The Koran story is a new wedge in the culture wars between left and right. Washington Post - The bashing of Newsweek over its horribly handled item on Koran desecration has mushroomed into a sweeping indictment of the media, which some conservatives now accuse of deliberately slandering the military.

The Koran story is a new wedge in the culture wars between left and right. (By Arko Datta – Reuters)

Newsweek “wanted the story to be true,” says Rush Limbaugh, because the media “have an adversarial relationship with America” and “end up siding with the bad guys.” Some news outlets “magnify every mistake the military makes in order to hammer the Bush administration,” says Bill O’Reilly.The Wall Street Journal editorial page blames “a basic media mistrust of the military that goes back to Vietnam.” Columnist Jonah Goldberg decries “the media’s unreflective willingness to undermine the war on terror.”

Is any of this true? Or has Newsweek’s retracted story simply handed the right a new club with which to beat journalists? Torie Clarke, who was the Pentagon’s top spokeswoman during the Iraq war, says: “My gut tells me it’s just another element in the general dislike of the mainstream news media that some conservatives have. I don’t think the theory that there’s an anti-military bias holds up on the whole.” If anything, Clarke says, “there is a greater appreciation and respect for what the military does than 10 or 15 years ago” – thanks in part to the embedding program she pushed in Iraq.National Review Editor Rich Lowry strongly disagrees, saying there is a “media culture, set during Vietnam,” aimed at “exposing wrongdoing and failures of the U.S. military. Instead of tending to give the military the benefit of the doubt, there’s a tendency to believe the worst.”

Michael Isikoff, the primary author of the Newsweek item, “reflected that culture,” Lowry says. “That doesn’t mean Mike has anything personal against the military, and it doesn’t mean he’s not in most circumstances a great reporter. But especially after Abu Ghraib, everyone in the media is panting after every possible prison abuse.” Isikoff was a hero to many on the right when he was breaking stories about Bill Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But when he reported that military investigators had confirmed that a U.S. interrogator at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet – based on an unnamed source who later backed off the account – he became a piñata for conservative critics. (Some, including Pat Buchanan, say Newsweek shouldn’t have run the item, even if true, because it is too “inflammatory.”)

There is little dispute that Newsweek (which is owned by The Washington Post Co.) tarnished its reputation by basing such an explosive story on a single source who, as it turns out, wasn’t sure he had seen the allegation in a forthcoming military report. The magazine’s two top editors, who never saw the final version of the brief “Periscope” item, clearly failed to consider the possible consequences and were stunned by the rioting in Afghanistan and elsewhere, which claimed 16 lives. Some analysts see parallels between the Newsweek debacle and Dan Rather’s “60 Minutes Wednesday” story on President Bush’s National Guard service, in that both took on the administration, both should have been held for further checking and both relied on unnamed sources. But while CBS’s source turned out to be an anti-Bush zealot, Newsweek says Isikoff spoke to a senior government official who had been reliable in the past. And while CBS defended the Guard report for 12 days, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker apologized and said the story was wrong in just over a day.

That hasn’t stopped White House, Pentagon and State Department officials from denouncing Newsweek. But presidential spokesman Scott McClellan’s insistence that the magazine “help repair the damage” in the Muslim world has triggered a backlash on the left.”Now it’s Newsweek’s job to repair the image of the U.S.?” scoffs liberal radio host Stephanie Miller. “It’s amazing they want Newsweek to take accountability when no one in the administration has taken accountability for either the unnecessary war or Abu Ghraib. “This is part of the chilling effect the administration wants to have on the media, an attempt to shut down any further investigative reporting. Most of the media is so scared they’ll do anything not to appear liberal.” One other parallel: Some people believe that the Koran desecration, as alleged by a number of detainees, is “likely true,” as Miller put it, just as former CBS producer Mary Mapes says the botched National Guard story is still true. The appalling abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib certainly makes the Koran incident seem plausible. But as CBS and now Newsweek have learned, believing something could well be true is a long way from journalistically proving it.

Newsweek – A Letter to Our Readers – May 30 Issue

Newsweek – In the week since our Periscope item about alleged abuse of the Qur’an at Guantanamo Bay became a heated topic of national conversation, it will come as no surprise to you that we have been engaged in a great deal of soul-searching and reflection. Since cutting short a trip to Asia on the weekend we published our account of how we reported the story, I have had long talks with our Editor Mark Whitaker, Managing Editor Jon Meacham and other key staff members, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you and to affirm—and reaffirm—some important principles that will guide our news gathering in the future. As most of you know, we have unequivocally retracted our story. In the light of the Pentagon’s denials and our source’s changing position on the allegation, the only responsible course was to say that we no longer stand by our story.

We have also offered a sincere apology to our readers and especially to anyone affected by violence that may have been related to what we published. To the extent that our story played a role in contributing to such violence, we are deeply sorry. Let me assure both our readers and our staffers that NEWSWEEK remains every bit as committed to honest, independent and accurate reporting as we always have been. In this case, however, we got an important story wrong, and honor requires us to admit our mistake and redouble our efforts to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.

One of the frustrating aspects of our initial inquiry is that we seem to have taken so many appropriate steps in reporting the Guantanamo story. On the basis of what we know now, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that our people acted unethically or unprofessionally. Veteran reporter Michael Isikoff relied on a well-placed and historically reliable government source. We sought comment from one military spokesman (he declined) and provided the entire story to a senior Defense Department official, who disputed one assertion (which we changed) and said nothing about the charge of abusing the Qur’an. Had he objected to the allegations, I am confident that we would have at the very least revised the item, but we mistakenly took the official’s silence for confirmation. It now seems clear that we didn’t know enough or do enough before publication, and if our traditional procedures did not prevent the mistake, then it is time to clarify and strengthen a number of our policies.

In the weeks to come we will be reviewing ways to improve our news-gathering processes overall. But after consultations with Mark Whitaker and Jon Meacham, we are taking the following steps now:

We will raise the standards for the use of anonymous sources throughout the magazine. Historically, unnamed sources have helped to break or advance stories of great national importance, but overuse can lead to distrust among readers and carelessness among journalists. As always, the burden of proof should lie with the reporters and their editors to show why a promise of anonymity serves the reader. From now on, only the editor or the managing editor, or other top editors they specifically appoint, will have the authority to sign off on the use of an anonymous source. We will step up our commitment to help the reader understand the nature of a confidential source’s access to information and his or her reasons for demanding anonymity. As they often are now, the name and position of such a source will be shared upon request with a designated top editor. Our goal is to ensure that we have properly assessed, on a confidential basis, the source’s credibility and motives before publishing and to make sure that we characterize the source appropriately. The cryptic phrase “sources said” will never again be the sole attribution for a story in NEWSWEEK.

