Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

No to Islamist Turkey

September 26, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Decision Brief No. 05-D 49 2005-09-26

(Washington, D.C.): On October 3, representatives of the European Union and the Turkish government of Islamist Recep Erdogan will meet to determine whether Muslim Turkey will be allowed to seek full membership in the EU. It will be best for Turkey, to say nothing of Europe and the West more generally, if the EU’s answer under present circumstances is: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The reason Europe should politely, but firmly, reject Turkey’s bid should be clear: Prime Minister Erdogan is systematically turning his country from a Muslim secular democracy into an Islamofascist state governed by an ideology anathema to European values and freedoms.

A Classic Creeping Totalitarian Take-over

The evidence of such an ominous transformation is not hard to find.

–Turkey is awash with billions of dollars in what is known as “green money,” apparently emanating from funds Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states withdrew from the United States after 9/11. U.S. policy-makers are concerned that this unaccountable cash is being laundered in Turkey, then used to finance businesses and generate new revenue streams for Islamofascist terrorism. At the very least, everything else on Erdogan’s Islamist agenda is being lubricated by these resources.

–Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system is being steadily supplanted by madrassa-style “imam hattip” schools and other institutions where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The prime minister is himself an imam hattip school graduate and has championed lowering the age at which children can be subjected to their form of radical religious indoctrination from 12 years old to 4. And in 2005, experts expect 1,215,000 Turkish students to graduate from such schools.

–The products of such an education are ill-equipped to do much besides implementing the Islamist program of Erdogan’s AKP party. Tens of thousands of them are being given government jobs, replacing experienced, secular bureaucrats with ideologically reliable theo-apparatchiks. Four thousand others are packing Turkey’s secular courts, transforming them into instruments of Shari’a religious law.

-As elsewhere, religious intolerance is a hallmark of Erdogan’s creeping Islamofascist puscht in Turkey. Roughly a third of the Turkish population is a minority known as Alevis. They observe a strain of the Muslim faith that retains some of the traditions of Turkey’s ancient religions. Islamist Sunnis like Erdogan and his Saudi Wahhabi sponsors regard the Alevis as “apostates” and “hypocrites” and are subjecting them to increasing discrimination and intimidation. Other minorities, notably Turkey’s Jews, know they are likely to be next in line for such treatment – a far cry from the tolerant traditions of the Ottoman era.

-In the name of internationally mandated “reform” of Turkey’s banking system, the government is seizing the assets and operations of banks run by businessmen associated with the political opposition. It has gone so far as to defy successive rulings by Turkey’s supreme court disallowing one such expropriation. The AKP-dominated parliament has enacted legislation that allows even distant relatives of the owners to be prosecuted for alleged wrong-doing. Among the beneficiaries of such shakedowns have been so-called “Islamic banks” tied to Saudi Arabia, some of whose senior officers now hold top jobs in the Erdogan government.

–Grabbing assets – or threatening to do so – has allowed the government effectively to take control of the Turkish media, as well. Consolidation of the industry in hands friendly to (or at least cowed by) the Islamists and self-censorship of reporters, lest they depart from the party line, have essentially denied prominent outlets to any contrary views. The risks of deviating is clear from the recently announced prosecution of Turkey’s most acclaimed novelist, Orhan Parmuk, for “denigrating Turks and Turkey” by affirming in a Swiss publication allegations of past Turkish genocidal attacks on Kurds and Armenians.

-Among the consequences of Erdogan’s domination of the press has been an inflaming of Turkish public opinion against President Bush in particular and the United States more generally. Today, a novel describing a war between America and Turkey leading to the nuclear destruction of Washington is a run-away best seller, even in the Turkish military.

-This data point is perhaps an indicator of the Islamists’ progress towards also transforming the traditional guarantors of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy of a secular, pro-Western Muslim state: Turkey‘s armed forces. Matters have been made worse by Erdogan’s skillful manipulation of popular interest in the European bid to keep the military from serving as a control rod in Turkish politics.

At the very least, over time, the cumulative effect of having the conscript-based Turkish army obliged to fill its ranks with products of an increasingly Islamist-dominated educational system cannot be positive for either the Europeans or the Free World beyond. Especially as Erdogan seeks to implement what has been dubbed a “zero-problem” policy towards neighboring Iran and Syria, the military’s historical check on the gravitational pull towards Islamofascism is likely to recede.

The Bottom Line

Consequently, the EU’s representatives should not only put on ice any invitation to Turkey to join the European Union next week. They should make it clear that the reason is Erdogan’s Islamist takeover: The prime minister is making Turkey ineligible for membership on the grounds that the AKP program will inevitably ruin his nation’s economy, radicalize its society and eliminate Ankara’s ability to play its past, constructive role made possible by Turkey’s geographic position in the “cockpit of history.”

It is to be hoped that this meeting will serve one other purpose, as well: It should compel the Europeans to begin to address their own burgeoning problem with Islamofascism. Both Europe, Turkey and, for that matter, the rest of the world, need to find ways to empower moderate Muslims who oppose Islamists like Turkey’s Erdogan. October 3rd would be a good time to start that process.

Tehran’s Terror Master

May 25, 2005Frank Gaffney, Jr.

by Patrick Devenny

Early on the morning of March 16th, 1984, William Buckley left for work at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Officially, Mr. Buckley, a decorated veteran of the Special Forces, served as the political officer at the embassy. In reality, however, Mr. Buckley was the embassy’s CIA station chief. On his way to the compound, Buckley’s car was stopped by a group of masked men, who forced him from his car at gunpoint. His assailants would later be identified as terrorists from the group Islamic Jihad, which served as an alias for the real perpetrators, Hezbollah. The circumstances surrounding the next 15 months of William Buckley’s life remain mysterious to this day. Hints of his plight were provided in disturbing video tapes, in which he appeared worn down and brutalized. It was later revealed that additional tapes were shot showing the CIA station chief being viciously tortured and beaten by Islamic Jihad members. Finally, sometime in October of 1985, Buckley died of pneumonia, no doubt stemming from the lengthy torture sessions. His main interrogator and tormentor was a 21 year old Lebanese terrorist named Imad Mugniyah.
Twenty years later, the butcher of William Buckley still plagues the free world. Imad Mugniyah is the current military commander of the terrorist group Hezbollah, overseeing an international organization which some American officials have dubbed “the A-team of terrorism.” Far less well known than his compatriot and sometimes partner Osama Bin Laden, Mugniyah is arguably more dangerous. Indeed, before the 9-11 attacks, Mugniyah was the prime focus of American anti-terror efforts, not Bin Laden. Comfortable in his anonymity, Mugniyah has successfully carried out some of the most professional terrorist attacks of the last two decades against a wide array of international targets. With Hezbollah currently flexing its muscle as a political force inside Lebanon, it would behoove Americans to remember that the leadership of this so-called “political” organization remains in the hands of dangerous extremists who think nothing of slaughtering hundreds of people at the behest of their masters in Tehran. Mugniyah’s very existence casts doubt on the idea that Hezbollah could ever be an honest participant in a future Lebanese democracy.
Origins

While the face of Bin Laden has been prominently featured in every world publication of note and is almost instantly recognizable, the real face of Imad Mugniyah is elusive. Only two or three photographs of the Hezbollah operative are known to exist. Further accentuating the mystery around Mugniyah is the fact that the picture that currently serves as the U.S. Government’s official wanted poster is almost 20 years old. This lack of information stems from the designs of Mugniyah himself, who has methodically erased all records of his existence, including his high school transcripts. What we do know is that Mugniyah was born to a prominent Shiite religious family in southern Lebanon in 1962. Some years later, his family moved to the suburbs of southern Beirut, a region long associated with Shiite radicalism. With the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, Mugniyah joined Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization, which operated numerous terror training camps throughout Lebanon. Mugniyah, still a teenager, rose through the ranks of the PLO quickly, soon becoming a member of its elite commando wing, Force 17, which carried out assassinations at the personal behest of Arafat. This kind of specialized training represented expertise unavailable to most young Islamic militants at the time.

In 1982, an Israeli military offensive expelled most of the PLO infrastructure from Lebanon. Mugniyah chose to stay, serving as a bodyguard to Sayyid Muhammad Fadlallah, the spiritual head of Hezbollah and a key ally of Iran. Then, together with fellow terrorist Hassan Nasrallah, Mugniyah formed the group Islamic Jihad, which served as a convenient cover for the greater Hezbollah organization. That close personal relationship would continue to the present day, as Nasrallah is the current secretary general of Hezbollah. One of the few existing photographs of Mugniyah shows him walking alongside Nasrallah ten years ago in Lebanon. The two fellow terrorists and their group would quickly gain the attention of the West.

Lebanon

The first shot fired in Mugniyah’s war against the West was fired on April 18th, 1983, in Beirut. On that day, a van packed with 2,000 pounds of explosives slammed into the front of the U.S. embassy and exploded with such tremendous force that the front of the building collapsed. The attack killed 63 people, including most of the CIA’s Middle East leadership. Within hours of the attack, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. A clue concerning the real perpetrators of the suicide bombing was picked up by U.S. intelligence a month later, when it was revealed that a pre-attack cable from the Iranian foreign ministry had been sent to the Iranian embassy in Syria approving funding for a terrorist attack in Beirut.

The suicide attack against the Beirut embassy was followed up later that year by an even more devastating assault. On the morning of October 23rd, most of the 300 Marines stationed in a compound near Beirut’s airport were sleeping in their barracks, having been deployed to the country to serve as a stabilization force. Then, at 6:33 am, the driver of a Mercedes truck drove straight through the front gate of the compound, past Marine sentries with unloaded weapons, and smashed into the four story concrete barracks. The driver, who reportedly was smiling, then detonated the explosive, estimated to equal the force of 12,000 pounds of TNT. The effects of the massive truck bombing were horrific, killing 220 Marines and 21 other U.S. service members. Again, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

In one day, the entire situation in Lebanon had been drastically altered. The foreign forces would soon leave, wary of further terrorist attacks. With the abandonment of Lebanon by the international community, Islamic Jihad had carried out a virtual terrorist coup d’etat. Over the next ten years, Mugniyah and Hezbollah went on a rampage, taking dozens of Westerners hostage and murdering several others. Major operations included the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, where Mugniyah’s men shot a US Navy diver in the head and threw his body on the tarmac of Beirut International Airport. In a case that recalled the horrors of William Buckley, US Marine Lt. Colonel William Higgins was abducted in 1988 by a Hezbollah linked group known to be under the direct command of Mugniyah. Two years later, a ghastly video was released showing a man, thought to be Colonel Higgins, hanging from a ceiling after being tortured. Shortly thereafter, the dead body of Colonel Higgins was dumped on the side of the road in front of the US embassy in Beirut.

