Tag Archives: George W Bush

No money for latest U.N. human rights flim-flam

Two weeks ago, the United States took an important stand against the United Nation’s record of feckless and contemptuous treatment of human rights issues – and its abject failure to take meaningful steps to take long-overdue corrective actions. The Bush Administration made such a statement when Ambassador John Bolton voted against the establishment of a new Human Rights Council (HRC) on the grounds that it offered only cosmetic fixes to the dysfunctional, ineffectual and risible Human Rights Commission it is intended to replace.

Unfortunately, to the outrage of supporters of this President and his commitment to principled foreign policies and genuine structural change at the UN, his State Department (in the person of Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns) promptly compromised this stance. The Administration is now in the ludicrous position of not only signaling an interest in being a member of this sham organization. Secretary Burns has actually declared that the U.S. will help underwrite its operations .

To his credit, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has announced his intention to support the President’s original position by making it clear that there is a real price to be paid by the United Nations for ignoring the United States ‘ concerns – and those of freedom – and human rights-loving people all over the world. In a forceful letter to the President released today, Senator Frist explained:

While I understand the urge to participate [in the Human Rights Council] as a means to seek further reform, I believe our hand is strengthened by sticking to our principles and speaking to human rights abuses from outside this body. The United States ‘ participation in this new, unreformed Council only undermines our own credibility and confers unwarranted legitimacy on this new body.

The letter goes on to elaborate on Sen. Frist’s vision for an "outside" body made up of "like-minded and responsible states truly concerned with human rights [that] would stand in stark contrast to another defunct U.N. bureaucracy comprised of some of the world’s worst actors." Such an alternative mirrors a proposal laid out in the recently-published book War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World, lead-authored by Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. It is an idea that would enjoy wide support among the American people and offer real hope to the world’s oppressed.

The Bottom Line

It is very much to be hoped that President Bush will overrule his wayward Under Secretary of State and inform the United Nations that the United States will not be enabling the new human rights fraud it hopes to perpetrate . Failing that, the Center for Security Policy urges Sen. Frist and his colleagues to take such a step by precluding the use of any American funds provided for the United Nations and its operations by or on behalf of the Human Rights Council.

 

Nigeria ablaze

By David McCormack

It was hoped by many that President Bush’s meeting today with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo augurs a stronger relationship between the United States and Africa’s most populous country. The reality, however, is that a situation exists in Nigeria in which threats to U.S. interests are creating tremendous impediments to a viable partnership. If the U.S. does not act quickly, these challenges will become insurmountable.

Religious Strife

Most significantly, Nigeria — home to 60 million Muslims, roughly half the country’s population — has become one of the central battleground of Islamofascism’s war on Africa. Over the course of the last 30 years, foreign sponsors — namely Saudi Arabia, but including Iran and Libya — backed by treasuries overflowing with petrodollars have systematically exported extremist interpretations of Islam to the African subcontinent, significantly corroding the region’s temperate and progressive Islamic traditions.

Nowhere has the impact of this campaign been felt more greatly than in Nigeria. In the shake-up that followed liberation from military rule in 1999, twelve predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria took advantage of the central government’s weakened position and adopted legal codes based on full Shari’a. Characteristics of these Shari’a states include the severe marginalization of women and the institutionalization of punishments such as flogging and death by stoning. The new laws, moreover, are often applied regardless of a citizen’s faith and enforced by vigilante organizations modeled on those of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The impact of the Islamist advance was on display recently (although it was almost entirely missed by the media) when violence ostensibly sparked by the publication of cartoons unflatteringly depicting the Prophet Muhammad claimed more lives in Nigeria than in the rest of the world combined. Sadly, the latest round of Muslim attacks followed by Christian reprisals only mimics on a tiny scale the pattern of violence that has gripped the country since the northern region’s Islamist turn. Most credible studies, in fact, suggest that 6,000 people have been killed in interfaith fighting since 1999.

While Western observers have been slow to recognize the dire implications of Islamofascism’s advance in Nigeria, America’s enemies have not. In a May 2003 tape, Osama bin Laden named Nigeria as one of six states "most eligible for liberation." And perhaps in a sign of times to come, in early 2004 a group of 200 militant Islamists calling themselves the "Taliban" waged a brief insurgency intended to establish an independent Muslim state along Nigeria’s border with Niger Republic. Only after several weeks of murder and conquest was the insurrection put down by the Nigerian army. The thought that U.S. foreign policy might have to contend with an Islamist state sponsor of terrorism based in West Africa is indeed frightening, though not farfetched given the state of affairs in Nigeria.

Ethnic Conflict

Despite the ferocity of religious turmoil in the country, it may not be Nigeria’s most immediate problem. Last month, the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) — an ethnically-based militia operating in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern region — launched "Operation Dark February" (which carried over into March), promising to bring about an "Armageddon in the Nigerian petroleum history".