When information provided by a source wishing to remain anonymous is essential to a sensitive story—alleging misconduct or reflecting a highly contentious point of view, for example—we pledge a renewed effort to seek a second independent source or other corroborating evidence. When the pursuit of the public interest requires the use of a single confidential source in such a story, we will attempt to provide the comment and the context to the subject of the story in advance of publication for confirmation, denial or correction. Tacit affirmation, by anyone, no matter how highly placed or apparently knowledgeable, will not qualify as a secondary source.

These guidelines on sourcing are clearly related to the Guantanamo story, but this is also a good time to reaffirm several larger principles that guide us as well. We will remain vigilant about making sure that sensitive issues receive the discussion and reflection they deserve. While there will always be the impulse to get an exclusive story into the magazine quickly, we will continue to value accuracy above all else. We are committed to holding stories for as long as necessary in order to be confident of the facts. If that puts us at a competitive disadvantage on any particular story, so be it. The reward, in accuracy and public trust, is more than worth the price. Finally, when we make a mistake—as institutions and individuals inevitably do—we will confront it, correct it quickly and learn from the experience.

I have had the privilege of being part of NEWSWEEK’s proud editorial tradition for nearly 35 years. I can assure you that the talented and honorable people who publish NEWSWEEK today are dedicated to making sure that what appears on every page in the magazine is as fair and accurate as it can possibly be. Based on what we know now, we fell short in our story about Guantanamo Bay. Trust is hard won and easily lost, and to our readers, we pledge to earn their renewed confidence by producing the best possible magazine each and every week. Richard M. Smith – Chairman and Editor-in-Chief

White House – Newsweek-Washington Post Deal on Koran Story

AOReport – Word has it that the Bush White House put Newsweek and Washington Post executives through the wringer over the Newsweek article which referenced American torture of Muslims at Guantanamo to include flushing the Koran down the toilet. That article sparked riots and bloodshed across the Muslim world. Sensing that the Muslim world was ready to declare a ‘holy war’ on America (something that Team-Bush does not want nor need – but the Illuminati wants) the upper ranking Bush administration officials held a private meeting with the hierarchy of the magazine-newspaper. The news executives, allegedly, were given in no uncertain terms no other option but to retract their story. The implications of such a failure might include criminal charges of “high treason” thanks to the new Patriot Act 2 legislation. None of these editors cared for the idea of swinging from the end of a rope (as opposed to the more humane ‘lethal-injection’. Also there are reports that in exchange for not being prosecuted for treason (implied but not stated) there would be a reward – the opportunity to get a huge scoop on a huge breaking story to take place this summer – likely in June, perhaps? Now, what could that be, what could that be? Hmmm. Could it be – attacking Satan, err we mean, Iran? We’ll have to stay tuned.

Clerics threaten holy war over alleged Quran desecrations –May 11, 2005

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (CNN) – A group of Afghan Muslim clerics have threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran.

The warning on Sunday came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-U.S. protests across the country since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted U.S. President George W. Bush to handle the matter honestly “and hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment.” “If that does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America,” said a statement issued by about 300 clerics, referring to Muslim holy war, after meeting in the main mosque in the provincial capital, Faizabad.

The statement was read out by Abdul Fatah Fayeq, the top judicial official in the mountainous, conservative province near the borders of Tajikistan and China.

Muslim clerics have traditionally been teachers and leaders in Afghan society and throughout its history they have rallied public opinion and sometimes led uprisings against unpopular rulers and foreign occupiers.

Newsweek magazine said in its May 9 edition investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay found that interrogators “had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet.” Muslims consider the Quran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.

The United States has tried to calm global Muslim outrage over the incident, saying disrespect for the Quran was abhorrent and would not be tolerated, and military authorities were investigating the allegation.

Growing protests

Another group of clerics in the north demanded punishment for those responsible for desecrating the Quran but did not call for holy war, the governor of Kunduz province said. The protests began in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Tuesday. Violence broke out there on Wednesday and there were clashes in several other places on Thursday and Friday. Scattered protests on Saturday were mostly peaceful, while on Sunday no demonstrations were reported. While some Afghan analysts say Muslim rage over the desecration report sparked the protests, not hatred of America, there is growing resentment of U.S. troops, especially in southeastern areas where they are most active. The United States commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting militant leaders, including bin Laden.

President Hamid Karzai, a staunch U.S. ally, has urged the United States to punish anyone found guilty of desecrating the Quran. He said foreign hands were behind the disturbances, but did not identify them. The anti-U.S. protesters have also criticized Karzai and his U.S.-backed government, attacking and torching provincial offices and police stations as well as U.N. and aid agency compounds.

In 31,000 documents the Pentagon has reviewed, there are allegations—but Defense says none is substantiated. – May 20, 2005

A protest in Pakistan on May 20 MSNBC - May 30 issue – What really happened at Guantanamo? Last week, amid the heat of the controversy over NEWSWEEK’s retracted story, new details about the issue of alleged mistreatment of the Qur’an emerged. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it had provided the Pentagon with confidential reports about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Qur’ans at Gitmo in 2002 and 2003. Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman, said the Red Cross had provided “several” instances that it believed were “credible.” The ICRC report included three specific allegations of offensive treatment of the Qur’an by guards. Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita would not comment on these allegations except to say that the Gitmo commanders routinely followed up ICRC reports, including these, and could not substantiate them. He then gave what is from the Defense Department point of view more context and important new information.

It is clear that in 2002, military investigators became frustrated by the unresponsiveness of some high-profile terror suspects, including one who had close contact with the 9/11 hijackers. At the time, fears of another attack from Al Qaeda were running high, and the Pentagon was determined to make the terror suspects talk. The interrogators asked for, and received, Pentagon permission to use tactics like isolation and sleep deprivation. Less clear, however, is what happened to more run-of-the-mill detainees among the 800 or so housed at Guantanamo at the time.

According to Di Rita, when the first prisons were built for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo in early 2002, prison guards were instructed to respect the detainees’ religious rituals. The prisoners were given Qur’ans, which they hung from the walls of their cells in cotton surgical masks provided by the prison. Log entries by the guards indicate that in about a dozen cases, the detainees themselves somehow damaged their Qur’ans. In one case a prisoner allegedly ripped up a Qur’an; in another a prisoner tore the cover off his Qur’an. In three cases, detainees tried to stuff pages from their Qur’ans down their toilets, according to the Defense Department’s account of what is in the guards’ reports. (NEWSWEEK was not permitted to see the log items.) The log entries do not indicate why the detainees might have done this, said Di Rita, and prison commanders concluded that certain hard-core prisoners would try to agitate the other detainees by alleging disrespect for Muslim articles of faith.