Numerous hostages, such as American Kurt Carlson, recall seeing Mugniyah supervise their imprisonment and brutal interrogations. He spoke fluent English, and commanded slavish devotion from his agents. At the same time, the CIA believes Mugniyah was in frequent contact with Iranian intelligence officials, who were directly involved in the murders and the hostage takings. It is a relationship that blossomed in Lebanon and continues to this day.

Hezbollah International

While Imad Mugniyah’s attacks had concentrated on foreigners, his campaign of terror had stayed geographically constrained to Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East. The American authorities could still regard him and his group as “over there”, limited to the perennially tumultuous region. Unfortunately, they were missing a critical development. Imad Mugniyah was about to defy the oceans that security officials naively assumed held him back. The impetus for this new strategy of offensive terrorism was the 1992 Israeli assassination of Sheik Abbas Musawi, a Hezbollah leader and close associate of Mugniyah.

The Israeli embassy in Argentina was located in a bustling downtown neighborhood of Buenos Aires. On March 17th, 1992, a pickup truck loaded with plastic explosive drove up to the front of the embassy and exploded. The embassy building was destroyed, along with the nearby retirement home and Catholic Church. 28 people were killed, and over 220 wounded. The next target was a seven story building in Buenos Aires that housed two Jewish business organizations. On the morning of July 18th, 1994, a white Renault van pulled up in front of the building and detonated. The building collapsed, killing 85 people. While confusion marred the initial investigations, it became clear to all parties involved that Hezbollah was the culprit, through its subsidiary Islamic Jihad, headed of course by Mugniyah. The smoking gun may have been delivered by an Iranian defector named Abdolghassem Mesbahi, a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Council. In testimony to Argentinean authorities, the defector claimed that Mugniyah had been one of the senior planners behind the attack in Buenos Aires, along with Iranian intelligence.

The twin bombings in Argentina highlighted Mugniyah’s campaign to develop an infrastructure within South America. In 1994, the Hezbollah leader personally visited the “Triple Frontiers”, an area forming the border nexus of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil that has historically sheltered smugglers and criminals. As many as 30,000 Arab Muslims, who celebrate the anniversary of September 11th, inhabit the small region. Nearby, Hezbollah holds weekend training camps, indoctrinating Arab youth in the extremist literature of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The main mosque in the area was blessed by none other than Imad Mugniyah’s old boss, Sayyid Muhammad Fadlallah. Hezbollah agents regularly extort money and “donations” from various businesses and Muslim organizations, sending the substantial funds back to Lebanon. Mugniyah personally operates a powerful network of operatives inside the region, who help facilitate Hezbollah’s drug smuggling operations throughout South America. In addition, the bombing of Jewish targets inside Argentina were almost certainly connected to the Hezbollah presence in the Triple Frontiers. Telephone records show increased call traffic from Iranian officials to the frontiers region around the time of the bombing.

Mugniyah has also sought to extend Hezbollah’s reach to North America. In 2000, federal authorities arrested 18 men in North Carolina for smuggling cigarettes and other financial crimes. The FBI later revealed that the smuggling ring, led by Lebanese immigrant Mohamad Hammoud, had made 7.9 million dollars, profit which was then sent to Hezbollah. Through a series of associates, Hammoud worked for a man named Mohamad Dbouk, a senior Hezbollah asset who helped run Hezbollah’s extensive criminal operations in Canada. Testifying before the U.S. Senate, U.S. Attorney Robert J. Conrad confirmed that Mugniyah directly oversees the Canadian operations and, by extension, the American division. This reasoning stems from the fact that Dbouk was in direct contact with Hassan Hilu Laqis, a Hezbollah agent operating out of Lebanon who managed many of the procurement projects in North America. In a fax intercepted by Canadian intelligence, Dbouk assures Laqis that he is doing all he possibly can to help Hezbollah. In addition, Dbouk says he will do “anything”, and “he means anything”, to help the “father”. The Canadian prosecutor involved in the case, Kenneth Bell, stated that the father is in fact a codename for Imad Mugniyah. In addition, a recent report in the Washington Times suggested Hezbollah currently runs active cells in at least 10 U.S. cities. Mugniyah has never attacked a target in North America, but with tensions rising between the United States and Iran over the issue of nuclear proliferation, his terrorist network could rapidly become Iran’s weapon of choice against American targets. It would be a familiar role for the veteran terrorist, who, lest we forget, has the blood of over 250 Americans on his hands.

Mugniyah and Al-Qaeda

In 1998, American authorities captured former Green Beret advisor Ali A. Mohamed for his role in the twin terror attacks against U.S. embassies in Africa. Having been a relatively close associate of Bin Laden himself, Mohamed proved to be a treasure trove of information for American investigators. One of his statements, however, proved particularly troubling. In testimony delivered during his court case, Mohamed admitted that in 1994, he had arranged security for a momentous meeting in Sudan. There, Osama Bin Laden met Imad Mugniyah. He also stated that Hezbollah provided training for Al-Qaeda operatives in exchange for weapons and explosives. Indeed, this testimony corresponded with statements made by other Al-Qaeda officials, who told American investigators that the two had met several times in the mid 1990s, where they had discussed a greater degree of cooperation.

The two terrorist leaders may have also coordinated the attack on the Khobar Towers barracks complex in 1996. American investigators have long suspected Iran’s involvement in the bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Saudi Arabia. The group that supposedly carried out the attacks, Saudi Hezbollah, was led in the 1990s by a close lieutenant of Mugniyah and was trained in Mugniyah run camps in Lebanon. Additionally, the explosives used in the barracks bombing originated in Lebanon. The 9-11 Commission, however, recently suggested that Al-Qaeda may have also played a role in the bombing, suggesting some degree of operational cooperation between the two groups.

The influence of Imad Mugniyah with regards to the Al-Qaeda network has continued, and has strengthened as of late. It appears that at least part of the formal leadership of Al-Qaeda has shifted to Iran, where they stay in close contact with the group’s disparate assets. Men such as Saad Bin Laden and Saif al-Adel continue to plan attacks from Iranian territory, such as the massive Casablanca bombings in 2003. Other Al-Qaeda leaders and fighters have escaped through Iran following the war in Afghanistan. Hamid Zakiri, a former member of the Iranian terrorist coordination command, stated that Mugniyah was the liaison officer to Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and various other international terrorist groups. In addition to this relationship, Mugniyah personally oversaw the escape of dozens of Al-Qaeda figures to Iran, including one of Bin Laden’s wives and her infant child. Apparently, Al-Qaeda leaders have enough trust in Mugniyah’s abilities and intentions as to place their family members into his care.

“The Master Terrorist”

“He is the most dangerous terrorist we’ve ever faced. He’s a–he’s a pathological murderer. Mugniyah is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we’ve ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else. He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments on a telephone, never is predictable, will show up–he only uses people that are related to him that he can trust. He doesn’t just recruit people. He is the master terrorist, the grail, we are after since 1983.”

No small praise coming from Robert Baer, a 20 year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine services who once constructed a plan to kill Mugniyah in Lebanon. Imad Mugniyah, unrecognizable and relatively unknown, poses a serious asymmetrical threat to the United States and its allies. He has successfully avoided numerous American and Israeli attempts to capture or kill him. He has access to the massive amount of funding, estimated at 100 million dollars, that Iran annually provides Hezbollah annually. The secrecy surrounding Mugniyah allows him to travel relatively freely, especially in friendly nations such as Iran and Syria. His role in Hezbollah should chasten the Bush administration’s hopes that Hezbollah could eventually transform itself into a purely political organization. With terrorists such as Imad Mugniyah in charge, the idea that Hezbollah could accept a democratic Middle East is dubious to say the least. It should also be made clear to Lebanon’s Shiite population that national democratic reform cannot be sustained over the long term if an armed group like Hezbollah is involved. Instead of awaiting reform that will never come, the American government, with the help of our allies in the region, should seek to isolate this dangerous and inherently anti-democratic terrorist organization.

‘Wither’ Israel?

December 13, 2004Frank Gaffney, Jr.

(Washington, D.C.): The plight of Israelis today calls to mind the tongue-in-cheek prayer of Tevye, the hero of “Fiddler on the Roof” who, in light of his people’s suffering, asks the Almighty if someone else could be the chosen people for a while.

For years, the people of Israel have voted for leaders who promised to protect them against Arab neighbors bent on the destruction of the Jewish State and to eschew wooly-headed “peace processes” that advance their enemies’ goal. Yet, in turn Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak made a succession of concessions – most notably, the legitimation of Yasser Arafat and his fellow terrorists as “partners for peace” that was at the core of the Oslo “process” – that have emboldened those who believe Israel will ultimately be dismantled and increased international demands for still more Israeli concessions.

Coercive Pressure from Abroad

Such pressure comes in many forms. Foes like Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria refuse to fulfill their obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 242, which all too few remember requires the “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

As Shoshana Bryen of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs noted recently, the Arabs and Iranians instead cynically insist that Israel must first find – and pay – a price acceptable to the Palestinians. They do so knowing full well that none among the latter could make peace with the Jewish State, even if they wanted to, as long as the principal nations of the region refuse to do so. These nations’ totalitarian regimes offer the same excuse to justify staving off domestic and foreign calls to engage in long-overdue political and economic liberalization.

The Europeans are no less insistent that the responsibility for peace rests first and foremost with Israel. To be sure, leaders like Britain’s Tony Blair pay lip service to the need for an end to terrorism from the Palestinian quarter. Still, Europe seems determined to construe the continuation of terror against Israel as an argument for demanding that Israel swiftly resume negotiations with the Palestinians and concede the substantive points necessary to move them forward, rather than as legitimate grounds for Israelis to refuse to reenter the fraudulent “peace process.”

