaughlin, sent a letter responding to a query from Senator Evan Bayh on October 7, 2002 that said:

"Regarding Senator Bayh's questions of Iraqi links to al-Qaeda, senators could draw from the following points for unclassified discussions. One, We have solid reporting of senior level contact between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Two, "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal" aggression." Three, "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad." And lastly, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."

Did anyone hear George Tenet at the time remind anybody that there was no “operational tie” between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda? He chose to say nothing. Did he challenge those--like Dick Cheney--who suggested there was a substantive ongoing relationship? Nope. George Tenet said nothing to dispel that false conclusion.

That same day (October 7, 2002) President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio (this is the famous speech in which Tenet excised the reference to Niger, Iraq, and uranium) and said the following:

And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam Hussein's links to international terrorist groups. Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans. . . . We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

George Tenet's CIA approved this language and Tenet was familiar with the speech because he had called the White House to protest another portion of the speech. This provides circumstantial evidence for Richard Dearlove's (George Tenet's British counterpart) now famous memo (the Downing Street Memo) that the facts and the intelligence were being fixed around the policy of going to war with Iraq. In my day we called it cooking the books and George Tenet was one of the chefs.

Tenet’s participation in the hoodwinking of the American public continued when, on February 4, 2003 , he sat stoically behind Colin Powell at the UN Security Council and, by virtue of his presence, provided the CIA ’s imprimatur for the following claim:

Al Qaeda continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story.
I will relate it to you now as he, himself, described it. This senior al Qaeda terrorist was responsible for one of al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan . His information comes firsthand from his personal involvement at senior levels of al Qaeda. He says bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan , deceased al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef, did not believe that al Qaeda labs in Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq .
The support that (al Libi) describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two al Qaeda associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abu Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases. Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.

This intelligence came from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda commander who was tortured by the Egyptians. Even though George Tenet was briefed in January 2003 that his analysts doubted al-Libi’s account (see Hubris pp. 187-88) he signed off on Powell’s briefing.

But he did more. On February 11, 2003 Tenet he went before Congress and said:

Iraq is harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a close associate of al Qaeda. ... Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaeda associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. ... I know that part of this - and part of this Zarqawi network in Baghdad are two dozen Egyptian Islamic jihad which is indistinguishable from al Qaeda - operatives who are aiding the Zarqawi network, and two senior planners who have been in Baghdad since last May.
Now, whether there is a base or whether there is not a base, they are operating freely, supporting the Zarqawi network that is supporting the poisons network in Europe and around the world. So these people have been operating there. And, as you know - I don't want to recount everything that Secretary Powell said, but as you know a foreign service went to the Iraqis twice to talk to them about Zarqawi and were rebuffed. So there is a presence in Baghdad that is beyond Zarqawi.

The public record is quite clear about the role George Tenet played in helping condition the American people to fear Iraq and support a preemptive war against Iraq. He helped build the myth that Al Qaeda enjoyed safehaven in Iraq and was biding its time to strike us again. George Tenet was not an honest broker trying to get the best intelligence to the President and the Congress. He willingly and knowingly agreed to make public statements and authorized statements that were at odds with the actual intelligence.

What do you think would have happened if George Tenet had gone to members of Congress and warned them that there was no relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam’s Iraq? Would overwhelming majorities have voted to give the President authority to start a war with Iraq? I do not think so. Would Americans still raw from the wounds inflicted by Al Qaeda on 9-11 support the President’s campaign to attack a country which had nothing to do with those attacks and, despite claims to the contrary, was not protecting or enabling Al Qaeda operatives who wanted to launch new attacks against the United States? The answer. No, and hell no!

Lie is the only word that comes to mind and seems appropriate to describe what George Tenet has done. This is the chief reason I say he has the blood of American soldiers on his hands. And I, along with several former members of the CIA , the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Army, believe that George Tenet owes the soldiers and the families of soldiers who have died or been wounded in Iraq part of the proceeds from his $4 million dollar advance for his book. It would be the decent thing to do, but George Tenet’s decency quotient appears to be running on empty.

