Paul Woodward, Online Correspondent| The National
- Last Updated: March 18. 2009 10:10AM UAE / March 18. 2009 6:10AM GMT
A leading foreign policy think tank in Washington said a strike by Israel on Iran will give rise to regional instability and conflict as well as terrorism.
A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said that due to the complexity and risk involved in an air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel may opt to strike with ballistic missiles if there are no other means to curtail the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme. The study said that in the event of such an attack a strike on the Bushehr nuclear reactor would cause the immediate death of thousands of people in the area. Thousands or even hundreds of thousands would subsequently die of cancer and radioactive contamination would “most definitely” heavily affect Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE.
During a visit to the United States, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that while Israel was interested in exhausting diplomatic options against Iran’s nuclear programme, the army must nevertheless prepare itself for a military attack, Haaretz reported.
On her blog at Foreign Policy, Laura Rozen reported on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Israel earlier this month.
“An Israeli diplomat apprised of Clinton’s recent Jerusalem meeting said that Netanyahu was forthright in telling her that Iran is his top priority.
” ‘Netanyahu brought up Iran,’ the Israeli diplomat told Foreign Policy. ‘He told her it was the be all and end all. And [he said] that there is a reverse link: If [Washington] wants anything to move on the Palestinian front, we need to take head on the Iranian threat, diplomatically, with sanctions, and beyond that.’
“Clinton responded, ‘I am aware of that,’ the Israeli diplomat relayed.
” ‘They both had a perfect excuse not to say anything blunt,’ the diplomat continued, ‘Until Iran gets through the elections in June, nothing can be done.’…
” ‘As for substance, there is no policy, which is more or less in a mild way, something she admitted,’ in her meeting with Netanyahu, the diplomat said. ‘Again, not in those very words. She was there to let those there understand that the Obama administration is in an exploration phase. You’ve got to give her credit for one thing. There is nothing new here. The players are the same. The plot is the same. The solutions are the same.’ ”
The Washington Times reported that a man tipped to become one of Mr Netanyahu’s closest advisers is seen as a security risk.
“Uzi Arad, who is expected to serve as national security adviser in the next Israeli government, has been barred from entering the United States for nearly two years on the grounds that he is an intelligence risk.
“Mr Arad, a former member and director of intelligence for the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, is mentioned in the indictment of Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty in 2005 to providing classified information about Iran in a conversation with two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee…
“The choice of Mr Arad for national security adviser has been reported in the Israeli press and was confirmed by sources close to Mr Netanyahu, who has been tasked with forming the next government.”
In a UPI two years ago, Mr Arad was said to advocate “maximum deterrence” towards Iran.
“Israel should threaten to strike ‘everything and anything of value,’ he said.
“Should Israel threaten to hit their leadership? Yes. Their holiest sites? Yes. Everything together? Yes, Arad recommended.”
When interviewed on Israel National News TV last year and asked whether it was time for Israel to abandon the pursuit of a two-state solution, Mr Arad said: “We want to relieve ourselves of the burden of the Palestinian populations – not territories. It is territory we want to preserve but populations we want to rid ourselves of.”
Meanwhile, the likely member of Mr Netanyahu’s soon to be formed cabinet who has gained widest international attention is the ultra-nationalist, Avigdor Lieberman, who is expected to become Israel’s new foreign minister.
“On Sunday, Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party became the prime minister-designate’s first official coalition partner,” JTA reported.
“The agreement gives Lieberman’s hawkish, mainly Russian-immigrant party no less than five ministries – foreign affairs, internal security, infrastructure, tourism and immigrant absorption – as well as Lieberman-approved candidates for justice minister, deputy foreign minister and chair of the Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee.
“Some analysts already are calling the emerging government the ‘Biberman administration’ – a combination of Netanyahu’s nickname, Bibi, and Lieberman…
“Lieberman also calls for strengthening executive power in Israel through government reform. He advocates a system that in an emergency allows the president to override Knesset legislation. Some critics see the idea as the thin end of a wedge that could lead to dictatorship in Israel.”