Then there is the United Nations. The organization’s domination by states hostile to Israel has made it a hotbed of agitation against the Jewish State from the get-go. While Zionism is no longer officially equated with racism by the UN, that sentiment remains much in evidence as Israel has been subjected to far more criticism and condemnatory resolutions than any other member state. Israel alone is ineligible for membership on the Security Council. And an organ of the “world body,” the International Court of Justice, has even ruled that the Jewish State may not legally take measures to defend itself with a security barrier separating Israel and parts of the disputed West Bank in which Jews live from terrorists bent on murder and destruction of property.

To their credit, President Bush and his administration have, to date, generally refrained from adding U.S. pressure on Israel to that emanating from other quarters. That may change, however. Mr. Blair is determined to be repaid for his loyalty on Iraq in the currency of “progress” towards peace in the Mideast. Best-selling author and former CIA official Michael Scheuer is among those pushing the line that America’s support for Israel is the reason al Qaeda and other Islamofascist terrorists want to attack us. And last Sunday, former National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brezinzski jointly declared that the opportunity created by the Arafat’s death must be seized by the United States “imposing” a peace deal on Israel and the Palestinians – ignoring Churchill’s sound advice against weakening a strategic ally.

Israel’s Internal Pressure

Washington may not have to take such a misbegotten step, however, if – as has been the case to date – the present government of Israel decides to make concessions on its own. For some time, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has seemed more concerned with his place in history than in fulfilling the robust campaign promises about security that also won him the premiership.

Today, Sharon is rooting his claim to power in an embrace of Shimon Peres’ Labor Party, the principal apologist for the myriad failures of Oslo and other peace processes. He is unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, a superficially appealing and politically popular cut-your-losses move that will, unfortunately, give rise to a new safehaven for terrorists there (witness Sunday’s murderous tunnel-bomb attack). It will also serve to compound the signal sent by Ehud Barak’s earlier, precipitous withdrawal from Lebanon, namely that Israel’s piecemeal destruction is inevitable. And Sharon is releasing terrorists and promising to remove Israeli security forces from Palestinian communities as gestures to its electorate.

The Bottom Line

All this adds up to a grim forecast for the people of Israel. Their foes are implacable and being emboldened. Their “friends” are at best encouraging of strategically dubious peace initiatives like the ill-conceived “Road Map”; at worst, they are part of the problem. And their leaders, both those of the recent past and the present, seem intent on repeating, and compounding, earlier mistakes. Those who love freedom can only hope that all this does not add up to Tevye’s prayer being answered in the worst possible way.

Window for war

November 15, 2004Frank Gaffney, Jr.

(Washington, D.C.): You have to hand it to the Palestinians. They have gotten away with fabricating a nationality where none existed prior to Yasser Arafat’s terrorism-backed strutting on the world stage. They have enjoyed global successes in staking historical claims to territory that clearly post-dated those of the Jews.

Now, notwithstanding the fact that they and other Arabs have waged war against Israel incessantly – via both conventional and unconventional means – ever since the modern Jewish State was founded in 1948, they have obtained the support of even President Bush for the ultimate reward: a sovereign state of Palestine.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Unfortunately, there is every reason to believe that such an entity will amount to something Mr. Bush would never knowingly countenance, let alone support – the creation of yet another state-sponsor of terror.

To be sure, the President has qualified his readiness to endorse a Palestinian state – and even to expend political capital over the next four years to bring it about – on the premise that such an entity will be democratic and willing to live in peace with its neighbors.

Yet, thanks to certain realities of the Palestinian proto-polity, and the Arab world more generally, the President will surely be confounded in his hope that elections scheduled for next January will result in the elevation of a new leadership more inclined to create a durable peace with Israel than was Arafat. Consider the following:

The Palestinian Arab community has been subjected for three generations to the most coercive and hateful mass indoctrination known outside of North Korea. While there are surely Palestinians willing to live side-by-side in peace with Israel, they know that to say so publicly is to invite swift retaliation, if not summary execution as a collaborator with the Jewish State. As a result, the party line of victimhood, alienation and rejectionism is universally touted and will dominate any election, even a fair one.

Under Arafat, that party line translated into an insistence that all of “Palestine” – that is, Israel as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip – must be “liberated.” The corollary is that any sacrifice is justified, a gambit used to justify inflicting endemic corruption, a self-destructive intefada, political repression and wholesale economic decline on the Palestinian people.

Then, as Saudi Arabia supplanted the Kremlin in the role of chief foreign sponsor of Palestinian terror, an Islamist overlay developed. The result was to add a full-fledged “culture of death” to Arafat’s poisonous brainwashing. Hence, the spectacle of mothers and even children declaring their desire to kill themselves in order to bring about a Palestinian state on the ashes of Israel.

This attitude has been greatly reinforced thanks to the hardship engendered by the incarceration of large numbers of Palestinians in refugee camps – a dire plight arising principally from the refusal of their fellow Arabs to permit the sort of assimilation Israel afforded Jews similarly displaced after the 1948 conflict. The Arab nations have found it expedient to perpetuate and compound the attendant, appalling conditions in these camps insofar as they serve as a kind of safety valve for anger that would otherwise be aimed at their own regimes. Complicit in this behavior has been the rabidly anti-Zionist United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has helped to sustain these camps and to radicalize those interned there.

All of the leading candidates to replace Arafat have blood on their hands. This is true of the so-called “moderates,” be they of the “old guard” (notably such Arafat lieutenants as Mahmud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei) or the “young guard” (for example, incipient warlords like Muhammed Dahlan and Jabril Rajoub). It is, of course, equally true of what are left of the leaders of Islamist organizations like Hamas and the nominally “secular” Marwan Barghouti. The latter is said to be the most popular Palestinian politician at the moment, a status that may have something to do with the fact that he is currently imprisoned for life in Israel for his role in the murder of five Israelis.

Leveraging Elections to Advance the Arafat Agenda

These realities are currently permitting cynical Palestinians to calculate that they can advance their abiding “liberation” agenda by exploiting President Bush’s laudable commitment to democracy. At this writing, they are citing the need to advance elections as a means of achieving the same objectives that Arafat long sought: the removal of all Israeli military forces from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, an end to Israel’s targeted killings of terrorist leaders, the freeing of terrorists held by Israel and the insertion of foreign monitors and/or troops between Israelis and Palestinians. As in Lebanon, such foreigners can be counted on to provide no protection from attacks on the former – while impeding Israeli preemptive action against the latter that might prevent such strikes, or even retaliation in their aftermath.

The Bottom Line

If past experience is any guide, such steps will not conduce to useful elections, let alone peace between Palestine’s Jews and Arabs. Rather, if indulged in the absence of genuine democratic institution-building and socialization in the practice of representative government that is respectful of minority rights, they will produce Palestinian elections that amount to little more than one-man, one-vote, one-time. And, under present circumstances, that vote will go to someone who will remain committed to an objective clearly not in America’s interests: the establishment of a state-sponsor of terror and the destruction of the state of Israel.

Saudi government-controlled television incites Jihad, violence against U.S.

June 24, 2004Center for Security Policy

According to a special report released on Thursday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), three Saudi government-controlled television channels routinely air programs that feature "leading Saudi religious figures, professors, members of the royal family, government leaders and intellectuals." Rather than use their exposure to teach moderation and tolerance, however, these Saudis propagate ideas with consistent themes: "calls for the annihilation of Christians and Jews, rampant anti-Americanism and antisemitism, support for Jihad, incitement against U.S. troops in Iraq, and the coming Islamic conquest of the U.S."

This evidence indicates that the Saudi government continues to spread and encourage radical Islamic ideology; a fact that sharply contradicts analysis provided by the U.S. State Department in its recently released Patterns of Global Terrorism. For example, the State Department lauded Saudi efforts to crack down on terrorism: "On both the domestic and international fronts, Saudi Arabia initiated an ideological campaign against Islamist terrorist organizations, using its unique credentials as the custodian of Islam’s two holiest shrines. Senior Saudi Government and religious officials espouse a consistent message of moderation and tolerance, explaining that Islam and terrorism are incompatible."

At a minimum, the U.S. State Department needs to acknowledge what Steven Stalinsky notes in this report: "The Ministry of Culture and Information’s website indicates that it is responsible for the Kingdom’s television and radio broadcasting and publication of printed material, and one of its defined roles includes the undertaking of information campaigns for the Kingdom. Therefore, the Saudi royal family can end its support for Jihad programming at any time."

I.S.O. a scapegoat

May 24, 2004Center for Security Policy

(Washington, D.C.): Ahmed Chalabi has suddenly become a kind of Arabian piata, presented to the world as everything from a con-man, felon and liar to the man who singlehandedly duped the U.S. government into invading Iraq on the basis of fraudulent intelligence and promises of a flower-strewn cake-walk. To the extent the Bush Administration is contributing to this transparent effort to find a scapegoat for its increasingly troubled Iraq policy – presumably, in the hope of improving the Presidents sagging popularity here at home – it has made not only an epic strategic mistake, but a potentially costly political one, as well.

A Strategic Error

First, consider the ineptitude of trying to undermine Chalabi as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a force in Iraqs future by, among other things, mounting a U.S.-backed raid on his home and offices, destroying property and stealing his Koran. Such high-handed and illegal behavior is seen by Iraqis as of a piece with the American misconduct now known the world over as “prison abuse.” Call this variant “politician abuse.”

Even those in Iraq who might accept that only rogue military police officers were responsible for the former find it totally implausible that the take-down of Chalabi is other than an authorized power-play by a government already seen as unreliable and scarcely more committed to the rule of law than Saddam Husseins regime. We dont exactly have a surfeit of friends in Iraq. It is hardly an incentive to those still on the fence to join our team when we publicly humiliate and punish people who have been our closest allies.