Posted by Larry Johnson on Monday, 07 May 2007 at 00:57 | Permalink

Iranian envoy wounds 'confirmed'

The head of the International Red Cross in Tehran says he saw wounds on an Iranian diplomat who has alleged that US forces in Iraq tortured him.

Peter Stoeker said there were marks on Jalal Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but he was unable to say if they were the result of torture.

Iranian media quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA tortured him "day and night".

Mr Sharafi was abducted in Iraq in February and released last week. The US denies any involvement in the case.

Mr Sharafi, second secretary at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, says he was kidnapped by Iraqi agents operating under the supervision of the CIA.

Iranian state media has quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA subjected him to torture as they questioned him about Iranian assistance to groups inside Iraq.

'Evidence of torture'

Iranian television has shown pictures of Mr Sharafi receiving treatment in hospital and quotes a doctor's report saying there are signs someone drilled holes in his feet as well as broke his nose, injured his ear and wounded his neck and back.

The ICRC's Mr Stoeker said he had been happy to meet Mr Sharafi in hospital because his organisation had been unable to find him in Iraq.

He confirmed he saw wounds on Mr Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but, not being a doctor, he was unable to say if they were the result of torture and if so, who inflicted them.

"The United States had nothing to do with Mr Sharafi's detention and we welcome his return to Iran," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, last week.

He dismissed the claims as "just the latest theatrics of a government trying to deflect attention away from its own unacceptable actions".

An unnamed US intelligence official also denied any claims of abuse, saying: "The CIA does not conduct or condone torture."

Mr Sharafi was freed in Iraq on 3 April, the day before the 15 British sailors were set free in Iran, but no link has been confirmed between the two cases.

Ganging up on Iran

Published: 27/03/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)

By Linda S. Heard, Special to Gulf News

I'll begin with a question. Is Iran an aggressor or a victim? If you've answered aggressor then may I suggest you take a moment to reflect.

Unfortunately, the fabricated scenario that led us into Iraq is at play again. And once again we're being suckered into being accepting of a neoconservative plan designed to ensure America's domination over this region's oilfields and maintain Israel as the sole nuclear power in the Middle East.

This is practically a replay of events leading up to the invasion of Iraq. In this case, the US-driven UN Security Council has ganged up to coerce Iran with sanctions into giving up its legitimate right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 30 days, the UN screws will, no doubt, be further tightened.

Iran's angry response is to reduce cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to threaten prosecution of British sailors and marines for operating in Iranian waters.

Backed by the US and the EU, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair is becoming bellicose over that issue while a slew of Israeli spokesmen make demands on the international community to forcibly prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

What you don't hear is that there is no proof that Iran intends to develop nukes. IAEA chief Mohammad Al Baradei has repeatedly said there is no smoking gun.

Moreover, as even the hawkish former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has admitted on CNN, US intelligence on the subject of Iran is sparse. Indeed, the latest National Intelligence Estimate suggests that Iran wouldn't be capable of producing a bomb until 2015, so, in that case, what's the rush?

Iran's numerous calls for a nuclear-free Middle East have been barely mentioned in the Western media and have not been taken seriously by the UN, fearful of debate over Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity".

The US has been gunning for Iran ever since the overthrow of its puppet, the Shah, in 1979 when the US embassy was seized. In 1980, the Carter administration authorised radio broadcasts to Iran calling for the toppling of Khomeini.

That same year Saddam Hussain, then Washington's friend, launched a war on Iraq that lasted eight years and which adversely affected or robbed the lives of millions.

As the Guardian reported on December 31 2002, "Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instruction the administration to do 'whatever was necessary and legal' to prevent Iraq losing the war" with Iran.

Now let's fast forward to January 29, 2002, the day that George W. Bush famously included Iran in an "Axis of Evil" along with Iraq and North Korea. This was no accidental inclusion.

General Wesley Clark reveals this on page 130 of his book Winning Modern Wars.

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more.

"This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran Somalia and Sudan." Clark says he left the Pentagon that afternoon "deeply concerned".

Gels perfectly

Clark's revelation gels perfectly with the Project for a New American Century document Rebuilding America's Defences; a blueprint for a global Pax Americana, signed onto by Dick Cheney and his neocon friends in 2000.

So now ask yourself the question posed at the beginning of this column again. Is Iran an aggressor or a victim?