In light of the controversy, one of these incidents bears special notice. Last week, NEWSWEEK interviewed Command Sgt. John VanNatta, who served as the prison’s warden from October 2002 to the fall of 2003. VanNatta recounted that in 2002, the inmates suddenly started yelling that the guards had thrown a Qur’an on or near an Asian-style squat toilet. The guards found an inmate who admitted that he had dropped his Qur’an near his toilet. According to VanNatta, the inmate then was taken cell to cell to explain this to other detainees to quell the unrest. But the incident could partly account for the multiple allegations among detainees, including one by a released British detainee in a lawsuit that claims that guards flushed Qur’ans down toilets.

In fewer than a dozen log entries from the 31,000 documents reviewed so far, said Di Rita, there is a mention of detainees’ complaining that guards or interrogators mishandled their Qur’ans. In one case, a female guard allegedly knocked a Qur’an from its pouch onto the detainee’s bed. In another alleged case, said Di Rita, detainees became upset after two MPs, looking for contraband, felt the pouch containing a prisoner’s Qur’an. While questioning a detainee, an interrogator allegedly put a Qur’an on top of a TV set, took it off when the detainee complained, then put it back on. In another alleged instance, guards somehow sprayed water on a detainee’s Qur’an. This handful of alleged cases came out of thousands of daily interactions between guards and prisoners, said Di Rita. None has been substantiated yet, he said.

In December 2002, a guard inadvertently knocked a Qur’an from its pouch onto the floor of a detainee’s cell, Di Rita said. A number of detainees protested. That January, partly in response to the incident and partly to provide precise guidelines for new guards and interrogators, the Guantanamo commanders issued precise rules to respect the “cultural dignity of the Koran thereby reducing the friction over the searching of the Korans.” Only chaplains or Muslim interpreters were allowed to inspect detainees’ Qur’ans. “Two hands will be used at all times when handling Korans in a manner signaling respect and reverence,” the rules state. “Ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas...”

Di Rita said that the Pentagon may look further into the reports found in the logs. The Pentagon is not ruling out the possibility of finding credible reports of Qur’an desecration. But so far, said Di Rita, it has not found any.

Saudis Do Destroy Bibles, Think Tank Affirms – May 23, 2005
CNS News – A U.S.-based think tank critical of the Saudi government has added its voice to allegations that authorities in the kingdom routinely destroy Bibles. “As a matter of official policy, the government either incinerates or dumps Bibles, crosses and other Christian paraphernalia,” the Saudi Institute said in an article posted on its website.”Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Koran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia, and is confiscated and destroyed by government officials,” it said.

Last week a Christian pastor who worked in Saudi Arabia during the 1990s told Cybercast News Service it was widely known among underground Christians there that Bibles were confiscated – and sometimes shredded – by Saudi customs officials at ports of entry. The Saudi Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to emailed queries about its policies regarding the Bibles and the shredding allegations.

Saudi Arabia was one of the first governments to protest after Newsweek reported earlier this month that U.S. troops had thrown a Koran into a toilet to fluster Muslim terror suspects being detained by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. A statement issued on May 12 said the Saudi government was “following with great concern and apprehension reports that the sanctity of the Holy Koran has been violated on several occasions at Guantanamo Bay.”Following rioting in Afghanistan and protests elsewhere in the Muslim world, Newsweek retracted the report. It said its unnamed government source was no longer certain about his original claim that he saw the Koran flushing mentioned in a military report of abuse at the base.

Home to Islam’s two most revered sites, in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia views itself as guardian of the religion. The kingdom is committed to the fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology, and non-Wahhabi Muslim traditions are frowned upon. Human rights campaigners name Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s most egregious violators of religious freedom. In another article posted on its site – and published as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Friday – Saudi Institute director Ali Al-Ahmed wrote of his fellow Saudis: “As Muslims, we have not been as generous as our Christian and Jewish counterparts in respecting others’ holy books and religious symbols. “Saudi Arabia bans the importation or the display of crosses, Stars of David or any other religious symbols not approved by the Wahhabi establishment,” he continued. “TV programs that show Christian clergymen, crosses or Stars of David are censored.”

Based in Washington, the Saudi Institute describes itself as an independent organization that provides information relating to “terrorism, democracy, human rights, charitable organizations, religious freedom and the House of Saud.” Wire services reported Saturday that 18 Saudi Muslim scholars have demanded that “those involved in the alleged desecration of the Koran at the U.S. detention facility of Guantanamo Bay be tried by an Islamic court.”

Chip Implanting – The Taking of Free Will – May 4, 2005

Rense - In October, 2004, the FDA approved an implantable microchip for use in humans. A tiny subcutaneous RFID tag, now made by several American companies like Applied Digital Solutions, VeriChip, and Digital Angel are mass-producing RFID chips and stocking chip warehouses and implantation centers. Upper level governmental officials are getting “chipped” to demonstrate public acceptance of the technology, and they are very quick to highlight the humanitarian uses of tracking devices in humans.

Children and pets should be chipped in case they get lost. Chipping children will help to locate kidnapped kids. Chipping senior citizens gives hospitals immediate access to their medical records. Many millionaires and their children are chipping themselves for security reasons. Large herds of cattle and sheep are implanted to assist ranchers and farmers with efficient tracking. Security, medical and emergency applications seem to be call of the corporations and their government backers when it comes to the new branding technologies, but for American citizens it is, first and foremost, an outrage, unthinkable, immoral, and for many it is demonic.

RFID technology is everywhere. It’s in the cars that we drive, in the products sold at Wal-Mart, in our cell phones, and in many other applications, but the Digital Angel Chip takes implementation technology to a whole new level of abuse. Digital Angel combined advanced biosensor technology and Web-enabled wireless telecommunications that are linked to Global Positioning Systems. The chip, utilizing advanced biosensor capabilities, can monitor body functions and transmit that data anywhere in the world while giving out accurate location information to a ground station or monitoring facility. If that is not the death of privacy, what is? If corporations can monitor our body functions and our locations, twenty-four hours a day and year after year, then what is privacy?

Now let’s add to the Verichips the other biometric technologies which identify humans by unique biological or physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, voiceprints, retina characteristics, and face recognition points – all this multi-billion dollar technology to safeguard millionaires, to track lost children and pets, to track child molesters, and to help seniors? If you believe that, then I’ve got some wetland to sell you in a Biosphere Reserve – Always remember this – RFID technology was created and tested prior to 9-11, and 9-11 has been the primary excuse for human tracking. And laughingly, so has illegal immigration, which clearly is not illegal as our borders are to remain open.