An Iraqi Patriots Grounds for Discord

One of the purported justifications for this ham-handed effort to take down Ahmed Chalabi is that he has been less and less of a U.S. ally in recent months. This ignores the fact that Chalabi is an Iraqi patriot, first and foremost, not the American puppet his critics make him out to be. As a University of Chicago-trained PhD, he believes passionately that the things that make this country great – our freedoms, values and democratic institutions – can make his own great, too. And it can credibly be argued that he did more over a longer period of time than any other Iraqi to give his countrymen the chance to put that proposition to the test.

Imagine, then, the anger and frustration felt by an Iraqi patriot who sees such an opportunity being squandered, especially by those whom he has reason to believe are sacrificing his countrys long-term interests to U.S. domestic political expediency. If the situation were reversed, would an American patriot not be at odds with his sometime allies?

This is especially true of the effort to fob off decisions critical to Iraqs future onto the United Nations. Most Americans are clueless about the contempt felt not just by Chalabi but by millions of Iraqis for an organization that helped prop up the Butcher of Baghdad and perpetuate his reign of terror. Matters can only be made worse if the raid on Chalabis organization actually was designed to prevent the release of damning documents from Saddams era said to be in the Iraqi National Congress possession, documents that could further inflame the burgeoning UN Oil-for-Food scandal and raise more questions about UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimis role in anointing a new, interim government.

Long before Ahmed Chalabi became a critic of the Coalition Provisional Authoritys conduct and decisions – and a target of its enmity, however, he was reviled by the U.S. State Department and CIA. His determination to create a free and peaceable Iraq was anathema to these agencies other regional clients (notably, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan) and traditional modus operandi (consorting with “stabilizing” authoritarians, not untidy democrats). And for years before the liberation of Iraq, they worked to thwart his efforts to bring it about and to preclude his broadly representative umbrella group, the Iraqi National Congress, from becoming a powerful and legitimate alternative to Saddam.

It is tragic that Chalabis advice was not heeded long ago. In 1998, he helped draft a plan that was embraced by a diverse group of policy-practitioners – many of whom now hold senior positions in the U.S. government (including not only the Defense Departments Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, but Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage). This plan ultimately gave rise to the Iraq Liberation Act that was adopted by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton.

Had it been implemented, the present war might have proved unnecessary. At the very least, there would have been a provisional Iraqi government that could have taken over upon Saddams overthrow and invited us to help provide security, sparing us the costs (political, military and financial) of an occupation. Could that have been worse than what we have now?

The Bottom Line

Unfortunately, the decision to destroy Chalabi and the INC seems no more likely to help George W. Bush politically than to improve our situation on the ground in Iraq. After all, allowing Chalabi to be painted as someone who successfully duped the President is unlikely to reflect well on the man whose principal claim to reelection is his clear-eyed, visionary conduct of the war on terror.

Mr. Bush should appreciate, moreover, that those savaging todays scapegoat are after bigger game. Already, they claim that Chalabis success was due to the connivance of the Administrations so-called “neo-conservatives.” Were the President to succumb to the logic of throwing them to the same wolves as are now devouring Chalabi, Mr. Bush would only be ensuring that he, too, will be consumed in due course.

The tipping point

December 15, 2003Frank Gaffney, Jr.

(Washington, D.C.): History will likely record December 13, 2003 as the tipping point in the liberation of Iraq. Of course, much of importance preceded that moment the U.S.-led invasion of the country, the toppling of Saddam Husseins regime and the beginnings of an expensive and time-consuming reconstruction. Still, there is reason to believe that, when American forces dug the former Iraqi dictator out of his rathole in Tikrit on Saturday night, the beginning of the end of the nightmare he inflicted on so many for so long had arrived.

To be sure, as with the turning points of most military campaigns the battles of Gettysburg and Midway come to mind there will surely be a great deal more bloodshed and loss of life and property at the hands of the Saddams loyalists and their imported allies. But there can be little doubt now that those who persist in attacks on the human and physical resources of Iraq are just what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has long called them: Dead-enders.

The New Reality

The capture of Saddam should make clear to all, and most especially to the people of Iraq, a fundamental reality: The liberators of the country are going to prevail.

This perception is likely to have profound implications, both within Iraq and elsewhere. These should include the following:

The anti-liberation insurgency will, over time, diminish: This will be partly because of the inevitable, demoralizing effect on the attackers of the elimination of the man in whose name the resistance was being mounted.

A more important factor, however, will be that the environment in which the attackers have operated will become substantially less hospitable to them and their efforts to kill allied forces, international relief workers and Iraqis who have cooperated in Coalition efforts to secure and rebuild their country. It is hard to overstate the traumatizing effect the prospect of Saddams return has had on a deeply scarred people. In his absence, there is no reason to accommodate his henchmen and every reason to work with others who oppose them.

Foreign fighters may be another matter. Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria all have their reasons for wanting to thwart the experiment in an Arab democracy President Bush is helping Free Iraqis to forge. By definition, however, such foreigners will have an even harder time operating unseen among the people of Iraq than will the former regime loyalists. The United States must help the Iraqis to root out and neutralize these predominantly radical Muslim (or Islamist) forces by helping to secure Iraqs borders and to dissuade neighboring countries from allowing them to be penetrated.

The attitudes of others in the so-called international community are clearly being affected by Saddams capture: Foreign leaders who last week were bitterly critical of the Bush Administrations sensible decision to deny the French, Germans and Russians U.S.-taxpayer-funded reconstruction contracts in Iraq have been positively civil now that the Butcher of Baghdad is in custody.

It may be that this new attitude reflects the same sort of tipping point-calculation that is at work among Iraqis. Or perhaps it is evidence of something else: A renewed concern that interrogations of Saddam Hussein himself, or of subordinates who need no longer fear his retribution, will disclose embarrassing new evidence of foreign governments complicity in propping up the tyrrant.

Former deputy premier Tariq Aziz has already reportedly blabbed that the French and Russians had promised Saddam they would never let the UN do anything to remove him from power. Others have revealed efforts made by Communist China in the run-up to the war to enhance Iraqs air defense systems, the better to kill American and British airmen patrolling the no-fly zones. One can only imagine the discomfiture in certain capitals over the skeletons that remain in Saddams closet involving corrupt and/or dangerous military, financial, oil and other transactions.

Another factor is the prospect that what comes out next will only further vindicate George Bush and Tony Blair and add to the ignominy of those who opposed the liberation of Iraq. For example, the Sunday Telegraph of London reported on December 14, that Iraqi authorities have discovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the U.S., was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.

All of these considerations should help former Secretary of State James Bakers efforts to induce those who lent Saddam Hussein billions for weapons purchases and other purposes relieve the Iraqi people of his damning legacy of debt.

Finally, Democratic candidates for Mr. Bushs job are busily repositioning themselves on Iraq: This appears to reflect their own calculation that the tipping point may have been reached and that what appeared lately to be a real political liability for the President might once again prove to be his strong suit.

The Bottom Line

The struggle to liberate Iraq is not over. More heartache and reverses are in store, some of which may prompt the short-sighted to think it still will not be accomplished. If, however, we stay the course and exhibit the resolve, competence and skillful use of the military, economic and political tools at our disposal, December 13th will indeed prove to be the beginning not only of the end of Saddams malignant legacy, but of a new, secure and free Iraq.

Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations

November 13, 2003Douglas Feith

Presenter: Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

(Particpating was Robert Gallucci)

Feith: Good Evening. Thank you, Bob, I appreciate the introduction and I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to address the council.

My talk is on the global war on terrorism and I’d like to start with a personal story.

On September 11, 2001, I was in Moscow with my colleague J.D. Crouch, discussing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an ancient text. As we were leaving the defense ministry in the late afternoon, the world entered a new era, for that was when the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

We asked the U.S.-European command for the means to get back to Washington despite the general shutdown of U.S. air traffic, and EUCOM provided us with a KC-135 tanker, which met us in Germany. And we collected there a handful of stray Defense Department officials who were also stranded by the suspension of the commercial air traffic and these included Under Secretary Dov Zakheim, Assistant Secretary Peter Rodman and his deputy Bill Luti and General John Abizaid, then on the joint staff, and now as you know Tommy Frank’s successor as the commander of the Central Command. All of us were frustrated to be away at such a moment and grateful to be getting back to the Pentagon fast, which was of course still smoldering.

In the KC-135, we conferred and wrote papers about how to comprehend the September 11th attack as a matter of national security policy.

President Bush’s statements even then showed that he thought of the attack, in essence, as an act of war rather than a law enforcement matter. Now, this point may seem unremarkable, but think back to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and to the attacks on Khobar Towers in 1996, on the U.S. East African embassies in ’98, on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. When such attacks occurred over the last decades, U.S. officials avoided the term "war." The primary response was to dispatch the FBI to identify individuals for prosecution. Recognizing the September 11th attack as war was a departure from the established practice. It was President Bush’s seminal insight the wisdom of which I would say is attested by the fact that it looks so obvious in retrospect.

We in the KC-135 chewed over such questions as what it means to be at war not with a conventional enemy, but with a network of terrorist organizations and their state sponsors. We talked about how to formulate our war aims, how to define victory, what should be our strategy.

And as we were mulling all of this, the airplane’s crew invited us to the cockpit to look down on the southern tip of Manhattan, and we saw smoke rising from the ruins of the twin towers. Aside from sadness and anger, the smoke engendered an enduring sense of duty to prevent the next big attack.
When we landed in Washington on September 12th, we were primed to join the work the President had already gotten underway to develop a strategy for the war.

That work has held up well since September 2001.

The President and his advisors considered the nature of the threat. If terrorists exploited the open nature of our society to attack us repeatedly, the American people might feel compelled to change that nature, to close it, to defend ourselves. Many defensive measures come at a high price. That is, interference with our freedom of movement, intrusions on our privacy, inspections, and an undesirable, however necessary, rebalancing of civil liberties against the interests of public safety. In other words, at stake in the war in terrorism are not just the lives and limbs of potential victims, but our country’s freedom.

It isn’t possible to prevent all terrorist attacks. There are simply too many targets in the United States – too many tall buildings. It’s possible, however, to fight terrorism in a way that preserves our freedom and culture. So the conclusion was that our war aim should be to eliminate terrorism as a threat to our way of life as a free and open society.