Perhaps you're still not convinced. Before you answer think on this.

In 2003, Tehran proposed negotiations with the White House over its nuclear programme and offered to cease its support for groups that the US deems "terrorist". This overture was rejected out of hand by President Bush.

Today, Bush and co are intent on cornering Iran with the object of regime change. According to the New Yorker's investigative journalist Seymour Hersh there are plans on the table to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities using bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons. Ironic isn't it! Hersh says Bush privately calls the Iranian president "the new Hitler".

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext to attack Iran.

At the same time Washington is funding Iranian opposition groups in the diaspora as well as militant ethnic separatist groups within Iran. There have already been several violent incidents in country stamped with the CIA's fingerprint.

Draw your own conclusions as to who is aggressing whom but bear in mind that Iran has never threatened to attack the US or its allies other than in retaliation for a strike on it. Moreover, unlike the US, Iran does not harbour neo-imperialist ambitions and does not have a record of launching wars or invading other countries.

It is true that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn't pull any punches when it comes to Israel but the feeling is mutual.

In reality, Iran would be justified in fearing the US and Israel, which, together, constitute the most potent force in the world, than vice-versa.

I've got one final question. Should we fear a country that has no record of invasion or occupation and no nuclear weapons above one that espouses not only full spectrum dominance over the planet's resources, waters and skies but also outer space?

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com

The CIA's Italian Job

by MOHAMAD BAZZI

[from the April 9, 2007 issue]

Cairo

From her third-floor balcony, the Egyptian woman saw the whole thing: a group of CIA and Italian agents snatching the imam of her local mosque off a Milan street, stuffing him into a white van and driving off. It was February 17, 2003, and Hassan Osama Nasr was walking to the mosque for noon prayers. He was stopped by a man waving a badge and shouting, "Police!" In perfect Italian, the man demanded Nasr's ID, wallet and cellphone. Then two men came up from behind Nasr, grabbed his arms and forced him into the van. It all took about three minutes.

But the agents didn't know that someone had seen the abduction. The woman called the mosque, and word spread among worshipers. By evening, the mosque's leaders suspected that Nasr--a cleric known as Abu Omar who had fled Egypt in 1990--would be sent back to his homeland. They phoned Montasser al-Zayyat, a prominent lawyer in Cairo who has spent his career defending Islamic militants. "The plan was that no one would see him being kidnapped and he would disappear," Zayyat said in an interview at his office. "But that Egyptian woman who happened to be standing on her balcony saved him."

Nasr, 44, is now at the center of the most politically explosive case involving the CIA practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which a suspected militant is secretly abducted and taken to another country for interrogation and, usually, torture. After years of denial, the Bush Administration now acknowledges using the extra-judicial tactic but insists that it does not sanction the torture of suspects.

In February an Italian judge indicted twenty-six Americans--a US Air Force colonel and twenty-five suspected CIA operatives, including the former Rome station chief and former Milan sub-station chief--for their role in the months-long plot to abduct Nasr. Although none of the suspects are in custody, the trial is set to begin June 8, and it has already become an embarrassment for the Bush Administration and the Italian government.

The public relations disaster may have saved others from abduction and torture. "I suspect that Abu Omar's case has slowed down the policy of renditions," said John Sifton, senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch. "It was an incredible embarrassment for the CIA. Undoubtedly, it made them think twice about other abductions."

But the star witness, Nasr, might not be able to testify in Italy. He was released from an Egyptian prison in February, but his lawyer says he is not allowed to leave the country or to make any public statements. "The Egyptian authorities warned him that if he speaks about the case, he will be sent back to prison," said Zayyat. (Egyptian officials had made good on an earlier threat to throw Nasr back in prison: After being released in April 2004, he was arrested twenty days later when the secret police learned that he had been discussing his abduction.)

American and Egyptian officials have refused to comment on the case. Egypt has even refused to confirm or deny that it had Nasr in custody. But a Cairo appeals court ordered his release after he'd been held in prison for four years without charge. And now Egypt, the second-­largest recipient of US foreign aid after Israel, is trying to save its benefactor from further embarrassment by preventing Nasr from testifying in Italy. "The Americans want this case to go away," Zayyat said. "They don't want Abu Omar to publicly describe what happened to him."