It is time for all American citizens to stop with the naivety. It is time to recognize a government that is deviously linked to and in bed with corporations who intend to rule over all human beings. And please remember that social security cards were never meant to be mandatory. Nor were driver’s licenses or bankcards, but try getting by one day without them. Banking is slated to become a totally RFID operation with chips implanted into the hands of those with bank accounts. Try getting by without a bank account when you send your bill payments to account centers across the country. And also keep in mind that the U.S. postal service is also in the process of RFID Smart-Mail tracking.

The writing is on the wall – again – and the writing clearly states that our government does not serve the well being of its citizens, but rather the intentions of corporations, databases, and law enforcement. Equally, our schools have partnered with RFID corporations as many school children now wear mandatory RFID tags in schools. Remember that schools are government institutions, so requiring students to wear tracking devices is a governmental mandate. Will this technology be mandated for right our right to drive? For our right to buy and sell? For our right to receive medical treatment? For our right to travel? For our Right to buy gasoline? Take a wild guess.

And gun owners – heads up! On April 13, 2004, Applied Digital Solutions announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, VeriChip Corporation, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with FN Manufacturing, a leading gun manufacturer, to develop a first in the world of firearms. Their objective is an integrated” User Authorization System” for firearms using VeriChip RFID technology. You shall be chipped in order to keep and bear. You had to know that was coming considering the 30-year, non-stop efforts to deny you of your 2^nd Amendment rights. (A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.)

Little known is also the global aspect of RFID chipping technology and efforts. Mexico is on a mission to chip all children due to a high rate of kidnappings. Subdermal personal verification technology is being used in Russia, Switzerland, China, Ecuador, Italy, Spain, Argentine, Canada, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Germany, England, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Africa, South Korea, on and on and on.

RFID and chipping industries include banks, gas stations, hospitals, social security numbers and drivers’ licenses, passports, schools, military including our soldiers and our enemies, automobiles, telephones and cell phones, televisions, computer systems, prisons, schools, pre-schools, government, all work places and corporations, bars, restaurants, country clubs and other private clubs – or, in other words, it’s everywhere, but like all the other global infrastructures that were slid beneath us by our government and its corporations, RFID technology and human chipping is mostly blacked-out via media so that we do not know their truth and the horrible extent of that truth.

I beg of you, my dear American people, do not spend one more day ignoring what you know to be true. America is being conquered from within, as so many have said would, in fact, occur. Can you not see that there is a mad rush to implement the final structures necessary to recreate America, our beliefs and values, our Constitutional Rights, and to take every ounce of our privacy? Connect all the dots you see in America – all the changes and daily dismissal of our voting rights under Memorandums of Understanding, NGOs, stakeholding groups, councils, and other consensus operations.

Besides our lives, perhaps the most important gift from our Maker is the gift of free will, for without it we are unable to pass life’s tests. Without free will, we are nothing more than robotic creatures that must respond as mandated by enslavers and their technologies. If we become implanted people, we are enslaved people – mind, body, and soul. You cannot take free will from people and call it progress, science, or protection. You can only call it anti-God, which is, of course, the ultimate goal.

Delta Warns of Substantial Losses for Year - May 12, 2005

ATLANTA – Delta Air Lines Inc. warned Tuesday that it will record a substantial loss for the remainder of the year, and said it will need to file for bankruptcy if its cash reserves fall too low or some of its lenders demand immediate payment of its debts. Shares of the nation’s third-largest airline sank more than 11 percent in early trading to their lowest level in nearly seven months.

GM In Free Fall To Bankruptcy - LaRouche – Move Fast To Save Auto Industry – May 12, 2005

Rense - A late-February forecast of debt blowout in the American auto sector, clearly announced by Lyndon LaRouche when all “accredited” economists were proclaiming an accelerating U.S. economic recovery, was confirmed in the first week of May. It became evident then that General Motors, if not also Ford Motor Co., and scores of their supplier companies, are mudsliding faster and faster towards bankruptcy and dismemberment of the most important machine-tool and related industrial capabilities remaining in the American economy.

LaRouche, on Feb. 27, had pointed to large volumes of short-term debt payments piling up on GM and Ford’s doorsteps this year, while they made the problem rapidly worse by large money-losing “incentives,” attempting to keep autos moving to buyers whose falling real incomes meant that they could no longer afford them. On March 3, LaRouche asked publicly: “When will GM and GMAC go? Who will refinance this bubble, this debt swindle?”

A series of shocks on May 2-5-GM’s and Ford’s fourth straight month of plunging sales; GM’s loss of access to unsecured credit; corporate vulture Kirk Kerkorian’s circling of the company; and then the unprecedented dumping of Ford and GM’s debt (combined, $453 billion) into junk-bond status on May 5-called LaRouche’s question. He had warned that the auto giants’ desperately incentivized credit and price practices had created a bubble of unsecured and unpayable debt, sitting alongside the U.S. housing debt bubble, ready to burst. (More)

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US real wages fall at fastest rate in 14 years – May 11, 2005
Real wages in the US are falling at their fastest rate in 14 years, according to data surveyed by the Financial Times.

Inflation rose 3.1 per cent in the year to March but salaries climbed just 2.4 per cent, according to the Employment Cost Index. In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent.

U.S. Welcomes Opening of Oil Pipeline – May 28, 2005

WASHINGTON (MTVMSNBC) - Calling it a magnificent engineering achievement, the State Department warmly welcomed on Wednesday the official opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, linking the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. Spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States has long supported the project and noted that initially it will provide a million barrels a day for world markets. "The BTC pipeline will reinforce the sovereignty and prosperity of Azerbaijan and Georgia," Boucher said. It will further integrate Azerbaijan and Georgia into the international free market economy and promote their development, he added.

The project also will advance the goal of developing multiple oil and gas export routes.

In addition, it will enhance Turkey's "emerging role as an energy transportation hub and help reduce oil tanker traffic congestion in the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits," Boucher said. U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman attended the opening ceremony in Azerbaijan and read a message from President George W. Bush.

The United States supported the project because it diversifies world energy suplies and over the long run may reduce U.S. dependence on oil supplies from the Gulf.

The Caspian Sea basin contains 80 billion barrels of oil, nearly 8 percent of the world's remaining reserves.

Pirates Reprise - May 23, 2005

Financial Sense - Economic history has apparently been rewritten folks. The inconsistencies and conflicting data being fed to us by officialdom are brazenly astonishing. In the month of Jan. 05 alone, Japan’s holdings of US securities have been retro altered to the tune of over 20 billion, China’s by close to 30 billion and the United Kingdom’s by more than 60 billion. Can any of us really believe anything these folks have to say? Imagine, a restatement of this magnitude without as much as an explanatory footnote or a press release? Somehow, none of this is even deemed to be newsworthy? What’s beginning to scare me; if the US Treasury tells us the world is flat – what happens to the South Pole?

