Mideast News Digest
U.S. Occupation Force in Iraq Is a Disaster; Purges Underway
This week's USA DIGEST reports the beginning of major changes underway in the U.S. imperial plan to occupy Iraq. The deployment of "Viceroy" Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, a hand-picked collaborator of the right-wing Israeli networks in the Pentagon around Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, has been a failure, and Garner has been downgraded from his position as supreme authority in the occupation of Iraq. On May 10, it was reported that Michael Mobbs, another crony of Feith (a second-generation Jabotinskyite, who is often referred to as the Pentagon's resident Likud leader), has been recalled from Iraq. Mobbs, an attorney who served in Feith's law firm, wrote the U.S. government legal position for holding American citizens under arrest as "enemy combatants," denying them Constitutional rights.
Exiled Shi'ite Leader Hakim Returns to Iraq
The leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI), Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, entered Iraq on May 10, and was greeted by thousands of supporters. Hakim was in exile in Iran for 23 years. The SCIRI is the biggest Iraqi Shi'ite group. Hakim will travel to Najaf, the seat of the Shi'a clergy.
Hakim's younger brother, Abdulaziz Hakim, is already in Iraq, and has been representing SCIRI in talks for a new government. Ayatollah Hakim has said he favors a democratically elected government, and does not propose an Iranian-style Islamic republic. He is known to consider religion and politics as one, whereas Shi'ite leader al-Sistani, based in Najaf, as well as former Ayatollah Kho'i (whose son was recently killed as a collaborator), saw a separation between religion and politics. Despite theological differences among these groups, they are united politically, now.
Regional sources confirmed to EIR, that none of the important Shi'ite groups will try to introduce an Islamic government of the Iranian type. Nor do political forces inside Iran itself, propose this for Iraq.
British, Israeli Intel Okayed Entry of Tel Aviv Terrorists
Since the 1970s, Ariel Sharon and the pro-fascist Jabotinskyites in Israel have used "countergang" terrorism to justify political moves to destroy any possibility of peace. In some cases, as in the documented case of Israeli intelligence creating a phony al-Qaeda in the Gaza Strip, the Israelis arm and deploy terrorists directly. In other cases, the security screen is lowered, so that an incident which could be easily stopped, can occur.
On April 30, one day after the historic naming of Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen, exactly such an incident took place, when two British nationals of Pakistani extraction who had been cleared for entry into Israel by the domestic intelligence service Shin Beth (aka Shabak), bombed a jazz club in Tel Aviv. Both allegedly wore suicide vests. Asif Mohammed Hanif killed himself and three Israelis, while his companion, Omar Khan Sharif, escaped when his explosives-packed vest malfunctioned. Both were known to British intelligence, MI5 as hard-line members of the al-Muhajiron, group, reported the London Telegraph, but they were not put under surveillance. The Telegraph stated: "It is not known whether their movements were tracked as they made a series of trips, or whether their identities were passed to intelligence agencies in Israel or America."
The story that MI5 thought they were not dangerous is further exposed as a fairy tale, by the fact that on May 3, British police arrested six family members or friends close to Sharif, for plotting terrorism.
The massive intelligence failure of the Shabak is even more suspicious. According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz last week, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the press that the two terrorists entered Israel via Jordan, crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into the West Bank, and then into Israel. This crossing, as with all crossings, is controlled by the Israeli authorities.
The bomber, Asif Mohammed Hanif, who died in the suicide attack, was born in Bhowanj, Pakistan, a fact clearly stated in his passport, a picture of which was published in the British media. Ha'aretz reports that all Pakistanis and Sudanese, who are considered coming from "enemy states," are forbidden entry into Israel, which is obviously known to all border police.
Ha'aretz's journalist says that he would have published the report that Shabak had given the police the okay to let them in, but was unable to because of a gag order against publishing anything other than government statements.