It's hard to believe that the CIA didn't know what would happen to Nasr. "Egypt's intelligence services are infamous for using torture," said Sifton. "The Americans knew that by sending him to Egypt, he would be tortured," Zayyat said. "They wanted someone to do this dirty work for them."

The trial is likely to reveal new details about the CIA's covert operations and the complicity of Italian intelligence services, and to cast a harsh light on the Bush Administration's dealings with its European allies. Nasr's lawyer plans to travel to Italy for the trial and to file a lawsuit against the US and Italian governments, seeking $13 million in damages. Zayyat also plans to file a separate lawsuit against former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, alleging that he personally approved the abduction. Berlusconi has denied having prior knowledge of the plan.

Nasr entered Italy illegally in 1997 and was granted political asylum four years later. He had fled Egypt after being imprisoned twice in the late 1980s for antigovernment sermons at a mosque in Alexandria. Although he has not been charged with a crime in Italy, he was under investigation for allegedly recruiting Muslim men to fight in Iraq. Italian officials have said they were about to detain him for questioning when the CIA abducted him.

"Abu Omar is prepared to go to Italy, even if he's going to be tried and imprisoned," Zayyat said. "He's convinced of his innocence, and he's confident in the Italian judiciary."

The lead Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said after the indictments were handed down that he wants Nasr to testify against the American agents, but Egypt has never responded to an Italian request for access to the cleric. "Obviously it would be useful to hear what he has to say," Spataro said. "If he is banned from leaving [Egypt], there's nothing we can do."

In April 2006 Nasr appeared in an Egyptian court for the first time and gave a detailed, two-hour account of his experience. Zayyat said Egyptian officials have refused to give him or Italian prosecutors a transcript of that session. But Zayyat provided The Nation with four pages of handwritten notes he took during his client's testimony. Nasr told the court that shortly after his abduction, US and Italian agents put a black hood over his head and "punched me in the stomach and all over my body." He was driven to Aviano Air Base, a joint US-Italian installation, where he boarded a small plane for a flight that lasted an hour and a half. As Nasr tried to resist, the beatings continued on the plane. "I was bewildered," he told the court. "I didn't understand what was happening around me."

At a US base in Germany, Nasr was led into a "large, cold room." His hands were untied and the hood was taken off. He saw a group of fifteen to twenty men all wearing masks and Special Forces uniforms. The men wrapped his entire head and face with duct tape and cut holes over his nose and mouth so he could breathe. He was stripped of his clothes and dressed in a jumpsuit, and his arms and legs were shackled. He was then hustled onto another plane. By that point, Nasr had stopped resisting--and the beating had ended. "I had given up," he said. "I was resigned to my fate."

After the plane landed at Cairo airport on February 18, 2003, a guard on the tarmac told Nasr, "You have arrived in Egypt, Abu Omar." Still blindfolded and shackled, he was stuffed into another van and driven to the Mukhabarat (secret police) headquarters outside Cairo. Guards removed the duct tape from his head and face, allowing his hair and beard to take their form. He was escorted into a room by an Egyptian security official who told him that "two pashas" wanted to speak with him.

Nasr testified that he recognized one of the men as Egypt's interior minister. The other man appeared to be an American. "Only the Egyptian spoke," Nasr said. "He offered me to become an informant. If I accepted, he said, I would be returned to Italy right away before anyone noticed my disappearance." Nasr refused, and the two men left. That's when the torture began. He testified that he was beaten with wooden sticks, given electric shocks and hung upside down. He was sometimes shackled to an iron rack, nicknamed "the Bride" and zapped with stun guns.

At other times, Nasr testified, he was tied to a wet mattress on the floor. To prevent him from moving, a guard sat on a wooden chair on top of Nasr's shoulders. Another interrogator would then flip a switch, sending jolts of electricity into the mattress coils. For most of his four years in prison, Nasr was kept in solitary confinement. He testified that his cell had no toilet and no lights, and "roaches and rats walked across my body."