On Monday morning, May 16, 2005 at 11:40 am. I listened to CNBC reporter, Rick Santelli, reporting from the Chicago Board of Trade. He made the claim that this latest [March] ‘anemic’ TIC data does not really matter. He went on to claim that foreigners continue to have strong demand for American debt – so much so claimed Rick, “that they’re even talking about bringing back the 30 yr. bond”. Well, I see things differently. His claims that this data deserves little to no scrutiny are misleading. His candy coated assessment is tantamount to treasonous fraud being perpetrated on those that rely on CNBC for accurate and timely financial reporting.

Clearly, America’s two major financiers – Japan and China – have completely stopped accumulating American debt. In fact, the data suggests that they have been completely absent from the bidding process at the debt auctions over the last 3 months. If you go back and look at the Treasury auctions in March [where a lot of the latest TIC data is drawn from] you will see that the Fed proudly announced robust bid to cover ratios on their debt auctions [2Yr. on Mar. 30, 10yr. Mar. 10, 5yr. Mar. 9]. – yet the latest TIC data suggest that both China and Japan were not even at the table?

The proposition that hedge funds ‘slipped in’ and completely replaced the machinations in the auction process of both the central banks of China and Japan is completely and utterly preposterous. With each successive release of TIC data, it’s becoming clearer that traditional buyers of US debt are not and have not been in the picture for a few months – this is reality – according to the Fed and Treasury’s own numbers. This is news.

This is deadly serious and has extremely dire implications for each and every American citizen – no – how about each and every person in the industrialized Western World? Remember, folks, the American Dollar currently still enjoys global reserve currency status. This is a privilege – not a god given right. As such, the dollar’s fate is of grave and utmost concern to many beyond US borders. I do not understand how a “press” that claims to be the freest in the world can remain stone silent on this issue. Don’t you think we all deserve better?

Does anyone really believe that ignoring this issue and failing to report it altogether will alter the stark, dark and disturbing reality outlined in the Treasury’s own published numbers? Better put your mitts on folks – and get in the game. In absence of an explanation to the contrary, it sure looks like somebody’s monetizing debt and printing money – and lots of it. The silence on the part of officialdom on this issue is truly deafening. Remember folks, the shenanigans outlined above are all brought to us by the same swashbuckling clowns who claim the economy is doing fine, there are lots of jobs, are adamant that the gold market is not rigged and oh, yes, they perpetually remind us that inflation is a non issue too. What a mess.

Coming Sooner Than You Think The Economic Tsunami - May 18, 2005

Counter Punch - “If the world’s central bankers accumulate fewer dollars, the result would be an unrelenting American need to borrow in the face of an ever weaker dollar – a recipe for higher interest rates and higher prices. The economic repercussions could unfold gradually, resulting in a long, slow decline in living standards. Or there could be a quick unraveling, with the hallmarks of an uncontrolled fiscal crisis.” It seems that there are a growing number of people who believe as I do, that the economic tsunami planned by the Bush administration is probably only months away.

In just 5 short years the national debt has increased by nearly 3 trillion dollars while the dollar has continued its predictable decline. The dollar has fallen a whopping 38% since Bush took office, due largely to the massive $450 billion per year tax cuts. At the same time, numerous laws have been passed (Patriot Act, Intelligence Reform Bill, Homeland Security Bill, National ID, Passport requirements etc) anticipating the need for greater repression when the economy takes its inevitable nosedive. Regrettably, that nosedive looks to be coming sooner rather than later.

The administration is currently putting as much pressure as possible on OPEC to ratchet up the flow of oil another 1 million barrels per day (well over capacity) to settle down nervous markets and buy time for the planned bombing of Iran in June. Like Fed Chief Alan Greenspan’s artificially low interest rates, the manipulation of oil production is a way of concealing how dire the situation really is. Rising prices at the pump signal an upcoming recession, (depression?) so the administration is pulling out all the stops to meet the short term demand and maintain the illusion that things are still okay.

(Bush would rather avoid massive popular unrest until his battle-plans for Iran are carried out) But, of course, things are not okay. The country has been intentionally plundered and will eventually wind up in the hands of its creditors as Bush and his lieutenants planned from the very beginning. Those who don’t believe this should note the methodical way that the deficits have been produced at (around) $450 billion per year; a systematic and orderly siphoning off of the nation’s future. The value of the dollar and the increasing national debt follow exactly the same (deliberate) downward trajectory.

This same Ponzi scheme has been carried out repeatedly by the IMF and World Bank throughout the world; Argentina being the last dramatic illustration. (Argentina’s economic collapse occurred when its trade deficit was running at 4%; right now ours is at an unprecedented 6%.) Bankruptcy is a fairly straight forward way of delivering valuable public assets and resources to collaborative industries, and of annihilating national sovereignty. After a nation is successfully driven to destitution, public policy decisions are made by creditors and not by representatives of the people.

(Enter, Paul Wolfowitz) Did Americans really believe they could avoid a similar fate? If so, they’d better forget about it, because the hammer is about to come down big-time, and the collateral damage will be huge. The Bush administration is mainly comprised of internationalists. That doesn’t mean that they “hate America”; simply that they are committed to bringing America into line with the “new world order” and an economic regime that has been approved by corporate and financial elites alike. Their patriotism extends no further than the garish tri-colored flag on their lapel.

The catastrophe that middle class Americans face is what these elites breezily refer to as “shock therapy”; a sudden jolt, followed by fundamental changes to the system. In the near future we can expect tax reform, fiscal discipline, deregulation, free capital flows, lowered tariffs, reduced public services, and privatization. In other words, a society entirely designed to service the needs of corporations. There are a number of signs that the economy is close to meltdown-stage. Even with cheap energy, low interest rates and $450 billion in borrowed revenue pumped into the system each year, the economy is still barely treading water.

This has a lot to due with the colossal shifting of wealth brought on by the tax cuts. Supply-side, trickle-down theories have been widely discredited and Bush’s tax cuts have done nothing to stimulate the economy as promised. Now, with oil tilting towards $60 per barrel, the economic landscape is changing quickly, and shock-waves are already being felt throughout the country. The Iraq war has contributed considerably to our current dilemma. The conflict has taken nearly one million barrels of Iraqi oil per day off line.(The exact amount that the administration is trying to replace by pressuring OPEC) In other words, the astronomical prices at the pump are the direct result of Bush’s war.

The media has failed to report on the negative affects the war has had on oil production, just as they have obscured the incredibly successful insurgent strategy of destroying pipelines. This isn’t a storyline that plays well to the American public, who expected that Iraq would be paying for its own reconstruction by now. Instead, the resistance is striking back at the empire’s Achilles heel (America’s need for massive amounts of cheap oil) and its having a damaging affect on the US economy. Just as the economy cannot float along with sharp increases in oil prices, so too, Bush’s profligate deficits threaten the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency.