Because the United States can’t count on preserving our way of life by means of a defensive strategy, there was and is no practical alternative to a strategy of offense. We have to reach out and hit the terrorists where they reside, plan and train, and not wait to try to defeat their plans while they are executing them on U.S. soil. To deal with the threat from the terrorists we have to change the way we live or change the way they live.

Accordingly, the President’s strategy in the war on terrorism has three parts. One is disrupting and destroying terrorists and their infrastructure. This involves direct military action, but also intelligence, law enforcement and financial regulatory activity. The list of senior members of al-Qaida and affiliated groups who’ve been killed or captured since 9-11 is impressive, and includes such figures as Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, Abu Zubaydah, Hambali, Mohammad Atef.

These and other successes against the terrorists demonstrate that international cooperation is alive, well and effective. We’ve worked jointly with the Philippines, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Spain, France, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt among others.

From our interrogations of detainees, we know that the absence of large-scale attacks on the United States since 9-11 has not been for want of bad intentions and efforts on the terrorists’ part. We have been disrupting their plans and operations. Our strategy of offense, which is to say forcing the terrorists to play defense, is sound.

The second part of our strategy targets the recruitment and indoctrination of terrorists. The objective is to create a global intelligence and moral environment hostile to terrorism. We refer to this part as "the battle of ideas." As the President’s national strategy for combating terrorism puts it, "We want terrorism viewed in the same light as slavery, piracy or genocide – behavior that no respectable government can condone or support, and all must oppose." This requires a sustained effort to de-legitimate terrorism and to promote the success of those forces, especially within the Muslim world, that are working to build and preserve modern, moderate and democratic political and educational institutions.

And the third part of the strategy of course is securing the homeland. The Bush Administration has created the Department of Homeland Security, while the Defense Department has organized a new Northern Command in which for the first time a combatant commander has the entire continental United States within his area of responsibility. By the way, it’s a matter of some pride that the U.S. Northern Command managed to achieve full operational capability – quite appropriately on September 11th, 2003 – in less than a year. And we are in the process also for the first time of fielding defenses against ballistic missiles of all ranges.

Our strategy envisions international cooperation. The war is global. We have forged formidable, adaptable partnerships – a rolling set, because some coalition partners are comfortable helping in some areas but not in others.

After 9-11, nearly 100 nations joined us in one or more aspects of the war on terrorism, in military operations against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, in maritime interdiction operations, in financial crackdowns against terrorist funding, and in law enforcement actions, as well as intelligence sharing and diplomatic efforts.

In Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan, there are 71 members of the coalition, including contributors to the International Security Assistance Force; 37 have contributed military assets. In Iraq, 32 countries are now contributing forces.

As President Bush noted early on, the war’s greatest strategic danger remains the possibility that terrorists will obtain chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The list of states that sponsor terrorism correlates obviously and ominously with the list of those that have programs to produce such weapons of mass destruction.

The nexus of terrorist groups, state sponsors of terrorism and WMD is the security nightmare of the 21st century. It remains our focus. We are treating this threat as a compelling danger in the near term. We are not waiting for it to become imminent, for we cannot expect to receive unambiguous warning of, for example, a terrorist group’s acquisition of biological weapons agents.

We know the list of terrorist-sponsoring states with WMD programs – Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea. Iraq used to be in that category but no longer is.

Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was a sadistic tyranny that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, launched aggressive attacks and wars against Iran, Kuwait, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and supported terrorists by providing them with safe harbor, funds, training and other help. It had defied a long list of legally binding U.N. Security Council resolutions. It undid the U.N. inspection regime of the 1990s. It eviscerated the economic sanctions regime and it shot virtually daily at the U.S. and British aircraft patrolling Iraq’s northern and southern no-fly zones. In sum, containment of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a hollow hope.

The best information available from intelligence sources said that, one, Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons; and, two, if Saddam Hussein obtained fissile material from outside Iraq as opposed to producing it indigenously, he could have had a nuclear weapons within a year.

Those assessments, and most of the underlying information, were not recent products of the intelligence community. They were consistent with the intelligence that predated the administration of George W. Bush, and they were consistent with the intelligence from cooperative foreign services and with the United Nations’ estimates of weapons unaccounted for.

It was reasonable – indeed necessary – for the U.S. government to rely on the best information it had available. And while we haven’t yet found, and may not find, stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, David Kay reports that the Iraq survey group has obtained corroborative evidence of Saddam’s nuclear, chemical and biological programs, covert laboratories, advanced missile programs, and Iraq’s program active right up to the start of the war to conceal WMD-related developments from the U.N. inspectors.

The Iraqi dictator posed a serious threat. Given the nature of that threat, seen in light of our experience with the 9-11 surprise attack, and the crumbling one after another of the pillars of containment, it would have been risky in the extreme to have allowed him to remain in power for the indefinite future. Intelligence is never perfect, but that’s not grounds for inaction in the face of the kind of information the President had about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Saddam’s demise has freed Iraqis of a tyrant, deprived terrorists of a financier and supporter, eliminated a threat to regional stability, taken Iraq off the list of rogue states with WMD programs, and created a new opportunity for free political institutions to arise in the Arab world. All of this serves our cause in the global war on terrorism.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, democratization has begun. Success will strengthen the forces of moderation in the Muslim world. It could create a new era in the Middle East. Already since Iraq’s liberation talk of reform and democracy is more common and more intense in the Arab world. It would be desirable if the Middle East reached a political turning point similar to the points in history when Asian democracy and Latin American democracy blossomed and spread rapidly.

As the President said last week at the National Endowment for Democracy, "It should be clear to all that Islam, the faith of one fifth of humanity, is consistent with democratic rule. Democratic progress is found in many predominantly Muslim countries. More than half of all Muslims in the world live in freedom under democratically-constituted governments."

Opposition to democratic rule motivates extremists in both Afghanistan and Iraq to try to tear down the newly formed institutions. They see the potential for modernization, democratization, and liberalization of the economy, and they oppose and fear what they see.

Extremism of the type that fuels terrorism is a political phenomenon. It’s driven by ideology, and ideologies we know can be defeated. Like Soviet communism and Nazism, radical Islamism can be discredited by failure.

When the Soviet system collapsed it helped demonstrate that our nation’s positive message – individual liberty, the rule of law, tolerance and peace – has global appeal. Soviet communism was discredited, practically and morally, by its ultimately undeniable failures to deliver goodness or happiness. Radical Islamism, an ideological stew of historical resentments, political hatreds, religious intolerance and violence, can be expected to have a similar end. Like communism, it promises a Utopia that it can’t deliver.

As the President noted, "Many Middle Eastern governments now understand that military dictatorships and theocratic rule are a straight, smooth highway to nowhere. The good and capable people of the Middle East all deserve responsible leadership. For too long many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens."

In Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as elsewhere in the region, this process has begun. Afghanistan has a way to go before it achieves a stable, permanent government. Taliban forces are working to regroup and attack, often from bases in the rough terrain of the tribal areas just across the Pakistan border. Afghanistan’s central government needs more skilled administrators. It needs better control over the country’s customs revenues. And important open question remain as to the right relationship between the central government and the local governors and military commanders.

But Afghanistan has come far since its liberation from the Taliban only two years ago. President Karzai is increasingly extending the government’s authority across the country. He has replaced about one third of the provincial governors. Reform of the Defense Ministry is underway and producing greater ethnic balance. The government and the constitutional commission have just produced a draft constitution that the Loya Jirga may approve next month. National elections in Afghanistan are scheduled for next year. International assistance to the country is increasing. A modern ring road, a boon to commerce, security and national unity, is being built around the country. The Kabul-to-Kandahar portion is to be usable by December of this year, and NATO has taken over the U.N.- mandated International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, and is expanding its peacekeeping role outside the capital.

Afghanistan’s courage and unity will continue to be tested, but it appears that Afghanistan is passing these tests. It’s a country on the rise, and it’s a country that is no longer affording terrorists the quiet enjoyment of bases of operation.

Iraq too is a story of difficulties, but also progress and promise. Iraqis, like Afghans, know that they have been liberated from tyranny. They recognize their stake in the coalition’s success, even though a thick residue of fear inhibits many from contributing to that success.

Our strategic goal in Iraq is to give Iraq back to the Iraqi people well launched, on the road to freedom, security and prosperity. We can’t build the new Iraq for them, but we can make sure that when we leave they are in a position to build it themselves. Our foremost objective now is to improve the security situation to make political and economic development possible. We recognize that security, freedom and prosperity are tightly interrelated. There’s no solution to the security problem without progress on the economic and political fronts.

The enemies of our strategic goal are: One, former regime loyalists, Saddam’s dead-enders; two, foreign fighters – jihadists; three, terrorist groups – al-Qaida and its allies; and, four, the scores of thousands of criminals that Saddam released from his prisons in the months before the war.

We don’t underestimate the task we face. We recognize the enemy has a number of strengths. For example, the country is awash in munitions. Our enemies have access to a lot of money and Saddam remains at large. It doesn’t take an enormous effort to attack small numbers of soldiers every week, and the international jihad network has opted to support the fight against the coalition in Iraq, making Iraq the central battlefield now in the global war on terrorism.

But we also know that our enemies have vulnerabilities. For example, the former regime is not popular in the country, and it had and has a very narrow base of public support. Moreover, Iraqis resent the presence of foreign jihadists who have chosen Iraq as the battlefield on which to confront the U.S. Few Iraqis support the jihadists’ ideology.

Another enemy of vulnerability is its relatively small geographic base. The vast majority of the attacks against coalition forces in recent months have occurred in Baghdad and in Saddam’s former stronghold north and west of the capital. In large parts of the country, in the north and south, the population is well disposed to the coalition, and those areas are relatively free of such attacks, though there have been horrific bombings in Mosul, Najaf and yesterday in Nasariyah. And I’d like to just take the occasion to express condolences to the Italians who lost 18 of their Carabineri in the attack on Nasariyah yesterday. Our sympathies go to Italy and to the families of those who lost their lives in that attack.