Nasr spent the first seven months at the Mukhabarat prison. He was then sent to a State Security prison, where he was regularly tortured during interrogations. Throughout this time, Zayyat was trying to confirm that Nasr was in Egyptian custody. "I was looking for him in the prisons where they keep political detainees. But I found nothing," Zayyat said. "I filed requests for information from the courts. Nothing."

A year after Nasr's abduction, Zayyat finally established his presence in Egypt when several Islamists detained in State Security told the lawyer that they had seen Nasr being moved around the prison. "It took one year to confirm that he was here," Zayyat said, shaking his head. "One year! And I still didn't receive any official word."

In March 2004 Zayyat filed a petition at the appeals court in Cairo seeking Nasr's release. The prosecutors filed a response, in which they sought to detain the cleric for "membership in an illegal organization"--usually a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood or Egypt's two violent Islamist groups, Gama'a Islamiya (Islamic Group) or Islamic Jihad. Prosecutors argued that Nasr was active in the Gama'a, which helped assassinate President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later waged a bloody seven-year campaign to topple the government. But the court did not find the evidence sufficient, and it ordered Nasr's release. When I asked Zayyat if he had a copy of the court's decision, he laughed, saying, "We don't have those kinds of laws in this country."

In April 2004 State Security agents drove Nasr to his family's home in Alexandria. They told him to keep quiet if he wanted to stay out of prison. But Nasr immediately called his wife and friends in Milan and described his abduction in detail. He did not know that Italian prosecutors had tapped the phones at his home and mosque in Milan as part of their investigation into the CIA plot. Those wiretaps provided Italian investigators with their first full account of Nasr's case. When word got back to Egyptian authorities that Nasr was talking, he was arrested again.

"When they brought me back to State Security, they said, 'We warned you not to talk with anyone, but you violated our deal,'" Nasr testified. "'So now we're going to keep you.'"

During this second imprisonment, Nasr was held under Egypt's emergency laws--imposed by President Hosni Mubarak soon after Sadat's assassination and never rescinded--which allow authorities to hold anyone without charge for thirty days. But the police and intelligence agencies can renew the thirty-day period with little effort, turning it into indefinite detention. Nasr testified that he wasn't tortured as badly during his second stint, but he was again placed in solitary. Despairing and worried that he would never be released, he twice tried to commit suicide.

When Zayyat learned that his client was arrested again, he began filing monthly petitions for his release. "Every time the thirty-day period would expire, I would submit another petition," he said. "It would say, This person is being held without charge, and there's nothing to justify his detention." In the end, it was one of these procedural petitions--and, undoubtedly, the growing international scandal--that won Nasr's release.

On February 22 Nasr appeared unexpectedly at the trial of an Egyptian blogger in Alexandria [see Negar Azimi, "Bloggers Against Torture," February 19]. In front of the TV cameras, he pulled back his sleeves to show evidence of the torture he'd endured: scars on his wrists and ankles. He said there were more scars on his stomach and other parts of his body that he was too embarrassed to show. "I don't want any more trouble with anyone," he said. "My body cannot bear any more prison and torture." When journalists asked him for more details, he walked away, saying he feared going back to prison.

Mohamad Bazzi, the Middle East bureau chief for Newsday since 2003, is based in Beirut.

Questions

Monday, March 26, 2007

Al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday in a very definitive way the demise of Allawi's attempt to put together a coalition what would represent an alternative to the Maliki administration, based on statements of non-support by a key member of the Islamic Party of Iraq (part of the big Sunni coalition); by a spokesman for the Kurdish parties; and by the head of the Fadhila party, which had most recently been in talks with Allawi. The Al-Quds story was on page three, under its own by-line. Then on Saturday, the Shiite news-site Karbalanews.net reported the same story verbatim, attributing it to "international news agencies". The story is unusually solidly-sourced, but to me at least it's not entirely clear where it originated. Western media haven't mentioned it, which may or may not mean anything.

In any event, it is worth highlighting a remark attributed to a leader of Allawi's own group, Izzat Shabandar, who said that in spite of Allawi's efforts, the initiative "lacked American support." This comes as Khalilzad is being replaced as US ambassador, suggesting (to me, that is) the possibility that what these reports reflect is an American decision to fold the Allawi initiative and replace it with something else. But what?