To make good on that promise, MEND destroyed an offshore loading platform and trunk line of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and kidnapped nine of the company’s foreign employees (including three Americans). Fearing continued attacks, SPDC announced it was temporarily shutting down operations that will amount to a production loss of 455,000 barrels per day — 19 percent of Nigeria’s output.

Unless competition for oil revenue — which accounts for roughly 20% of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and 65% of budgetary revenues — by various ethnic groups can be mitigated, oil-driven attacks on the world’s eighth largest exporter and fifth largest supplier to the United States will likely continue apace, with devastating consequences for the U.S. and global economy. Given the Nigerian government’s abject failure to date to find a resolution, however, there is little reason to be optimistic.

China’s Charge

Absent communal friction, Nigeria’s energy sector would still prove highly problematic for American interests. Communist China’s global drive to dominate strategic energy resources has naturally attracted it to sub-Saharan Africa, from which it currently imports nearly 30 percent of its oil and natural gas. The PRC’s presence, unfortunately, has greatly abetted the scourge of Africa — corruption. As Mustafa Bello, head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, recently admitted, "The U.S. will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment….The Chinese just ask, ‘How do we procure this license?’"

Not surprisingly, then, Nigeria has been increasingly receptive to PRC energy forays. For instance, in its first major investment since its failed bid to take over Unocal last year, the Chinese state-controlled oil company CNOOC announced last month it will pay $2.3 billion for a 45 percent stake in a Nigerian oil field. As Iheanyi Ohiaeri, head of business development for Nigeria’s National Petroleum Corporation, explains, "We haven’t been totally invaded by China yet, but it will come."

Political Unrest

If the aforementioned matters weren’t enough to complicate the landscape, the government may face a rebellion in the very near term over an attempt to amend the constitution to permit those brought to power in the democratic elections of 1999 — including President Obasanjo — to serve a third term in office.

This is hardly a trivial development in a country ruled by strongmen throughout its post-colonial history. Mirroring the general understanding of Nigerian public opinion, an editorial in the independent newspaper Vanguard recently claimed officials are "haunted by the fear that a successor…may call them to account like they have done [to] others. The third term promoters would prefer to die in office than quit to face the reckoning of their own conduct in office." Already, public hearings on the constitutional review have sparked demonstrations that in some cities saw as many as 20,000 take to the streets.

To be sure, Obasanjo’s government has, by and large, been an ally of the United States, especially with regard to the war on terror. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration would do well to quietly prod Nigerian leaders to step down at the end of their second term to assuage the Nigerian public’s fear that a strongman will return to rule over them — and perhaps to hedge against that very occurrence.

The Bottom Line

This volatile mix of Islamofascist activity, ethnic division, and natural resources so abundant in Nigeria makes the country America’s greatest strategic concern in Africa. U.S. policy toward Nigeria — and Africa in general — has thus far, unfortunately, been one of general apathy, costing America dearly in terms of its strategic position.

Fortunately, a promising vehicle already exists by which the United States might safeguard its interests along with those of Nigeria and its neighbors. Established last summer, the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI) — partnering the U.S. with nine African countries — brings to bear the resources of the U.S. departments of Defense, State and Treasury along with those of the U.S. Agency for International Development, offering not only services such as expanded joint military training but also developmental assistance aimed at promoting good governance and encouraging the growth of civil society. However, TSCTI’s modest budget of $100 million per year is sure to limit its effectiveness.

Of course, the United States will need to do much more to secure its interests, such as increasing its miniscule public diplomacy budget for the region, and invigorating state-to-state diplomacy to deny foreign states the opportunity to advance harmful agendas. More than anything, America must awake to the fact that Nigeria — along with much of Africa — is an important piece of the international security framework.

What if we lose?

Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq swept away the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, eroding public support for the mission – fueled by the persistent negativity of political elites and the mainstream media – is endangering the consolidation of that country’s liberation. As a forceful editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal warns, this pessimism "threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged."

If not convinced that things are going well by three successful rounds of democratic elections, an absence of the civil war so often predicted by naysayers, and an increasingly capable Iraqi security force, the Journal asks the American public to consider the implications of a premature withdrawal of U.S. forces that would include:

 

    Broader Middle East instability. Absent America’s deterrent effect, countries of the region would to a much greater degree attempt to establish spheres of influence beyond their own borders, while Iran’s mullahocracy could not be coercively dissuaded from acquiring nuclear weapons.

    The loss of credibility with Muslim reformers. If the Iraqi people’s quest for freedom is betrayed, the United States would permanently lose the support of the majority of Middle Eastern Muslims who favor democratic government.

    More terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. A retreat in Iraq would convince terrorists of the effectiveness of their tactics and of America’s weakness, emboldening them to again strike the U.S. homeland.