We believe the enemy strategy is to: One, break the coalition’s will through daily attacks on coalition forces; two, target embodiments of success through attacks on infrastructure and police, for example; three, divide and intimidate Iraqis through assassinations of civilians, including attacks on the Governing Council; four, portray the coalition, and especially the United States, as imperialist and exploitative; five, drive out international organizations and non-governmental organizations; and, six, slow down progress toward self-rule in the hope that the coalition will run out of patience and leave.

Coalition forces are taking the initiative to search out the enemy, defeat his efforts, and cut of his bases of support. We are doing this through direct action based on specific intelligence, such as the raid conducted against Uday and Qusay, and the recent raid by the 82nd Airborne, which netted two former Iraqi generals in Fallujah, who are suspected as being key financiers and organizers of anti- coalition activities in the city.

Our forces are innovating at the tactical level. They’re using battlefield surveillance radars to locate mortar positions. They are developing and deploying technical means to deal with roadside bombs. And they are continually developing special convoy security measures. Coalition forces have stepped up efforts to guard the borders, to prevent the infiltration of foreign fighters and terrorists.

Although the coalition is doing a lot, the strategic solution to the security problem in Iraq is to enable Iraqis to provide for their own security. And so the coalition is organizing and equipping Iraqis and putting them in positions of responsibility for their own security. Having more Iraqis active in their security forces will yield several benefits in helping to reach our strategic objectives: Iraqis have more familiarity with the people and terrain; Iraqis can provide better intelligence on the location of terrorists; a leading role for Iraqi security forces will also show that Iraq is on a rapid course to self-rule, and reduce friction between the coalition troops and the population.

More than 100,000 Iraqis are already active in the five security forces – the Police, Border Police, Site Protection Service, Civil Defense Corps of the new Iraqi Army. This number has been growing rapidly. In early September it stood at 62,000. The Iraqi security forces have proven effective in a number of actions. They are taking on an increasing share of the security burden and are suffering casualties.

As I’ve said, we understand how tightly interrelated the governance, economic and security problems are. Therefore, a key element of our security strategy is improving the lives of the Iraqi people and building Iraqi political institutions. Regarding essential services, oil production now exceeds two million barrels a day, and provides revenues for Iraqi salaries and other governmental expenses. Electricity production has attained prewar levels. Iraq’s educational system has been reestablished. There are record 97,000 university- level school applications. Levels of health care comparable to the prewar level have been achieved.

As you know, the Congress has recently appropriated a large sum of money, approximately $20 billion, for Iraqi reconstruction, including the building up of the security forces. But the U.S. isn’t bearing the whole burden. At the recent donor’s conference in Madrid, other countries and international institutions pledged about $13 billion. The major donor countries, aside from the United States, were Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Spain, Italy, Canada, the UAE and South Korea.

As for the building of Iraqi political institutions, the Governing Council has been operating since July, and has appointed interim ministers to run the Iraqi ministries. The Governing Council has won international recognition in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1511, from the General Assembly and the Arab League. In addition to the national level Governing Council, there are more than 250 governing councils at the provincial and municipal levels. These represent important steps toward Iraqi self-rule. An Iraqi runs the central bank and an Iraqi council of judges has been established to supervise the prosecutorial and judicial systems.

As you are aware from recent press reports, we are continuing our efforts to build up the Iraqis’ capability to run their own affairs, and we are working with the Governing Council to help them develop a timeline for drafting a new constitution and holding elections under it, as called for under Resolution 1511. Our guiding principle is that as much authority as possible should be transferred to the Iraqi institutions as soon as possible.

We understand how important it is to communicate effectively with the Iraqi people. Our basic message is two-fold. First, we intend to stay the course, to fulfill our responsibilities and ensure that Iraq is well launched on the path to freedom, security and prosperity. Second, we don’t want to rule Iraq. Nor will we stay any longer than is necessary. Now, we understand that there is some tension between these two messages, but we are conveying both of them, and neither is subordinated to the other.

Although the major combat operations that toppled the Saddam regime were over by May 1, the war to determine the future of Iraq continues. The stakes are large. If Iraq can be launched on the path toward freedom, stability and prosperity, the terrorists will have suffered a major defeat and the people of the Middle East will have an alternative model to follow. Our enemies understand this, and we must expect them to throw all their resources into the fight. This struggle will take time – time to root out enemy fighters and supporters within Iraq, time to gain control of the borders, and most of all time to help the Iraqis rebuild their political and security institutions to the point that they’ll be able to take over the main burden of the fight.

Visitors returning from Iraq commonly comment that what they saw there jibed not at all with the picture of the country that outsiders get from television and newspapers. This is hardly surprising. If all one knew about life in the United States was what one saw on local TV news broadcasts, one would imagine that life in America is nothing but murders, power outages, fires and the like. Because we live here we know that a lot else is going on – business and industrial work, cultural and educational life, politics, government, social activities. There’s a lot going on in Iraq too that doesn’t make the evening news.

From its inception in the days following 9-11, the President and his team have implemented their strategy for the war on terrorism with steadiness, prudence and good results. The plans for our combat and post-combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq get challenged from time to time, as is inevitable and good in a democracy. Though these plans have by and large worked well, we review and revise them continually, as Jerry Bremer’s recent visit to Washington highlights.

Those plans were and are the product of much cooperation across the U.S. government and with key allies. They helped us avert many ills. For example, Iraq has not found itself with masses of internally displaced persons and international refugees, starvation, a collapse of the currency, destruction of the oil fields, the firing of Scud missiles against Israel or Saudi Arabia, or widespread inter-communal violence. There’s value in pausing and reflecting on the anticipated catastrophes that we were spared through a combination of foresight, military skill, and the kind of luck that tends to favor forces that plan and work hard and wisely.

The United States and its coalition partners are on sound courses in Afghanistan and Iraq, though much remains to be done in both places. As long as we are making progress in rebuilding the infrastructure, in allowing normal life to return, and most important in helping the Afghans and Iraqis develop political institutions for the future, we are on the path to success, despite the attacks of the terrorists and former regime supporters.

Staying the course won’t be easy or cheap. We’re reminded of this every time we hear of another attack on U.S. or coalition forces. The President asked Congress to make available the necessary resources, and Congress has done so. To crown our military victories with strategic victories, we will have to succeed in both the civil and the military aspects of our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the global war on terrorism we’re succeeding in our goal. We are defeating terrorism as a threat to our way of life. Our coalitions are on the offensive. The terrorists are on the run. And the United States has preserved our freedom. The world is safer and better for what we have accomplished. Americans have much to be proud of. Thank you. {Applause).

Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, we have some time for questions. I am asked to encourage you when you do ask a question to please stand, state your name and your affiliation, and wait for a microphone.

I’m also encouraged to say that you should please keep your questions concise so that many people can ask a question. And it would be nice of course if you did indeed ask a question.

I am going to take a prerogative that I am allowed to ask Doug the first question, and this is sort of a do as a I say, not as I do, because I’m allowed to ask two questions, but will ask only one, and it may be slightly longer than it would be ideal.

But as I listened, Doug, to the presentation, I don’t think at least I have any difficulty with the diagnosis of the problem that threat facing us is international terrorism. What I have a problem with is the prescription and your linkage of international terror to the war in Iraq. I was trying to think of a metaphor, and I was thinking of a correct diagnosis of the patient has cancer, life- threatening cancer, and you as a doctor find a broken bone, clearly a broken bone, and decide to focus on the bone. Nobody is going to argue here that – I don’t think – that Iraq was broken. There’s a serious problem – horrendous human rights problem, ignoring the United Nations – all the points you made.

But I think the key for a lot of us is do we feel as though your shot selection was good? Do we feel as though we are safer from international terrorism by devoting all these resources to Iraq, by not only devoting these resources but alienating other governments, even friendly governments, in the course of doing this that we clearly need against a systemic problem like Iraq? And then if you look at the case as you made it for weapons of mass destruction, it’s there but it’s strained. It’s okay for chemical weapons it’s okay for biological weapon at the toxin and bacteriological, but not the viral. And the nuclear issue I think is highly strained. There is no connection, I think as has been admitted, to 9/11, itself and the connection you made even now to terrorism could be said of any number of countries. So a question which I am now getting to – {Laughter} is: Can you say more about why, if you have gotten the diagnosis correct, why the application of resources, so massive and so massive yet to come, is to this problem rather than to a more frontal attack on international terrorism?

Feith: As I at least touched on in the remarks, when we looked at the 9/11 attack, and we saw that the terrorists were able to kill 3,000 people, one of the first thoughts that struck us was these are people who are willing, the terrorists, to kill as many people as they possibly can. And if they had access to biological weapons or nuclear weapons they would have been happy to kill 10 times, 100 times, 1,000 times the number of people that they killed in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11th. And so we were focused, as I said on this connection among the terrorist groups, their state sponsors and weapons of mass destruction. And that is I think a proper strategic focus in the global war on terrorism. It is the principal and the largest danger that we face.

And in fighting terrorist organizations one of the most effective approaches is denying them bases of operation and denying them their state support. And we did that in Afghanistan, and we did that with one of the regimes in the world that was a prominent supporter of terrorist organizations and aspired to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. And there is no question they had those programs. The debate right now is over did they actually have stockpiles as opposed to programs for chemical and biological weapons?

When it comes to chemical and biological weapons, if you have the program you have the knowledge, you have the production capability. One can produce militarily significant quantities in very short order. Furthermore, the Saddam Hussein regime had actually used chemical weapons. And so the danger that this regime, which advocated terrorism, supported it, rewarded it, had links with terrorist organizations and had these capabilities, that this regime might, if left alone, get to the point where it would be providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organization was a serious risk and went to what I said was the strategic heart of the problem. And so I think it was – that was the reason that it fitted in, that was I think the motive for taking this action and I think that it was justified. Now, it happens to be, as I explained in my remarks, there are a number of other aspects to the problem, including the fact that the Saddam Hussein regime was one of the worst scofflaw regimes in violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, and a tyranny and a threat to its neighbors, and all those other points I made, which are important. But specifically with regard to your question, I don’t think there is any question that if one had one’s eye on the ball the key strategic issue in the global war on terrorism, this connection that I discussed, that Iraq lived right at that connection.

Moderator: Thank you, Doug. The floor is open. First hand, right there. Please wait for the mike.