The second terrorist, who escaped when his bomb failed to detonate, has yet to be foundrather surprising for someone who supposedly was carrying out his first terrorist attack. An Israeli journalist told EIR that the suspect was most likely being held by the police, but the fact is not be released because of the ongoing investigation, or cover-up.
Britain has long been a haven for Islamist terroristswhich Israel and some eight other nations have protested. The British government insists that they are merely respecting "human rights" by allowing political individuals accused of terrorism in various countries to avoid persecution from "repressive regimes" that may be accusing them of crimes. One source close to Ariel Sharon, journalist/spook Uri Dan, says that relations between Britain and Israel have "chilled" since this incident.
IDF Raids Offices of Peace Group; Arrests Leaders
After the Israel Defense Forces killed two peace volunteers for the International Solidarity Movement, and shot at least one other, the IDF raided the offices of the organization, and arrested two of its leadersone American and the other Australianand also seized six computers and numerous documents. The ISM is a pacifist organization whose volunteer members, many of whom are Jewish Americans, act as "human shields," putting themselves between the Israeli Army and Palestinian civilians, trying to warn the IDF that the Palestinians are civilians, and unarmed. Rachel Corrie, the American woman who was deliberately killed by the Israeli military on March 16, was a member. International human-rights organizations denounced the raid, which was conducted as if the ISM were a terrorist organization.
The military surrounded the office, in the West Bank village of Beit Sahour, with 22 Jeeps filled with soldiers, and arrested Christine Razowsky of Chicago, and Miranda Sissons of Australia.
It is a wonder that those arrested were citizens of the "coalition" countries that "liberated Iraq," yet neither country's government has said or done anything to protest attacks on their citizens by a government that acts like a rogue state, and even has weapons of mass destruction that threaten its immediate neighbors.
Jordan Ridicules 'Jordan is Palestine' Campaign by Israeli Rightwing
Jordan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Shaher Bak has dismissed as "ridiculous" efforts by Benny Elon, Israel's ultra-rightwing Minister of Tourism, to block the creation of a Palestinian state west of the River Jordan. Bak told Al Rai, an Arabic daily, that Elon's plan "is ridiculous ... and does not reflect the position of the Israeli government."
Elon began a visit to the United States to lobby against peace negotiations and a Palestinian state. A full analysis and details of the U.S. networks that sponsored his trip appear in this week's INDEPTH Elon favors a vast, internationally financed plan to move the estimated 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to Arab states, such as Jordan, and also provide the option for Israel's 1.1 million Arab citizens to leave. It is an Israeli version of "ethnic cleansing."
But Bak said Elon's plans were merely "ink on paper," that would fail to get the support of the U.S. Administration, adding that it was aimed at "putting obstacles to implementing the road map or finding any solution to the Palestinian cause." Elon is a political ally of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and heads the right-wing Moledet Party faction in the Israeli Knesset. Sharon uses Elon to float policies that he supports, but cannot voice for fear of a U.S. government backlash.
Pentagon Neo-Cons Use Iraqi Embezzler Chalabi To Threaten Jordan
Ahmed Al-Chalabi, the Iraqi emigré who returned to Iraq after an exile of four decades to be installed as the Pentagon- and Israel-lobby-backed ruler of Baghdad, has launched a campaign of threats and blackmail against Jordan's King Abdullah and Jordan as a whole, with the backing of the U.S. Department of Defense leadership, steered by the cabal of Straussian warmongers led by Paul Wolfowitz.
Simultaneous to the deployment of Israeli fascist Benny Elon to Washington to declare "Jordan is Palestine," Chalabi, who was convicted in Jordan of embezzling millions of dollars from the bank he owned in the 1980s, made statements published in Newsweek on May 5, and the New York Times on May 6, that he has gotten hold of "25 tons" or "60 tons" (in two different versions) of Iraqi secret police records which are quite damaging to King Abdullah and other Arab leaders. Recently, top Jordanian officials branded Chalabi a "charlatan," and refused to absolve him of his crimes.