The Journal editorial reflects a column in yesterday’s Washington Times by Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., who explained that Iraq is a vital front in the war against Islamofascists "determined to destroy the Free World, whose nations, values and institutions are seen as impediments to the global triumph of the Islamists’ preferred, Taliban-style religious rule." Clearly, there can be no accommodation with this totalitarian ideology, either at home or abroad.

 

What if we lose
Wall Street Journal, 22 March 2006

The third anniversary of U.S. military action to liberate Iraq has brought with it a relentless stream of media and political pessimism that is unwarranted by the facts and threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged.

Yes, sectarian tensions are running high and the politicians of Iraq’s newly elected parliament are taking a long time forming a government. But the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra several weeks back has not provoked the spiral into "civil war" that so many keep predicting. U.S. casualties are down over the past month, in part because Iraqi security forces are performing better all the time.

More fundamentally, the coalition remains solidly allied with the majority of Iraqis who want neither Saddam’s Hussein’s return nor the country’s descent into a Taliban-like hellhole. There is no widespread agitation for U.S. troops to depart, and if anything the Iraqi fear is that we’ll leave too soon.

Yet there’s no denying the polls showing that most Americans are increasingly weary of the daily news of car bombs and Iraqi squabbling and are wishing it would all just go away. Their pessimism is fed by elites who should know better but can’t restrain their domestic political calculations long enough to consider the damage that would accompany U.S. failure. A conventional military defeat is inconceivable in Iraq, but a premature U.S. withdrawal is becoming all too possible.

With that in mind, it’s worth thinking through what would happen if the U.S. does fail in Iraq. By fail, we mean cut and run before giving Iraqis the time and support to establish a stable, democratic government that can stand on its own. Beyond almost certain chaos in Iraq, here are some other likely consequences:

 

  • The U.S. would lose all credibility on weapons proliferation. One doesn’t have to be a dreamy-eyed optimist about democracy to recognize that toppling Saddam Hussein was a milestone in slowing the spread of WMD. Watching the Saddam example, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi decided he didn’t want to be next. Gadhafi’s "voluntary" disarmament in turn helped uncover the nuclear network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan and Iran’s two decades of deception.

    Now Iran is dangerously close to acquiring nuclear weapons, a prospect that might yet be headed off by the use or threat of force. But if the U.S. retreats from Iraq, Iran’s mullahs will know that we have no stomach to confront them and coercive diplomacy will have no credibility. An Iranian bomb, in turn, would inspire nuclear efforts in other Mideast countries and around the world.

     

  • Broader Mideast instability. No one should underestimate America’s deterrent effect in that unstable region, a benefit that would vanish if we left Iraq precipitously. Iran would feel free to begin unfettered meddling in southern Iraq with the aim of helping young radicals like Moqtada al-Sadr overwhelm moderate clerics like the Grand Ayatollah Sistani.

    Syria would feel free to return to its predations in Lebanon and to unleash Hezbollah on Israel. Even allies like Turkey might feel compelled to take unilateral, albeit counterproductive steps, such as intervening in northern Iraq to protect their interests. Every country in the Middle East would make its own new calculation of how much it could afford to support U.S. interests. Some would make their own private deals with al Qaeda, or at a minimum stop aiding us in our pursuit of Islamists.

     

  • We would lose all credibility with Muslim reformers. The Mideast is now undergoing a political evolution in which the clear majority, even if skeptical of U.S. motives, agrees with the goal of more democracy and accountable government. They have watched as millions of Iraqis have literally risked their lives to vote and otherwise support the project. Having seen those Iraqis later betrayed, other would-be reformers would not gamble their futures on American support. Nothing could be worse in the battle for Muslim "hearts and minds" than to betray our most natural allies.

     

  • We would invite more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Osama bin Laden said many times that he saw the weak U.S. response to Somalia and the Khobar Towers and USS Cole bombings as evidence that we lacked the will for a long fight. The forceful response after 9/11 taught al Qaeda otherwise, but a retreat in Iraq would revive that reputation for American weakness. While Western liberals may deny any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, bin Laden and the rest of the Arab world see it clearly and would advertise a U.S. withdrawal as his victory. Far from leaving us alone, bin Laden would be more emboldened to strike the U.S. homeland with a goal of driving the U.S. entirely out of the Mideast.

    We could go on, but our point is that far more is at stake in Iraq than President Bush’s approval rating or the influence of this or that foreign-policy faction. U.S. credibility and safety are at risk in the most direct way imaginable, far more than they were in Vietnam. In that fight, we could establish a new anti-Communist perimeter elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The poison of radical Islam will spread far and wide across borders if it can make even a plausible claim to being on the ascendancy, and nothing would show that more than the retreat of America from Iraq.

    We still believe victory in Iraq is possible, indeed likely, notwithstanding its costs and difficulties. But the desire among so many of our political elites to repudiate Mr. Bush and his foreign policy is creating a dangerous public pessimism that could yet lead to defeat — a defeat whose price would be paid by all Americans, and for years to come.