Meanwhile, Al-Hayat continues to talk up the idea of cooperation between tribes, armed groups, and the government in fighting the AlQaeda organizations. (Sorry for a missing link here. The latest I cited was here, but there has been at least another item along the same lines in Al-Hayat since then). Some of this at least is undoubtedly wishful thinking, but it is worth underlining the fact that from Al-Hayat's Sunni perspective, it makes sense to talk about cooperation between some armed groups and the Maliki administration, at least in this tactical way. I don't think anyone knows the relative strength, within the resistance, of the AlQaeda affiliated international jihadis on the one side, and the domestic nationalist resistance on the other. But the point here is merely that Al-Hayat, for its part, sees the threat from AlQaeda as having triggered talk of government cooperation with some of the domestic groups. Whether this will prove to be at all meaningful remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Condoleeza Rice met in Aswan on the weekend, not only with the foreign ministers of the so-called "Arab quartet" (Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and UAE), but also, separately, with the heads of the Mukhabarat (national-security/intelligence) of those countries, including Omar Suleiman of Egypt and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. (She had a similar meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs in Amman last month.) The Aswan meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs wasn't elaborated on in any of the Western accounts, but Abdulbari Atwan, writing in Al-Quds al-Arabi, explained that for instance in Egypt, the foreign minister handles things like economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, while the Palestinian file is in the hands of Suleiman, and the same in Saudi Arabia, where Bandar is the person in charge of the Lebanon and Iran files. Atwan, who is well-connected, didn't say specifically what was talked about in those Rice-Mukhabarat meetings, suggesting he doesn't know. Did they talk about Iraq?

His overall point is that the Rice verbiage about "horizons" and "active diplomacy" and so on, refer to US pressure to get the Arab states to water down their 2002 Israel-Palestine peace proposal by dropping the Palestinian "right of return" and by front-ending Arab recognition of Israel. In today's column, Atwan calls attention to Thomas Friedman's Saturday op-ed in the NYT (recommending the Saudi King re-launch the peace initiative with a surprise visit to Israel and Palestine right after the Riyadh summit) as another piece of this scheme for a watered-down peace-proposal with front-ended recognition of Israel. Atwan said he regrets to have to say it, but the fact is Friedman is not just blowing bubbles; the King might actually do it. After all, he notes, the original 2002 proposal involved collusion between Friedman and the King, so this might be the same type of thing.

Why CIA abuse is medieval madness

Michael Otterman

• Torture can produce unreliable confessions, while non-coercive methods often reach the truth

  ---

• March 22, 2007

SINCE medieval times, water-boarding, or forcing water into captives' lungs, has been used to compel prisoners to confess. During the Inquisition, water-boarded prisoners admitted to shape-shifting and cavorting with the devil.

Today, terrorism suspects subjected to this medieval torture admit the wildest things too. Just ask 9/11 plotter, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

KSM was bound to a stiff wooden plank at a secret CIA black-site prison. Interrogators tilted one end of the platform so that his head was several inches below his feet. A rag was fixed in his mouth and cellophane was firmly wrapped over his face.

Slowly, water was poured over his mouth until he began to gag and lurch. Seconds before he blacked out, interrogators ripped off the plastic and pulled the rag from his mouth, allowing him to briefly catch his breath. After 2 1/2 minutes on the waterboard, CIA officials said he was "begging to confess". He admitted to 31 different plots - nearly every act of terrorism against the US since the early 1990s.

While his hand in 9/11 has been independently confirmed, his other claims are less believable. Former CIA field officer Robert Baer told Time: "(KSM) is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimises KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated."

Pearl's father told ABC News in the US the facts "don't match (KSM's) story". Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who knew Pearl well, said: "Anyone who saw the tape of Danny's murder could confess to those details." She added: "From everyone I've talked to in Danny's family there isn't closure ... there's not convincing evidence that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the killer."

KSM has also confessed to attempting to bomb the US's Plaza Bank headquarters prior to his arrest in March 2003. "I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the new (or second) wave of attacks against ... Plaza Bank, Washington state," he said during his recent Guantanamo tribunal hearing. This claim is also dubious. Plaza Bank was founded in early 2006.