Chalabi's claim to have "damaging" documents of activities during the regime of Saddam Hussein, seems to be a concerted effort to achieve two objectives: destabilize Jordan and overthrow the king in a new "regime change"; and break Iraq's relationship to its Arab and Muslim neighbors, allowing it to become a launching pad for destabilization of other regimes in the region.
Laith Shubeilat, former Jordanian Member of Parliament, wrote an open letter last week warning that some ministers in the government were putting pressure on King Abdullah to sign a royal decree clearing Chalabi and former Jordanian Intelligence Chief Samih Al-Battikhi of charges of their involvement in two separate cases of financial fraud and looting of Jordanian banks. Shubeilat charged that the faction of the "Jordan first" agents inside Jordan are putting this pressure on King Abdullah, which would lead to an acknowledgement of the Chalabi takeover in Iraq. The King rejected this proposal and ridiculed the choice of Chalabi as the future leader of Iraq. Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher made a similar statement last week.
For many observers, Chalabi seems to be a "dead man walking," with his presence in Iraq triggering popular riots against him, and refusals of major Iraqi political organizations to sit down at leadership discussions with him.
Chalabi's boasts about his "tons of documents" from Iraqi secret police were covered on May 5 by Newsweek under the title "Banker, Schmoozer, Spy." He told Newsweek that he and his brothers have been the victims of many conspiracies by Saddam and by Jordan's late King Hussein. On May 6, the New York Times also aired Chalabi's claims and threats. Chalabi has been inside the Wolfowitz circle for about 30 years, since he was trained by Wolfowitz's mentor, Albert Wohlstetter.
A Country Without a Government; an Oil Minister Without Oil
Occupied Iraq does not have a government but it has an "Oil Minister"Thamer Abbas Ghadbanreported the Washington Post on May 6. But Ghadban will not say just who appointed him. Ghadban was apparently working in Iraq's state-owned oil industry at the time of the invasion, and will be advised by a committee headed by Philip Carroll, a former head of Royal Dutch Shell in the United States.
"Our target is to go up to 1.5 million barrels a day within weeks," said Ghadban. "That level," says the Post, "would produce surplus for exportsomething Iraq cannot do until United Nations sanctions are lifted and a new Iraqi government is in place, allowing oil to be sold with a clear title."
However, well-placed sources in the Persian Gulf have told EIR that the extent of the oil-industry disaster is being covered up, because it would further prove that the "victory" in Iraq has been a humanitarian nightmare for the Iraqi people, and a financial "black hole" for the United States. Under the utopian plans drawn up by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney, and the Wolfowitz cabal, the super-production of Iraqi oil was to have paid for the entire war. Instead, say EIR's sources, the oil production is at only 20% of pre-war levels, and the population is so destitute that the U.S. military is siphoning off its own supplies of cooking fuel and gasoline to Iraqis in the hope of stopping more riots from breaking out, and in an attempt to get Iraqis to go to work.
Mitzna Quit Labor Chairmanship To Change Israeli Politics
Israeli Labor Party chairman Amram Mitzna resigned his post last week, in order to keep his promisethat he would "change Israeli politics and move to peace," according to one of his close associates. Mitzna, the popular former Mayor of Haifa, but an "outsider" to Labor's ruling clique, had won a landslide 65% in the Labor Party primary election in November 2002 against strong opposition from Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who has served as the Defense Minister for Ariel Sharon's bloody assault on the Palestinians.
A Mitzna supporter told EIR, "I was disappointed and even angry when I first heard Mitzna had resigned, but after speaking with him and others, it became clear that it was the only honest action to take." The source reported that Mitzna said the senior leadership, who control the Labor Party machinery, worked against him, despite the fact that he had the support of 65% of the party base. The major battle, from November 2002 to January 2003, according to this source, was the insistence of former Labor Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Ben-Eliezer that Labor offer a "unity coalition" with Sharon, thereby providing his government a fig leaf to cover up the continuing policy of murder and expulsion of Palestinians.
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