Q: Sherman Katz, CSIS (Center for Strategic & International Studies): Regarding the stand-down of the Iraqi Army, I wondered if you would be kind enough to share with us what your thinking was about how that ought to be managed before the fact, and if indeed there are any distinctions what you are thinking is now about how it might have better been handled, if there is any distinction?

Feith: Before the war there was an idea, which Jay Garner talked about in press briefings that he did here in Washington. There was an idea that we could use the Iraqi Army for reconstruction. And the thought was that the Army had organized units, it had people who had various skills it had its own assets for mobility. I mean, there were a lot of reasons why one looking toward reconstruction would say we could make good use of the Army.

What we found however in the war was that the Army in effect disbanded itself and by the time Jerry Bremer was heading off to assume the leadership of the Coalition Provisional Authority, there was no Army left as an organization. The people had dispersed the barracks had been destroyed and stripped of everything in them, the tile taken off the walls. The mobility assets were all gone. The Army was gone. It had, as I said, it had dissolved itself and the decision was made in essence to simply confirm the dissolution of the Army as part of the overall effort of de-Ba’athification, which Ambassador Bremer made as his theme when he arrived in Baghdad. And there are some drawbacks and there were some advantages in that situation. The drawback obviously was that the asset that we thought might be available for reconstruction didn’t exist, so we didn’t have it. The advantage though is that we now have the opportunity to create an Army that is not tainted by the various aspects of rottenness that characterized the old Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein – the corruption, the cruelty, the abuse by the senior officers of the junior people, the lack of professionalism, the politicization. I mean there were major cultural problems and other types of problems in the Iraqi Army. This is not to say that everybody in the Army as an individual was tainted and people in the Army are welcomed to come back and join – and have come back to join various other security forces once they are vetted and it’s determined that they are not part of the previous regime’s crimes. But I think that is the difference that accounts for why we had a certain thought before the war and why we proceeded differently since.

Moderator: Ann?

Q: Thank you. I’m Ann Kahn from American University. If the prewar intelligence on Iraq was so uniform and so consistent in its findings as you’ve stated in your prepared remarks, why was it necessary to set up a special office of strategic planning within the Defense Department, and does that office still exist? And if not, why not?

Feith: I’m delighted that you asked that question.

Moderator: I almost believe that. {Laughter}.

Feith: No, I am, because this is a subject of such thoroughgoing misinformation that it’s nice to have a chance to say something true about it. First of all, the Office of Special Plans that you referred to has nothing really whatsoever to do with intelligence it is one of the regional offices in the policy organization. We have regional offices for Latin America and Africa and Asia. We had – it is the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs. It was created in the fall of 2002 when we had to beef up our staff to handle all of the extra Iraq related work. We needed to increase it by something like 18 people. So we created a new office, and since there was an enormous amount of attention on the Pentagon, on what we were doing and are we planning for war and the creation of a new office that would have been called the Iraq office would have probably in and of itself created headlines. We chose the kind of name that the government gives to offices throughout the government that’s kind of nondescript – you know, "special plans," long-range plans" – that kind of thing and it’s been grist for the conspiracy mongers ever since. But you referred to some intelligence unit, as many press reports did, confuse it with the special plans office. The so-called intelligence unit that was much discussed – it was two people, it was two people who did a project for about – it as not a unit, it was not an office. It was two people. And they did a project for about three months, and then another two people did a follow-on project for about 6 or 7 months.

It’s rather amazing that there have been numerous stories that said this was the Pentagon’s effort to replace the CIA and I can assure you that we do not hold the CIA in such low regard that we think we could replace them with two people. And in fact we think we – what those people did in that so-called intelligence unit that has been written about, was simply help me read and absorb the intelligence produced by the intelligence community, the CIA and other members of the intelligence community. So all I can say is there is, as I said, so much misinformation on this subject that I would urge everybody to treat with great skepticism what you read on that subject.

Moderator: Bob?

Q: Robert Gard. You mentioned in passing missile defense $9.1 billion in the ’04 budget, over $60 billion over the next 7 years. We can detect missile launches with deployed technology. It would appear to me that deterrence ought to work pretty well in this regard.

I was pleased to see you agreed with the President the greatest threat is the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists. Wouldn’t it make sense to divert some of that missile defense money – as large as it is, to doing something about securing the nuclear weapons and materials in the Soviet Union, which could become a Home Depot for terrorists, and beefing up home security to try to prevent the terrorists from being able to smuggle in a weapon of mass destruction?

Feith: You have identified a number of threats. We need to be responsible; we need to address the range of threats that face our country. We don’t have the luxury of simply picking one or two that happen to interest us and investing only in those. There is a problem of, as its called, loose nukes in the former Soviet empire. There is a problem of vulnerability to ballistic missiles there is a problem of terrorist access to chemical, biological, nuclear weapons, all of those things are problems and threats and they all have to be addressed.

Q: Barbara Slavin of USA Today. Yeah. My question is about the current political arrangements in Iraq. Are we willing to contemplate expanding the Governing Council, changing its nature, before a constitution is written? Is this what I’ve been given to understand? And why would any of these changes make any difference to Iraqis? Why would they regard an expanded council as more legitimate while we have tens of thousands of American soldiers there? Thank you.

Feith: This is a subject that is being discussed right now by Ambassador Bremer with the Iraqis. He was here in town the beginning of this week and brought a number of ideas that he had been discussing with the Governing Council and other Iraqis, and those ideas were kicked around over two days in sessions with the President and the National Security Council and Ambassador Bremer is now – I think he already may be back in Iraq or he is on his way – and he is going to be reviewing them with the Iraqis.

The goal of the political work that’s being done in Iraq is creating political institutions that can assume real responsibility, growing responsibility. The Governing Council has accomplished certain things, it needs to accomplish a lot more, and it needs to be doing executive functions, it needs to be organizing the constitutional progress, it needs to be organizing the electoral process. And there are various ideas about how to do that and how to move that forward.

Now your question is to why should that matter for Iraqis? I think the answer is that it does matter for Iraqis. The Iraqis want to run their own country, and we want them to run it, and we want them to run it as soon as possible. Now we are not going to just drop our responsibilities and walk away and just leave a mess. On the other hand, we want to make it clear that we are not looking to stay there any longer than we need to. And our enemies in Iraq use as one of their information operations themes against the coalition the argument that we intend to stay, intend to colonize, intend to run Iraq. It’s not true – and if we can have clear steps toward Iraqi self-rule in the near term, we are helping to negate, to contradict, that line of argument that is an asset for the terrorists and the former regime loyalists in their fight against us in the country. So it has important political and security implications.

Q: I want to follow-up on –

Moderator: – your name please?

Q: Walter Pincus. I’m at the Washington Post.

Moderator: Thank you.

Q: I want to follow up on Bob’s original question about why Iraq? Because if you take all your definitions, and particularly your nexus there are two issues, I agree. One is there is no hint although he had plenty of time that he ever did contemplate giving weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. But the second part is you have North Korea and you have Iran and particularly Iran, which is openly supporting terrorists. I just imagine your nexus is there and why did you choose diplomacy with those two countries, when you had as you said a kind of containment which wasn’t perfect, but it appeared to be working because he wasn’t doing the thing you feared the most and because your own intelligence said he wouldn’t do it unless he was attacked and his back was to the wall?

Feith: First of all, on the issues of Saddam’s intentions. We knew that he had these programs – these weapons of mass destruction, we knew that he had used it. We knew that he had relationships with various terrorist organizations and supported them in various ways, including by the way, in some cases in connection with training and exercising regarding chemical weapons, we had information about that in exchanges between the Saddam Hussein regime and terrorist organizations in that area.

But our information is, as everybody knows, never complete about a subject like that – never perfect, and the idea that we didn’t have, you know specific proof that he was planning to give a biological agent to a terrorist group doesn’t really lead you to anything because you wouldn’t expect to have that information even if it were true. I mean our intelligence is just not – it’s just not at the point where if Saddam had that intention that we would necessarily know it. What we knew were the things I said from which one could infer he had these connections, he supported the terrorist groups, the danger was there. So I think it was, as I said, reasonable to take that threat seriously.

Q: (Inaudible).

Feith: Well, there are other problems in the world. Each problem has its own unique circumstances. I mean, the argument that there are other problems in the world and that becomes an argument for not addressing a particular problem, I don’t quite understand that logic.

Moderator: That’s good. We don’t want to discourage you from diplomacy in the other cases. {Laughter}. Right here.

Q: Katie Jennings, Council on Foreign Relations. Very quickly, I don’t want to be flippant, but we’ve done Afghanistan, we’ve done Iraq, so what’s the next stop on the war on terror and if you have any ideas how were going to pay for it, that would be good too?

Feith: The next steps in the war on terror are going to be continuations of steps that we’ve been taking.

Q: Stop.

Feith: Excuse me?

Q: The next stop, not step.

Feith: The next stop?

Moderator: You mean the next place we go? The stop as in the series of places you go. What’s your next endeavor? {Laughter}.

Feith: You seriously expect an answer to that question? {Laughter}.

Moderator: I do.

Feith: The fact is we are operating in the war on terrorism in numerous countries right now, and we’re going to continue to do so and the operations are in some cases military, in some cases intelligence, and some cases law enforcement. There’s a lot going on in the war on terrorism and its in many countries around the world.

Moderator: The last question will be right there.

Q: Hi, Ira Stoll, from the New York Sun. Do you buy the argument that one of the reasons that the terrorist and people who aren’t terrorists hate America is because of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and that America is allied with Israel in that conflict? And how great a part of the hatred of America do you think that accounts for, if any?

Feith: Don’t know how to measure it, but it’s clearly an element. There are a lot of people who are focused on that conflict and don’t like our policy. But I think that the terrorist phenomenon is considerably bigger and more complex than just the Arab/Israeli conflict. And I think that a large part of what is going on in the world that underlies, that motivates; terrorism is really a clash within the world of Islam between people of a particularly extremist view and school and the people who oppose them. And al-Qaida’s main enemy for years, as one gathered from their public pronouncements, was not Israel or even the United States, but Saudi Arabia and the government of Saudi Arabia.