This is much more serious than a simple decline in the value of the dollar. If the major oil producers convert from the dollar to the euro, the American economy will sink almost overnight. If oil is traded in euros then central banks around the world would be compelled to follow and America will be required to pay off its enormous $8 trillion debt. That, of course, would be doomsday for the American economy. But, a recent report indicates that two-thirds of the world’s 65 central banks have already “begun to move from dollars to euros.”

The Bush plan to savage the dollar has been telegraphed around the world and, as the New York Times says, “the greenback has nowhere to go but down”. There’s only one thing that the administration can do to ensure that energy dealers keep trading in dollars.control the flow of oil. That means that an attack on Iran is nearly a certainty. The difficulties facing both the dollar and the economy are not insurmountable. The world has been more than willing to compensate for America’s wasteful spending as long as America shows itself to be a responsible steward of the global economy.

However, the administration’s military and economic recklessness suggests that some of the key players on the world stage (particularly Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Germany, France, China, Brazil) are collaborating on an alternate plan; a contingency plan. If Iran is bombed in an unprovoked act of aggression, we will certainly see this plan activated. The most likely scenario would be a quick switch to the euro that would have grave implications for the American economy. (Russia has already indicated that it will do this)

For Iran, an attack would justify arming disparate terrorist organizations with the weaponry they need to attack American and Israeli interests wherever they may be. In any event, an unprovoked attack will dispel the remaining illusions about Bush’s war against terror and confirm to everyone that we are engaged in a new world war; a conflict for global domination. The neoliberal chickens have come home to roost. America has become the latest staging ground for the eccentric economic policies of the Washington Consensus.

The towering national debt coupled with the staggering trade deficits have put the nation on a precipice and a seismic shift in the fortunes of middle-class Americans is looking more likely all the time. The New York Times summarized the country’s prospects like this: “The economic repercussions could unfold gradually, resulting in a long, slow decline in living standards. Or there could be a quick unraveling, with the hallmarks of an uncontrolled fiscal crisis.” “An uncontrolled fiscal crisis”... America’s future under George Bush. We are facing years of collective struggle ahead. If there’s a quick fix, I have no idea what it might be.

McNamara – Bush Nuke Weapons Policy ‘Immoral, Illegal’ - US Nuclear Weapons Policy Is ‘Immoral And Illegal’ Says Former US Defense Secretary – May 18, 2005

KARACHI (Rense) – Robert McNamara, who served as US secretary of defence under President John F Kennedy and President Lyndon B Johnson from 1961 to 1968 and as president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981, and who is the author of several books including “Blundering Into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age” (1986) and “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam” (1999), has hirteenized current US nuclear weapons policy as “immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.” Writing in the May/June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy, an American bi-monthly journal, McNamara says in an article titled “Apocalypse Soon”: “It is time, well past time, in my view, for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool...The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high.

Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the US nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power, a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years.” McNamara, whose counsel as secretary of defence helped the Kennedy administration avert nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, says: “Much of the current US nuclear policy has been in place since before I was secretary of defence, and it has only grown more dangerous and diplomatically destructive in the intervening years.”

During the seven years that McNamara served as secretary of defence, under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, both US and Soviet understanding of the political and military implications of the introduction of nuclear weapons was evolving slowly. In the following hirteen years, while president of the World Bank, McNamara was unable to participate in the debate that developed over how best to strengthen US security in a nuclear world, discussion of trust bans, nuclear freezes, new weapons programmes, arms control agreements, etc.

In the years since leaving the World Bank, McNamara has done so through publication of a series of a series of articles, often in association with others, in Foreign Affairs (a journal published by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations) and the Atlantic Monthly, through lectures before the Council on Foreign Relations and on American university campuses, and through his book “Blundering Into Disaster”. In his article in the May/June 2005 issue of Foreign Policy (published to coincide with the opening of a month-long UN conference in New York to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1969), McNamara writes:

“Today, the United States has deployed approximately 4,500 strategic, offensive warheads. Russia has roughly 3,800. The strategic forces of Britain, France and China are considerably smaller, with 200-400 nuclear weapons in each state’s arsenal. The new nuclear states of India and Pakistan have fewer than 100 weapons each. North Korea now claims to have developed nuclear weapons, and US intelligence agencies estimate that Pyongyang has enough fissile material for 2-8 bombs.”

Intriguingly, McNamara makes no mention of Israel’s nuclear weapons, even though it has an arsenal of over 200 warheads including hydrogen bombs. His failure to mention this fact cannot be an oversight. Which only goes to show just how powerful is the influence of the Jewish lobby in the US, making even the likes of McNamara tread warily when it comes to saying anything that could be construed as criticism of Israel. When Syria proposed a “Nuclear-Free” Middle East in January 2003, a few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, the silence in Washington was defeaning.

According to McNamara, the average US warhead has a destructive power 20 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. “Of the 8,000 active or operational US warheads, 2,000 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on 15 minutes, warning,” says McNamara, adding: “How are these weapons to be used? The United States has never endorsed the policy of no first use,, not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons, by the decision of one person, the president, against either a nuclear or non-nuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so.

For decades, US nuclear forces have been sufficiently strong to absorb a first strike and then inflict unacceptable, damage on an opponent. This has been and (so long as we face a nuclear-armed, potential adversary) must continue to be the foundation of our nuclear deterrent.” In McNamara’s time as secretary of defence, the commander of the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) carried with him a secure telephone, no matter where he went, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The telephone of the commander, whose headquarters were in Omaha, Nebraska (the base to which President George W Bush flew on board Air Force One on September 11, 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon), was linked to the underground command post of the North American Defence Command, deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado, and to the US president, wherever he happened to be. “The president always had at hand nuclear release codes in the so-called football, a briefcase carried for the president at all times by a US military officer,” says McNamara.

According to McNamara, the SAC commander’s orders were to answer the telephone by no later than the end of the third ring. “If it rang, and he was informed that a nuclear attack of enemy ballistic missiles appeared to be underway, he was allowed 2 to 3 minutes to decide whether the warning was valid (over the years, the United States has received many false warnings), and if so, how the United States should respond,” says McNamara.

“He was then given approximately 10 minutes to determine what to recommend, to locate and advise the president, permit the president to discuss the situation with two or three close advisers (presumably the secretary of defence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and to receive the president’s decision and pass it immediately, along with the codes to the launch sites.” McNamara says: “The president had essentially two options: He could decide to ride out the attack and defer until later any decision to launch a retaliatory strike. Or, he could order an immediate retaliatory strike, from a menu of options, thereby launching US weapons that were targeted on the opponent’s military-industrial assets.