    • Coalition salutes Congress for reenacting Patriot Act

    The Coalition for Security, Liberty & the Law applauded today’s overwhelming 280-138 vote by the House of Representatives to reauthorize the Patriot Act. The House action followed a similarly lopsided show of bipartisan support for the Act last week in the Senate, which approved the reauthorization legislation by a margin of 89-10.

    The latter was all the more remarkable for the reversal it represented in the Act’s fortunes following a successful Democrat-led filibuster of the bill last December. At the time, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was moved to declare that, "We killed the Patriot Act."

    The Coalition takes pride in its contributions to the reauthorization of this legislation preserving a number of the most critical tools used by America’s law enforcement and intelligence communities responsible for protecting the Nation from terrorist attack. These included:

    • Circulating three Open Letters to the congressional leadership in September 2004, December 2005 and January 2006 signed by dozens of leading legal authorities and security policy practitioners urging the reenactment of the Patriot Act. Among the letters’ signatories were former Attorneys General Edwin Meese, Richard Thornburgh, William Barr and John Ashcroft, former National Security Advisor William P. Clark, former Secretaries of Defense Caspar Weinberger and James Schlesinger, former Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, former Solicitors General Judge Robert Bork and Theodore B. Olson, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, and former U.S. Representative to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
    • Collaborating with former Attorneys General Meese and Thornburgh in a press conference at the National Press Club on January 25 aimed at explaining the urgent need to preserve the Act’s threatened provisions and at correcting the many serious distortions of those provisions and their practical effects.
    • Participating in separate strategy sessions on the Patriot Act and related national security issues with President George W. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.
    • Sponsoring a television issue-advertising campaign featuring Debra Burlingame, sister of Capt. Charles "Chic" Burlingame, the American Airlines pilot of flight 77 which was hijacked and then crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The ads ran in the Washington market on February 2nd during Fox’s hit program, "24," and thereafter in markets in New Hampshire, Nebraska, Idaho and Alaska. Less than a week after the Coalition’s ads began airing, the four Republican Senators who had joined the filibuster in December – John Sununu (NH), Chuck Hagel (NE), Larry Craig (ID) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) – reached an agreement with the White House to support reenactment.

    Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy which sponsors the Coalition for Security Liberty and the Law, said today:

    It is enormously gratifying that the Congress has been able to reenact the Patriot Act over the strident – and often unfounded – objections leveled against the original legislation by its critics. President Bush and the Act’s many supporters on Capitol Hill deserve great credit for staying the course, for articulating forcefully the case for reauthorization and for staving off demands for changes that would have grievously weakened its protections.

      As a result, those responsible for keeping us safe will be far better prepared to contend with the real – and growing – threats against this country than would have been the case if various outspoken civil libertarians, Islamist sympathizers and apologists and their enablers had had their way.

     

    Farewell to arms control

    Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 11                            2006-03-06


    (Washington , D.C.): The deal struck last week by President Bush and his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, effectively recognizes reality: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is dead.


    The demise of that 1968 accord was, of course, not caused by the U.S.-India agreement to provide American nuclear power technology to a country that had become a nuclear weapons state despite the NPT’s effort to prevent such developments. India never signed the treaty and was, therefore, not bound by its non-proliferation restrictions.


    Who Killed the NPT?


    Rather, the NPT was killed by the cynical actions of North Korea and Iran, two states that did sign it – and then proceeded systematically, if covertly, to violate their promises to remain non-nuclear states, in exchange for access to reactors and technology for peaceful research and energy generation. Those who abetted these nuclear wannabe states – notably, the Soviet Union/Russia, Communist China and Pakistan ‘s Nukes-R-Us impresario, A.Q. Khan – also bear responsibility for arming two of the world’s most dangerous regimes.


    Issuing a death certificate for the Non-Proliferation Treaty may seem untimely at a moment when the organization charged with monitoring the treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected finally to report Iran ‘s nuclear transgressions to the UN Security Council. Arms control advocates would have us believe this referral is, to the contrary, proof of the accord’s continuing viability.


    In fact, even before the U.S.-India deal was inked, there was no likelihood that Tehran ‘s veto-wielding patrons, Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the People’s Republic of China , would allow the Security Council to impose economic sanctions on Iran . Still less probable is a Security Council authorization of the use of force to prevent the Iranian regime from getting the Bomb.


    Instead, the IAEA and the Security Council can be counted upon to do more of what they have been doing for several years now: Kick the proverbial can down the road.


    Iran ‘s True Colors


    The Iranians are making ever less effort to conceal the benefits they derive from such fecklessness. According to the London Daily Telegraph, Hassan Rowhani, Tehran’s chief negotiator in two years of talks with, among others, British, French and German diplomats, recently told a closed session of his country’s Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution how he used diplomacy to buy time to complete key nuclear weapons-related facilities at Isfahan, Iran.