There is a large fight going on within the world of Islam, and the war on terrorism should not be seen, as I believe, as a war between the United States and Islam. It is largely a war going on within Islam where the United States is allied with the opponents of this extremist view of Islam.

Moderator: Doug, I want to thank you on the behalf of the council and everyone here for not only a very intelligent presentation, solid one, but for being very frank and open in your comments and answers to questions. Thank you very much. {Applause}.

Feith: Thank you.

Courtesy of United States Department of Defense.

Don’t go wobbly, George

August 25, 2003Frank Gaffney, Jr.

(Washington, D.C.): Suddenly, all the “smart people” have an idea for advancing the war on terror while cutting our costs, reducing the burden on over-stretched American forces and affording enhanced legitimacy to our counter-terrorism initiatives: Seek a new UN mandate authorizing an expanded international operation in Iraq.

Notably, this was the theme du jour of the Sunday talk shows, as a gaggle of legislators, retired generals and former officials took turns endorsing such an approach. If only the Bush Administration — and, in particular, Donald Rumsfeld — were not so hung up on the United Nations, the drumbeat went, the U.S. could readily secure heretofore absent international support for the occupation of Iraq. Large numbers of foreign troops would become available, without compromising the principle of unified command. And the American taxpayer could be spared the prospect of being solely responsible for an investment of untold additional billions to try to rebuild Iraq faster than Ba’athist and/or Islamist terrorists can sabotage its infrastructure.

Iraq is No Bosnia

Some of these Sunday morning luminaries cited as evidence of the feasibility of their suggestions a precedent: the UN’s authorization for American-led NATO forces to stabilize post-war Bosnia. There is one significant problem with this analogy, however: Iraq is no Bosnia.

There is, after all, an ongoing war in Iraq, albeit one involving less than “major combat operations.” Unlike Bosnia, what is involved is considerably more than keeping once-warring factions apart and allowing international bureaucrats to perform open-ended nation-building assignments.

Instead, as the past fortnight’s deadly terrorist bombings, infrastructure attacks and serial ambushes of American and British forces make clear, there is an active conflict underway that is taxing the world’s two finest militaries. It is not a place for usually well-meaning, but generally not terribly competent, “blue helmets.”

If there were any doubt about this reality, it should have been vaporized along with the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad. International personnel — be they military or civilian — are going to be treated as fair game by those bent on returning Iraq to one form of despotic rule or another (sectarian or theocratic).

In fact, the only hope the United Nations has of being able to perform its self-assigned humanitarian functions on behalf of the Iraqi people is for the Coalition forces to succeed in defeating the enemies of a Free Iraq. This should motivate the organization’s Secretary General. Kofi Annan, and every member of the Security Council to support America’s efforts to stabilize and secure the country.

With Friends Like These…

Unfortunately, a number of those on the Council — notably, France, Russia and China — and at least some among the UN bureaucracy appear no more interested in seeing the United States succeed in those efforts than are several of Iraq’s neighbors. Coalition officials have charged that Islamists and other terrorists are entering Iraqi territory from Syria (which is, as it happens, currently also a Security Council member), Iran and Saudi Arabia. Presumably, they are being allowed to do so to further these countries’ shared interest in preventing a democratic, peaceable and prosperous pro-Western nation from emerging from the ashes of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.

Even if the UN Security Council were actually able — and willing — to regard Washington’s objectives in Iraq as both compatible with the best interests of the Iraqi people and conducive to those of the larger international community, there is one further reason for not adopting the Bosnia model: The people of Bosnia-Herzegovina seem likely to remain under UN suzerainty for years, if not decades, to come.

The only hope of sparing Iraq a similar fate is by allowing the responsibility for rapidly establishing the institutions and mechanisms for Iraqi self-governance to remain in the hands of an American-led civil administration truly committed to achieving that goal at the earliest possible time.

This is not to say that the United States should go it alone or eschew international help where it can be obtained without compromising the mission or its prospects of early achievement. In fact, the Bush Administration is doing neither; it has already secured the support of dozens of nations and is continuing to enlist more on terms conducive to success.

No U.S. Forces on the West Bank, Gaza Strip

Arguably the most addled advice about military burden-sharing to emanate this week from one of the Sunday morning quarterbacks came from Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He would not only like to see an international mandate for operations in Iraq. He would also like one authorizing the deployment of U.S.-led NATO forces into an environment that would, if anything, likely make the Sunni triangle seem tranquil by comparison: The Senator wants American and other Western military units to be used to separate Israelis from Palestinians and to help subdue the latters’ terrorist factions.

In fairness to Senator Lugar, he is not the first to come up with or to espouse this lousy idea. Still, it should be clear that if the United States is anxious to avoid shouldering more military burdens, particularly in connection with difficult, urban campaigns against Islamist and other foes willing to die in order to kill Americans, there is a better option than the one he proposes. A far more sensible division of labor would be to let the Israelis deal with the Palestinian front in the war on terror than for the U.S. to try to get more help on surely less-than-satisfactory terms in Iraq while strapping on an inherently impossible new task: serving as the protector of Palestinians while conducting military operations against their embedded militants.

The Bottom Line

President Bush has done the American people and the world a great service by re-establishing a principle very nearly obscured by recent practice: The legitimacy of an American foreign policy initiative derives from its justness, wisdom and congressional approval, not from the vagaries of UN Security Council resolutions. Now is no time to go wobbly on that principle.

Wishful thinking about Islamist terror

July 30, 2003Center for Security Policy

(Washington, D.C.): Last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell did it again. He broke sharply with one of the central tenets of the Bush Administration’s war on terrorism described, among other places, in the White House’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism published last February: “We must fight terrorist networks, and all those who support their efforts…using every instrument of national power- diplomatic, economic, law enforcement, financial, information, intelligence, and military.”

On 24 July 2003, however, Secretary Powell struck at the moral clarity, to say nothing of the operational consequences, of that Bush stance when he made the following declaration with respect to the Islamic Resistance Movement — a Palestinian group universally known as Hamas that has been listed for years by Mr. Powell’s own department as a terrorist group: “If an organization that has a terrorist component to it, a terrorist wing to it, totally abandons that, gives it up and there is no question in anyone’s mind that [terrorism] is part of its past, than that is a different organization.”

Powell’s Mideast Follies

Of course, this is hardly the first time that Secretary Powell has opened an ominous breach in the Administration’s ranks. A particularly notorious example was his contention before the invasion of Iraq that U.S. policy requiring “regime change” would be satisfied if only Saddam Hussein’s thug-ocracy gave up its weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Fortunately, this absurd notion did not prevail. Had it done so, the Coalition’s inability to date to seize any of Iraq’s WMD might reasonably have given rise to a demand that the U.S. now reverse the liberation of Iraq and reinstate a “changed” Saddam!

Even though the folly of the get-out-of-jail-free card Mr. Powell once tried to provide the Iraqi dictator is today self-evident, the Secretary has nonetheless made a similar assertion with respect to Hamas: It would be considered “different” if just one troubling aspect of its behavior was altered.

This betrays a fundamental misreading of the character of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Like other Saudi-backed Islamist organizations, Hamas has long used educational, religious, medical and other social-support services to ingratiate itself with local populations and to proselytize a virulent brand of radical Islam most closely associated with the state religion of Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism.

For Hamas, the objective of their humanitarian activities, however, is identical to that of their terrorist cells: the destruction of the “infidel” West’s outrider in the region, Israel, as part of a wider jihad (holy war) against non-believers globally.

Consequently, it is certainly naive, if not downright mendacious, to posit that Hamas would be made into an acceptable, constructive organization were it to get out of the terrorism business. Even if one believed the U.S. government would hold them to such a commitment — and recent experience with the abandonment of presidential preconditions for the creation of a Palestinian state (notably, that a “new” leadership be elected and that it “dismantle” the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure) strongly suggests otherwise — Hamas could not exist as a peaceable “political party.” Except, that is, in the sort of environment it advocates: an Islamic “republic” governed by strict Sharia law.

Unfortunately, in the process of promoting this fiction, the United States is further eroding the already dim prospects for the so-called “Road map” for Mideast peace. If the new Powell doctrine takes root, it must be asked: At what point will Hamas be considered sufficiently “changed” to qualify along with Abbas as a “partner for peace”?

Given that American diplomacy, like water, tends to follow the path of least resistance it seems unlikely that that judgment will await the moment when all terrorism against Israel and its people has halted for a protracted period. More likely it will be deemed “good-enough-for-government-work” if Hamas stops taking credit for terrorist attacks. Or perhaps nothing more will be necessary than has been required of Abu Mazen, and Yasser Arafat before him: ritual and empty renunciations of terror, unaccompanied by concrete and visible steps that will preclude its repetition.

The Bottom Line

A larger worry is what Powell’s gift to Hamas means for other fronts in the war on terror. It comes as official Washington is seized as never before with the problem of Saudi financing and other support to international terrorist organizations, Hamas among them. In fact, on Thursday morning, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee will be taking testimony from a number of U.S. government and other experts about the nature and extent of the Kingdom’s underwriting of those who have killed Americans and/or other Westerners — or who yet hope to do so. The record is expected to reveal that Israeli intelligence believes that 50% of Hamas’ funding comes from Saudi Arabian sources; its U.S. counterparts reportedly judge that to be an underestimate.

When challenged on this score, the Saudis reflexively deny such involvement. On cross-examination, however, their premier spin-meister Adel al-Jubeir has acknowledged Saudi support for Hamas, but only for its “political wing.” Similarly, Saudi-backed front-organizations in the United States — whom some in the Bush Administration have been deluded into thinking will deliver significant Muslim- and Arab-American votes in 2004 — are demanding that not only Hamas, but Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad as well, be removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. Mr. Bush dignified the chairman of one such controversial group, the American Muslim Council, with a meeting during his visit to Michigan last Thursday.

It will be impossible to oppose, let alone to constrict, the flow of funds that the Saudi government and its minions make available under the guise of “charitable” contributions to terrorist organizations if the U.S. government does not hold the line President Bush has properly, clearly and repeatedly enunciated: You are with us or you are with the terrorists.