Our opponents in Moscow presumably had and have similar arrangements.” This, in fact, was the doctrine of “Mutually Assured Destruction”, or MAD, an appropriate acronym for what can only be regarded as a policy of total insanity, given the fact that the United States and Russia possessed, and still possess, enough nuclear weapons in their arsenals to wipe out the whole of humanity several times over. Yet the Bush administration would have people believe that it is Iran’s fledgling nuclear programme (which Tehran insists is entirely peaceful in nature and aimed at generating electricity from a nuclear power plant it is building with Russian help) and North Korea’s alleged two or three nuclear weapons that represent the greatest threat to world peace.

In the months leading up to the US invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, the Bush administration had repeatedly claimed that Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” posed an “imminent threat to the national security of the United States.” As the whole world knew even back then, however, and as even the Bush administration has now been forced to admit, Iraq possessed no WMD. In July 2004 the US formally announced that its search for Iraqi WMD had been abandoned.

In fact, the Bush administration knew all along that Iraqi had no WMD. All the administration’s claims about the so-called “Iraqi threat” (claims aided and abetted by hawkish sections of the US media) were nothing but lies aimed at giving the US an excuse to attack and occupy Iraq. Now, judging from the noises coming out of Washington, it seems to be Iran’s turn. Says McNamara: “The whole situation seems to be so bizarre as to be beyond belief. On any given day, as we go about our business, the president is prepared to make a decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most devastating weapons in the world. To declare war requires an act of congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes deliberation by the president and his advisors. But that is what we have lived with for 40 years. With very few changes, this system remains largely intact, including the football,, the president’s constant companion.”

Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda

Bin Laden ‘is alive’ – May 20, 2005
Islamabad (News24) – The world’s most wanted fugitive is alive and on the run with a small group of fighters, Pakistan’s foreign minister said, claiming army operations had “paralysed” al-Qaeda’s communication network and its ability to attack. “Osama bin Laden is alive and moving around from place to place, but not with a large group of people,” a news report Friday quoted Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri as saying.

Kasuri wouldn’t say whether Pakistan possessed specific information on the whereabouts of the al-Qaeda chief, accused by the United States of orchestrating the September 11 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Kasuri said late on Thursday that Pakistan’s army had “paralysed al-Qaeda’s communication network,” and vastly reduced its capability to strike, according to the English-language newspaper The News. Pakistan’s intelligence service captured Abu Farraj al-Libbi, reputed to be al-Qaeda’s No 3 leader, on May 2. Al-Libbi – who remains in Pakistan’s custody – was wanted for allegedly masterminding two December 2003 assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf, who escaped unharmed. Seventeen other people were killed, however. Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, has handed over more than 700 al-Qaeda suspects to US officials, including al-Qaeda’s then-No 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was arrested in March 2003 during a raid near Islamabad. Two other alleged al-Qaeda leaders, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah, were also arrested in Pakistan

Dr. Gal Luft: Bin Laden’s Out to Destroy U.S. Economy – April 13, 2005

(Israel News) - Dr. Gal Luft, Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security says Osama Bin Laden’s main goal is the destruction of the U.S. economy – and that, so far, he appears to be succeeding. Dr. Luft told David Miller of INN Television at the recent Jerusalem Conference that the main goal of the radical Islamic Jihad movement is to “bring the U.S. economy to its knees.” That movement, spearheaded by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, started to plan its moves against the United States after it attributed Moscow’s exit from Afghanistan to Soviet economic difficulties resulting from the war. Now Bin Laden thinks he can do the same thing to the United States, but more so. Dr. Luft explains that Bin Laden is deliberately focusing on U.S. economic targets. Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was planned to strike at the epicenter of the American economy. That attack, which cost the American taxpayer one trillion dollars in damages, and the subsequent war in Afghanistan and Iraq, are “bleeding” the American economy of its wealth.

Dr. Luft says that Bin Laden is also attempting to disrupt the American economy by causing the price of oil to rise. He claims that the sabotage of oil pipelines in Iraq and attacks on foreign oil workers in Saudi Arabia succeeded in raising the price of oil by $10-$15 per barrel. That price rise alone cost the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars in lost wealth. To add salt to the wound, this money, ironically, is being transferred to America’s enemies in the Middle East, such as Iran. Iran and radical Saudi groups then use their oil riches to finance the Jihad, which is dedicated to destroying the United States. But this vicious cycle, where America finances its own enemies as well as the wars to fight them, can be broken, said Dr. Luft. He told Miller that the U.S. has actually made some significant strides in reducing American dependence on foreign oil. He explains that in the 1970’s, 30% of electric power was produced from oil – while today that percentage stands at zero.

What America has to do, asserts Dr. Luft, is to drastically revamp the inefficient transportation sector. He proposes that the United States lead a massive international project to improve transport fuel efficiency. He points out that the technology already exists. “There’s no need for new research and development” to have cars running on 60-70 miles per gallon, he explains. Dr. Luft claims that improving fuel economy in the transportation sector is the most important thing the U.S. can do to strengthen its economy “and win the war on terror.” So far, however, without U.S. leadership on this issue, it appears that Bin Laden is gaining the upper hand. “Bin Laden says he wants oil to go up to $140 per barrel. Based on what he’s done so far this year, he’s on his way to getting it,” Dr. Luft lamented. But Dr. Luft is confident that with the right leadership, the U.S. has the potential to turn the situation around. “We believe that in 20 years… we can reduce oil demand significantly in the transport sector and almost eliminate all U.S. oil imports,” he said.

50-50 chance al-Qaida has nukes, says report – Intel specialist alarmed by findings, non-findings of WMD Commission – May 15, 2005
WASHINGTON – There’s a 50-50 chance al-Qaida already has nuclear weapons, says a top intelligence analyst based on an analysis of the findings and the methodology of the U.S. WMD Commission. Lt. Col. Joseph C. Myers, an infantry and foreign area officer who has served at U.S. Southern Command and as the chief of the South America Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency, writes in the current issue of Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin that he was alarmed after analyzing the final report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Myers writes that the report “not only indicates that the state of our knowledge is worse than previously understood; but reading the commission’s own evaluation of the intelligence analysis, information and circumstances in Afghanistan pre- and post invasion actually leads me to raise the probability that al-Qaida has a nuclear weapon from low to a moderate probability – 50-50. Far from allaying my fears, it heightened them.” Myers, who is a recipient of the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement, says the intelligence community’s assessment downplaying the probability that al-Qaida has nuclear weapons is no more than a “best guess.”