The Los Angeles Times noted: “Lieberman’s ascent to Israel’s top diplomatic post could complicate its ties with other countries. He is viewed by many abroad as a xenophobe, having risen to prominence by advocating loyalty oaths for Israel’s Arab citizens and a redrawing of borders to exclude some Arab communities from the country.
“Although neither proposal is likely to be implemented, Lieberman’s appointment would solidify Israel’s shift to the right and away from commitment to achieving a peace accord that would give the Palestinians an independent state.
“Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, signaled his concern Monday.
” ‘We will be ready to do business as usual, normally, with a government in Israel that is prepared to continue talking and working for a two-state solution,’ he told reporters in Brussels. ‘If that is not the case, the situation would be different.’
“Riad Malki, foreign minister of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, called the emerging Israeli government ‘anti-peace.’ Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab member of parliament, called for an international boycott of Lieberman. ‘No minister should meet him,’ he said, ‘especially no Arab minister.’ ”
The Financial Times said: “If Mr Lieberman is confirmed as foreign minister it would represent Arabs’ worst fears about the direction they perceive Israel to be taking: Mr Lieberman is regarded in the Arab world as racist towards Arabs and someone who has no intention of making peace with the Palestinians.
“Arab leaders, due to meet at an Arab League summit at the end of this month, had already been warning that while an Arab peace initiative, sponsored by Saudi Arabia, was still on the table it would not remain there forever. The initiative offers Israel normal relations with Arab states if it returns all lands occupied during the 1967 war.
“Mr Lieberman’s appointment would cause particular problems for Egypt and Jordan, the two Middle East states that have formal relations with Israel. Egypt, which came under severe pressure during the Gaza onslaught because of its ties to the Jewish state, has played a vital role mediating between Israel and Palestinian factions. But Cairo is likely to be loath to have to deal with Mr Lieberman as foreign minister.”
Peace and Justice Post 
Ex-Bush Admin Official: Many at Gitmo Are Innocent
March 20, 2009Published on Thursday, March 19, 2009 by the Associated Press
by Andrew O. Selsky
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. “There are still innocent people there,” Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. “Some have been there six or seven years.”
Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a “mosaic” of intelligence.”It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance,” Wilkerson wrote in the blog. He said intelligence analysts hoped to gather “sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified.”
Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no meaningful attempt to discriminate “who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation.”
Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on Wilkerson’s specific allegations but noted that the military has consistently said that dealing with foreign fighters from a wide variety of countries in a wartime setting was a complex process. The military has insisted that those held at Guantanamo were enemy combatants and posed a threat to the United States.
In his posting for The Washington Note blog, Wilkerson wrote that “U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.”
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney fought efforts to address the situation, Wilkerson said, because “to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership.”
Wilkerson told the AP in a telephone interview that many detainees “clearly had no connection to al-Qaida and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head.”
Some 800 men have been held at Guantanamo since the prison opened in January 2002, and 240 remain. Wilkerson said two dozen are terrorists, including confessed Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody in September 2006.
“We need to put those people in a high-security prison like the one in Colorado, forget them and throw away the key,” Wilkerson said. “We can’t try them because we tortured them and didn’t keep an evidence trail.”
But the rest of the detainees need to be released, he said.
Wilkerson, who flew combat missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and left the government in January 2005, said he did not speak out while in government because some of the information was classified. He said he feels compelled to do so now because Cheney has claimed in recent press interviews that President Barack Obama is making the U.S. less safe by reversing Bush administration policies toward terror suspects, including ordering Guantanamo closed.
The administration is now evaluating what to do with the prisoners who remain at the U.S. military base in Cuba.
“I’m very concerned about the kinds of things Cheney is saying to make it seem Obama is a danger to this republic,” Wilkerson said. “To have a former vice president fearmongering like this is really, really dangerous.”
Share this:
Tags: Guantanamo detainees, innocent people, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, US forces
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, US policy, warmongers | Leave a Comment »