    Citing a report of the Rowhani speech published in a “regime journal that circulates among the ruling elite,” the Telegraph recounts a “quandary” the mullahs confronted in September 2003. At the time, the IAEA had begun to insist that Iran provide a “complete picture” of its nuclear program. Rowhani recounted that, “The dilemma was if we offered a complete picture, the picture itself could lead us to the UN Security Council. And not providing a complete picture would also be a violation of the resolution and we could have been referred to the Security Council for not implementing the resolution.”


    The solution lay in a diplomatic smokescreen. Rowhani reportedly declared, “When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran , we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan .”


    Get Real


    Unfortunately, the further diplomacy entailed in pretending that the NPT process is still capable of constraining rogue governments like Iran’s will simply translate into the further time Tehran needs fully to realize its nuclear weapons ambitions. Congressional efforts to kill the India deal in the misplaced hope of keeping the NPT on life-support and, thereby, restraining Iran will do neither.


    In fact, a veto by Capitol Hill will not keep India from having the nuclear weapons it deems necessary, sandwiched as it is between a Communist China that is become ever more powerful and strategically assertive and the proxy Beijing armed with nuclear weapons years ago, Islamist Pakistan.


    It would, however, foreclose the U.S.-India pact’s promise of sales of American reactors that will resuscitate our nuclear power industrial base – something we need to do for our own reasons. It may also impede closer alignment between the planet’s two greatest democracies, a potentially vital factor in winning the War for the Free World.


    Just as the Dubai Ports World bid for U.S. seaport facilities has triggered a long-overdue debate about port and homeland security, the Bush-Singh nuclear deal may precipitate a similarly excessively deferred national conversation about the need for a new approach to arms control.


    The Bottom Line


    Defective treaties, violated with impunity by one or more of the parties, do not protect freedom-loving nations that honor their obligations. There are real dangers associated with ignoring that reality and propping up accords that have lost their utility by continuing to negotiate with, and otherwise legitimate, governments that cynically exploit such behavior to increase the threat they pose.


    It is now clear that that threat emanates not from the weapons but from the regime that wields them. The alternative arms control approach that needs to be adopted is a strategy of regime change. The Iranian people yearn for it there as much as we do. The U.S. government should be working with them to bring about the downfall of the mullahocracy in Tehran , and thereby minimize the threat its nuclear program is beginning to constitute.


    The other option is not maintaining the fiction of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Rather, it is military action aimed at disrupting a future Iranian threat that is simply intolerable.


     

    Soul-trying times

    Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 10                            2006-03-01


    (Washington, D.C.): Recent headlines call to mind a notable turn of phrase by Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Paine: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Actually, what today’s events are likely to “try” (or test, in today’s parlance) is our national resolve. Hanging in the balance may be nothing short the fate of the Free World and perhaps even our lives.

    A Bill of Particulars

    Consider a sampler of recent, ominous developments:



    • In Iraq, Islamofascist terrorists have made progress toward their stated objective of catapulting the country into sectarian civil war, quite possibly their only remaining hope of avoiding defeat at the hands of increasingly capable Iraqi security services. The destruction of the Golden Dome mosque revered by Shiite Muslims around the world — said to be the work of Sunni al-Qaeda operatives — invited and precipitated a wave of reprisals, many of them condoned by both traditions’ clerics.

      Some of those imams are young firebrands like Moqtada al-Sadr, who seek power and are using such provocations to inspire and incite their growing followings of disaffected, unemployed youths. Others are older religious leaders like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has long been a moderating force, but who now finds himself obliged to compete with the firebrands, or risk having his authority largely dissipate.

      The fledgling, fragile political process – already riven by historic grievances and the jockeying for influence and treasure since the liberation of Iraq – is at a crossroads: It seems likely either to coalesce, or crater. Much is riding on the path that will be taken, not just for Iraq, but for the region and the wider War for the Free World.


    • Iran has successfully enlisted Russia in yet-another time-buying feint, a just-announced “basic agreement” whereby Moscow and Tehran will reportedly jointly manage the latter’s spent nuclear fuel. Even though the details of this arrangement remain to be made public, two things are certain: 1) Iran has not abandoned its determined effort to obtain nuclear weapons and 2) far from preventing such an outcome, this gambit will likely afford the Iranian Islamofascist regime the opportunity to achieve it.

      As a result of Russian connivance with its client, Iran, the mullahs in Tehran and their frontman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be able not only to continue to secure the political legitimacy and cover that will enable strategic ties with the Kremlin, Communist China, India, North Korea and others to be strengthened – steps designed to checkmate American and/or Israeli military action. It will also afford the Iranian theocrats a chance to intensify their efforts to destabilize neighboring Iraq and prevent a functioning, pro-Western, peaceable democracy from taking hold there.

      Not least, the Russo-Iranian maneuver will help Ahmadinejad advance his ambition to accelerate the return of the “12th imam” – according to his strain of Shiism, a messiah figure who will usher in a golden age of world-wide Islamic rule under repressive Shari’a law. Particularly frightening is the fact that this tradition teaches that the precursor for the imam’s arrival is apocalyptic death and destruction in the world. We cannot sit idly by as a government that embraces this vision obtains the means to help precipitate it.