Today, most of KSM's "facts" are inseparable from fiction. Sadly this was avoidable. Rather than stripping him naked, holding him in a dark cold cell for months on end, blasting loud music and strobe lights at him, threatening violence against his two sons, and nearly drowning him, US officials should have used non-abusive techniques proven to build trust. These methods yield reliable evidence.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the US domestic law enforcement agency that must obtain non-coerced evidence that stands up in US courts. Over time, the FBI has developed an array of non-violent interrogation techniques. FBI investigators methodically engage their suspects in conversation, supply incentives, then slowly vet and cross-check the information their suspects reveal. Rather than shave a Muslim's beard and abuse his Koran, they give devout men sweet figs and allow them to pray.

The FBI used rapport-building techniques before 9/11 to cultivate relationships with former al-Qa'ida operatives and unravel attacks such as the 1998 East African US embassy bombings.

"FBI agents, as officers of the court, know what the rules are," said former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan to The American Prospect. "We have procedures to follow. We firmly believe in this thing called due process, and do not see it as something passe or something that should be seen as an impediment."

After 9/11, FBI methods were sidelined in favour of the CIA's tougher techniques. The decision to drop FBI methods will haunt the US for decades. By using FBI rapport-building methods - not CIA tortures - officials could have come closer to unlocking the truth from suspects such as KSM. According to Yosri Fouda, the only journalist to interview KSM before his 2003 capture, he was a "a power-hungry mastermind" who lived for the spotlight. Likewise, the 9/11 Commission report described KSM as a flamboyant character prone to exaggeration. Given KSM's boastful personality, officials should have known that torture - and its say-anything-to-stop-the-pain qualities - would be the worst way to get accurate intelligence.

By torturing him, the Bush administration slammed shut what could have been a window into the al-Qa'ida terror network. Now, the truth will remain hidden from both the US Government and from KSM's victims.

Michael Otterman is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Sydney and author of American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib (Melbourne University Press).

James Woolsey Should Lose Security Clearance

Editor's note: I will be posting Wednesday at: http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/
---
March 20, 2007

Booz Allen Vice President R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence during the Clinton administration, still has his security clearance.

Woolsey's advocacy of American Navy employee turned Israel spy Jonathan Pollard's release though raises questions about the propriety of his continuing to have access to the nation's secrets -- particularly those that cover activities in the Middle East.

Woolsey has been at the crossroads of conflicting intelligence loyalties in the past as well.

In 1998, James Woolsey served as the lawyer for a group of six detained Iraqi National Congress personnel detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Guam and then subsequently in California.

I don't think that the INS has ever been given sufficient praise for having stopped these six Iraqi National Congress operatives -- one of whom was Aras Karim, Chalabi's intelligence chief who later defected to Iran. Woolsey had planned to read through the classified information that the U.S. was holding on these detainees and then to determine whether the U.S. position was legitimate or not. Woolsey alleged at the time that if the U.S. government did not allow him to do this, then the "government must be hiding something."

Woolsey helped enable Chalabi, his intel chief, the Iraqi National Congress operation, and the war against Saddam by being the first on national television on September 11, 2001 to allege a connection between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Saddam Hussein. Woolsey failed to disclose on TV when making these comments that he was not only a pundit commentator on the attacks -- but was also Ahmed Chalabi's attorney.

I recently attended the annual dinner of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (where I was treated quite well and with great courtesy I should add) and saw Woolsey at the dinner at the Army-Navy Club. It was shortly before this dinner in early February that the CIA Director began changing his tune on Pollard.

Woolsey has a right to be a pundit, a commentator, a thinker, an organizer of forums and organizations committed to not only our current war against Iraq -- but the many other wars for which he is agitating.

But it is wrong for someone of Woolsey's background and abilities to simultaneously be raking in the dollars from private investments and business activities related to a war he is advocating while American men and women are dying on the front line.

It is also wrong for our former Director of Central Intelligence to be advocating the release of an individual who undermined our national interests and who gave America's most closely held secrets to another government. Woolsey's loyalties seem increasingly conflicted -- just as they were when he was serving as a consigliere for Ahmed Chalabi & Co.

Woolsey's security clearance should be suspended.

-- Steve Clemons

09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)