    • The narrowly averted attack late last week on the Saudi oil infrastructure – and al Qaeda promises that more will be forthcoming – underscore the fragility of the energy supplies upon which we continue to be recklessly dependent. Meanwhile, Islamofascist operations have already cut Nigerian oil exports by some twenty percent, with more reductions in the offing, even as Iraqi pipelines and other facilities remain under assault. Iran threatens the Straits of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supply flows, if its nuclear ambitions are thwarted. And some worry that, if we do not surrender operations in nearly two-dozen U.S. ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, the UAE might not help us resist such Iranian threats.

      Fortunately, President Bush embraced in his latest State of the Union address the idea of enabling our transportation sector to make far greater use of alternative, domestically producible energy sources. Congress is poised to consider legislation modeled on a bipartisan-supported blueprint for energy security (see www.SetAmericaFree.org) that would translate that program into reality. There is no time to waste.


    • America’s border insecurity is rapidly being transformed into an issue of paramount national security concern. Seven tunnels suitable for moving large quantities of drugs, illegal aliens or weapons under the U.S.-Mexican frontier have been discovered in as many weeks. Incidents of what appear to be armed and uniformed Mexican military units providing muscle for drug- and perhaps other smuggling operations – including fire-fights with woefully out-gunned American law enforcement personnel – have continued to be documented.

      In the coming weeks, the U.S. Senate will debate several pieces of legislation that purport to do something about this metastasizing problem of illegal immigration and the danger it poses to our society, economy and lives. Of these, far and away the best is one offered by GOP Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas. It is, however, an indictment of how far we are from needed corrective actions – like building a fence along the entirety of our southern border – that legislation passed by the House last year which would authorize such steps is unlikely even to be considered in the Senate.


    The Bottom Line

    The common denominator in these and other areas is that we must find within ourselves and our leaders the resolve to meet such challenges. The Nation must urgently adopt a comprehensive war footing if we hope to pass these and other difficult tests of our times.

    A Harriet Miers moment

    The federal bureaucracy has made a strategic mistake that threatens to cost the President dearly. The question is not whether the ill-advised decision taken last week by the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (known by its acronym, CFIUS, pronounced syphius) will be undone. Rather, the question is: By whom — and at what political cost to Mr. Bush?

    The DP World Deal

    In the latest of a series of approvals of questionable foreign takeovers of American interests, CFIUS has given the green light to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to acquire contracts to manage port facilities in New York , Newark , Philadelphia , Baltimore , Miami and New Orleans . The company, Dubai Ports World, would do so by purchasing a British concern, Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ("P and O").

    Experts have long identified America ‘s sea ports as weak links in the chain of our homeland security. With their proximity to major U.S. population centers, expensive infrastructure vital to the regional and, in many cases, national economy and their throughput of large quantities of poorly monitored cargo, they are prime targets for terror.

    As a result, a case can be made that it is a mistake to have foreign entities responsible for any aspect of such ports, including the management of their docks, stevedore operations and terminals. After all, that duty affords abundant opportunities to insinuate personnel and/or shipping containers that can pose a threat to this country. Even though the company in question may not be directly responsible for port security, at least some of their employees have to be read in on the relevant plans, potentially compromising the latter irreparably.

    At least the previous foreign contractors were from Britain , a country that was on our side before September 11, 2001 . The same cannot be said of the United Arab Emirates , whose territory was used for most of the planning and financing of the 9/11 attacks. While the UAE’s government is currently depicted as a friend and ally in the so-called war on terror, its country remains awash with Islamofascist recruiters and adherents — people all too willing to exploit any new opportunity to do us harm.

    New Grounds for Disapproval

    Since a column raising an alarm about CFIUS’ decision appeared in this space last week, three new factors have come to light that compound the strategic folly of the UAE deal:

    -First, in addition to the six affected ports mentioned above, two others would also have part of their operations managed by DP World — on behalf of none other than the U.S. . Under a newly extended contract, the owner of P and O will manage the movement of heavy armor, helicopters and other military materiel through the Texas seaports of Beaumont and Corpus Christie. How much would our enemies like to be able to sabotage such shipments? Army

    -Second, while advocates of the stealthy CFIUS decision-making process point to the involvement of the Defense Department in its DP World decision, it is unclear at what level this bizarre proposition was reviewed in the Pentagon. Many top jobs remain unfilled by presidential appointees. Past experience suggests the job may have fallen to lower-level career bureaucrats who give priority to maintaining good relations with their foreign "clients," like the UAE.

    -Then, there is the matter of financing the DP World takeover of Peninsula and Oriental . The UAE evidently intends to raise nearly all of the $6.8 billion price for P and O on international capital markets. It must be asked: Who will the foreign investors be, and might they have malign intentions towards the U.S. ? If American sources of capital are being sought, will the possible danger this transaction may create for this country be properly disclosed? For that matter, will the underwriters, Barclays and Deutchebank, reveal to prospective funders the real risk that the deal will ultimately fall through?

    In fact, that seems virtually certain now that talk radio, the blogosphere and the public have become aware of — and white hot about — this transaction. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and of Capitol Hill have made known their determination to prevent the transfer of control of U.S. ports to the UAE. In particular, Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer have been quick to seize on this issue as an opportunity to burnish their national security credentials at the expense of President Bush and his party.

    The Bottom Line

    So, the question recurs: How long will it take before Mr. Bush cuts his losses? This could be accomplished in one of three ways: He could reverse the decision himself (perhaps by directing CFIUS to reconsider its initial recommendation). He could encourage and sign into law legislation barring foreign ownership or management of U.S. port facilities (akin to the rules governing other critical infrastructure). Or he could quietly encourage the UAE to do as Communist China did last year with respect to the Unocal purchase — withdraw the offer itself, sparing the country in question (and its friends here) the embarrassment of having its behavior carefully scrutinized and its offer spurned in a high-profile way.

    Call it a Harriet Meirs moment. Politics being the art of the possible, it is time to recognize that the Dubai Ports World deal is neither strategically sensible nor politically doable. It is time to pull the plug, and to reform the secretive interagency CFIUS process that allowed this fiasco in the first place.

    Patriots must act

    The most consequential part of President Bush’s State of the Union address tonight, at least in the near-term, will be the section he devotes to the need to ensure that the Nation’s law enforcement and intelligence communities have the tools they need to protect us. In particular, he will make a strong case for the Patriot Act – one we can only hope the minority of Senators currently blocking its reenactment will heed.

    Mr. Bush afforded a small group an insight into his thinking on this and related matters, and a sense of the urgency he will attach to the Patriot Act’s renewal, in a meeting last Thursday. Those present included eighteen preeminent national security, intelligence, legal and public policy practitioners – nearly all of whom had previously held senior U.S. government posts and signed a letter to Congress circulated last week by the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law.

    In informal remarks and extended, candid give-and-take with the participants, the President communicated the gravity of the peril we face. As Osama bin Laden’s most recent audio tape reminds us, enemies of this country remain intent on hitting us again, and hope to do so with even more devastating effect than on 9/11.

    When Terror Hits Home

    Two of those present knew firsthand the costs of the last attack on our homeland: Former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who lost his wife, Barbara, on American Airlines Flight 77 when it was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon; and Debra Burlingame, the sister of Capt. Charles "Chic" Burlingame, that doomed aircraft’s pilot.

    In the four-plus years since September 11, 2001, both have selflessly served their country. Mr. Olson was, until recently, the third-ranking official in the Department of Justice and a leader on its counterterrorism litigation and policy-making.

    For her part, Ms. Burlingame has become one of the most visible, and formidable, of the 9/11 family members in championing counterterrorism legislation and policies needed to prevent future terrorist attacks in this country – and opposing initiatives that would undermine America’s ability to do so.

    Such concerns prompted her to write a powerful op.ed. article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal about the need to renew the Patriot Act and to continue presidentially authorized, warrantless "hot pursuit" of enemy communications by the National Security Agency – even when one of the parties is inside the United States and may be an American citizen. Under the headline, "Our Right to Security," she observes:

     

      A minority of senators want to gamble with American lives and ‘fix’ national security laws, which they can’t show are broken. They seek to eliminate or weaken anti-terrorism measures which take into account that the Cold War and its slow-moving, analog world of landlines and stationary targets is gone. The threat we face today is a completely new paradigm of global terrorist networks operating in a high-velocity digital age using the Web and fiber-optic technology.

      After four-and-a-half years without another terrorist attack, these senators think we’re safe enough to cave in to the same civil liberties lobby that supported that deadly Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "wall" [which, before the Patriot Act, prevented information-sharing between law enforcement and intelligence agencies that might have thwarted the 9/11 attacks] in the first place. What if they…are simply wrong?

    In a television ad produced by the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law, Ms. Burlingame asks a further question: "What will [those senators] say to their constituents if another attack occurs that might have been prevented" had key provisions of the Patriot Act not been weakened or allowed to expire?

    These are questions the President himself should pointedly pose during tonight’s address: Does anyone listening – in the House chambers and across this great country – want to bet, in the face of known threats and likely ones, that we can responsibly deny those charged with protecting us the tools they have successfully used since 2001? Are the Patriot Act’s critics really willing to risk the lives of potentially many thousands of Americans on a gamble that we can once again safely accord terrorists more legal protections than we do drug-traffickers, racketeers and other criminals – an anamolous, not to say bizarre, situation corrected by the Patriot Act?

    The Bottom Line

    The truth of the matter is, as Debra Burlingame puts it so well: "Ask the American people what they want. They will say that they want the commander-in-chief to use all reasonable means to catch the people who are trying to rain terror on our cities."

    So tonight, Mr. Bush should – and we are confident, will – make clear that neither he nor the Congress have any duty higher than that of protecting the American people. Adopting the conference report that will extend or make permanent the Patriot Act’s "sunsetted" provisions, and preserve its full usefulness in combating terror at home, is consistent with that duty. Filibustering the conference report – to say nothing of the boast last month by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid that opponents had "killed the Patriot Act" – is not.

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    President Bush meets with Patriot Act Advocates

    On the heels of yesterday’s release by the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law (CSLL) of a powerful Open Letter to the Congressional leadership, seventeen of the signatories met today with President Bush to applaud his determination to protect the American people against further acts of terror and to ensure that one of the most important tools for doing so – the Patriot Act – is not weakened, let alone allowed to lapse.

    For his part, Mr. Bush underscored the real and continuing threat posed to this country by terror-wielding enemies and the necessity of equipping our law enforcement and intelligence personnel to defeat them. He emphasized the extraordinary work those public servants are performing for all of us and the dangers that would arise again if they were denied the authorities that were "sunsetted" in sixteen of the original Patriot Act’s provisions.

    The President was accompanied by his Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, White House Counsel Harriet Miers, Press Spokesman Scott McClellan and the Director of White House Legislative Affairs, Candy Wolff.

    Among the signatories of the January 25th letter who participated in the meeting were: former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, former Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, former Solicitors General Robert Bork and Theodore Olson, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Victoria Toensing, former Under Secretary of State William Schneider, former Deputy Assistants to the President for Homeland Security Mark Holman and Richard Falkenrath, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy and former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

    The CSLL-sponsored group was also privileged to include Debra Burlingame, sister of Capt. Charles "Chic" Burlingame who piloted American Airlines 77, the plane that was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 . Ms. Burlingame has been among the most forceful and effective champions of the efforts made by 9/11 family members to prevent another terrorist attack in this country. She is also featured in a new Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law television ad that was unveiled at a Washington press conference yesterday hosted by former Attorneys General Edwin Meese and Richard Thornburgh. The Coalition will begin airing its ads next week.

    After the White House meeting, Mr. Gaffney said:

    The Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law deeply appreciates President Bush’s courageous and visionary leadership in the War for the Free World. His steadfastness in trying to keep America safe and free is an inspiration. His words of encouragement for our efforts are deeply appreciated and will, we hope, result not only in the redoubling of those efforts, but also in the enlisting in the fight to keep the Patriot Act strong and effective of millions of Americans for whom the Coalition speaks.

     

    69 Patriot Act supporters warn against its expiration

    As a minority of the Senate considers whether to continue to jeopardize reenactment of the Patriot Act, a distinguished group of the legislation’s supporters weighed in today at a press conference convened by two former Attorneys General at the National Press Club. Sixty-nine leaders in the fields of national security, law enforcement, public policy and academia called on the Congress not to allow the expiration or weakening of key parts of this "vital tool in our national effort to prevent further terrorist attacks against the United States."

    Among the signatories of the attached Open Letter to the congressional leadership were: former Attorneys General Edwin Meese, Richard Thornburgh, William Barr and John Ashcroft, former National Security Advisor William P. Clark, former Secretaries of Defense Caspar Weinberger and James Schlesinger, former Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger, former Solicitors General Judge Robert Bork and Theodore B. Olson, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former U.S. Representative to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and actor Ron Silver.

    The letter addresses the adverse national security effects that would be associated with allowing the Patriot Act’s "sunsetted" provisions to lapse. These include:

    • "The Wall" that impeded information sharing and cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence authorities – which contributed to the Nation’s vulnerability at the time of the 9/11 attacks – will be reconstituted.
    • The use of wiretaps for terrorist-related activities – including those where the possible use of lethal chemical agents or other weapons of mass destruction or espionage involving computers is suspected – will be precluded.
    • Wiretaps that prevent terrorist suspects from eluding surveillance by switching phones will no longer available.
    • Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may become safe-havens for terrorists, encouraging the Internet’s use for plots aimed at harming Americans.
    • It will be more difficult to access "pen registers" and business records in connection with terrorism-related investigations than it is with respect to other crimes.

    In releasing the Coalition for Security, Liberty and the Law ‘s newest letter, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy (which sponsors the Coalition) said:

    The signatories of this letter are among the Nation’s most serious, accomplished and influential figures in the fields of national and homeland security. In urging that the Patriot Act be kept strong and effective, they are speaking not only for themselves, but for literally millions of Americans who appreciate that this country is at war and needs this legislation’s tools to help defeat our terrorist foes.

    We commend President Bush and the bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate that have previously recognized the vital importance of the Patriot Act to our security. We intend to do everything we can to ensure that these commonsensical views prevail in the debates ahead.