While U.S. intelligence agencies were encouraged that they did not find fissionable material, actual nuclear weapons or radiological materials in Afghanistan, they did find what Myers believes were training materials in the care and use of them. “Documents found at sites used by al-Qaida operatives indicated that the group was interested in nuclear device design,” said the report. “In addition, al-Qaida had established contact with Pakistani scientists who discussed development of nuclear devices that would require hard-to-obtain materials like uranium to create a nuclear explosion. ... In May 2002, technical experts from CIA and the Department of Energy judged that there remained no credible information that al-Qaida had obtained fissile material or acquired a nuclear weapon.”

The report adds: “Analysts noted that collection efforts in Afghanistan had not yielded any radioactive material suitable for weapons, and that there were no credible reports of nuclear weapons missing from vulnerable countries.” “These are the most controversial lines in this chapter and where the commission report flounders,” explains Myers. He believes an alternative, equally valid, but less rosy conclusion based on the same data would be that “a select group of al-Qaida members, with support from nuclear weapons experts from somewhere were being trained on how to store, handle, transport, employ and detonate finished nuclear devices.”

“Under this theory there would be no weapon development materials or radioactive traces found anywhere in Afghanistan,” he writes. “These guys aren’t physicists; they’re operatives who needed only to know enough about the weapon to safely handle, employ and detonate it. The ‘radiological material’ – in the nuclear warhead – is of course, somewhere else.”

While the commission concluded that the war in Afghanistan “confirmed two key intelligence judgments made before the September attacks: al-Qaida did not have a nuclear device, nor did it have large-scale chemical and biological weapons capabilities,” Myers strenuously disagrees. “Al-Qaida may not have had a nuclear weapon stored in Afghanistan,” he explains. “But it does not confirm that they do not have access to a nuclear weapon stored elsewhere – for which their operatives inside Afghanistan were undergoing basic training for its use, being supported by outside experts.” Myers illustrates his alternative theory that al-Qaida operative may have been training for use of an already existing nuclear device with an analogy. “If I were to take you to Fort Benning, Ga., the Home of the Infantry, and we go into a classroom, and in the room is a mock-up of an M-16 rifle, on the walls are ‘exploded picture diagrams’ of an M-16, charts on the firing and recoil cycle, how a bullet works, the explosive physics of gunpowder, sighting techniques – do you conclude that the people in this classroom have a research and development program to design and build an M-16 rifle?” he asks rhetorically. “Depending on other evidentiary factors, the presence of machine shops, metal-stamping facility and a production line you might. Or do you conclude that maybe the people are there to learn how to store, handle, employ and fire an M-16 rifle?”

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, an al-Qaida memo discovered by Pakistani authorities said if suicide bombers come to America, they are likely to be carrying biological, chemical or nuclear weapons with them. In October 2002, WND first broke the story of al-Qaida’s purchase of suitcase nukes. Paul Williams, an FBI consultant on international terrorism said then bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network purchased 20 suitcase nuclear weapons from former KGB agents in 1998 for $30 million. His book, “Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror,” also says this deal was one of at least three in the last decade in which al-Qaida purchased small nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear uranium. Williams says bin Laden’s search for nuclear weapons began in 1988 when he hired a team of five nuclear scientists from Turkmenistan. These were former employees at the atomic reactor in Iraq before it was destroyed by Israel, Williams says. The team’s project was the development of a nuclear reactor that could be used “to transform a very small amount of material that could be placed in a package smaller than a backpack.”

“By 1990 bin Laden had hired hundreds of atomic scientists from the former Soviet Union for $2,000 a month – an amount far greater than their wages in the former Soviet republics,” Williams writes. “They worked in a highly sophisticated and well-fortified laboratory in Kandahar, Afghanistan.”

Yossef Bodansky, author of “Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America” and the U.S. Congress’ top terrorism expert, concurs that bin Laden has already succeeded in purchasing suitcase nukes. Former Russian security chief Alexander Lebed also testified to Congress that 40 nuclear suitcases disappeared from the Russian arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Read Myers’ full analysis of the WMD Commission’s report in the premium, online weekly intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Previous stories:

Al-Qaida sought nuclear weapons

Al-Qaida’s WMD suicide bomb plan

Does al-Qaida have 20 suitcase nukes?

Experts: Ethnic Rifts Dividing Al Qaeda – May 11, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Fox News) – American and Pakistani intelligence agents are exploiting a growing rift between Arab members of Al Qaeda and their Central Asian allies, a fissure that’s tearing at the network of Islamic extremists as militants compete for scarce hideouts, weapons and financial resources, counterterrorism officials say. The rivalry may have contributed to the arrest last week of one of Usama bin Laden’s top lieutenants, a Libyan described as Al Qaeda’s No. 3 and known to have had differences with Uzbeks. Captured Uzbek (search), Chechen (search) and Tajik (search) suspects have been giving up information about the movements of Arab Al Qaeda militants in recent months, four Pakistani intelligence agents told The Associated Press, leading to a series of successful raids and arrests.”When push comes to shove, the Uzbeks are going to stick together, and the Arabs are going to stick together,” said Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism expert with the Congressional Research Service (search) in Washington. “I think the Uzbek guerrillas have had no home. Some of this could be a battle for survival.”

The Pakistani agents, who hold sensitive jobs in various military and intelligence agencies in several cities, all spoke on condition their names not be used.

U.S. officials declined to comment on the schism. One, however, noted that Al Qaeda and its allies do not always function as a cohesive unit. And another cautioned, “There may be a division, but you haven’t won anyone over to your side.” The official spoke on condition his name not be used because of the sensitive topic.

Abu Farraj al-Libbi (search), the Libyan and top Al Qaeda operative, was captured in the northwestern part of Pakistan on May 2 after a fierce gunbattle. Now in Pakistani custody, he’s accused of planning two assassination attempts on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf (search). Al-Libbi used Pakistanis, not Central Asians, to carry out the December 2003 attacks on Musharraf — a sign of who he trusted, authorities said. And al-Libbi sent a Pakistani suicide bomber, they said, to try to kill the prime minister in 2004. An agent in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (search), the country’s equivalent of the CIA, said tensions with the Central Asians began building in late 2001, when hundreds of Arab Al Qaeda militants — including possibly bin Laden — poured across the Afghan border into the Pakistani tribal areas of South and North Waziristan.

Hundreds of Central Asians who had fought alongside the Taliban (search) fled across the border, too, joining countrymen who had settled in Waziristan (search) in the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets. The official said many new arrivals took up residence in rambling mud-brick compounds run by the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (search), whose fighters also were hiding in the area. The Arabs settled in different towns in Waziristan, setting up training facilities in Shakai where they trained Pakistani recruits. Many Central Asians had been living in the region for years without incident. But the flood of Arab Al Qaeda suspects brought unwanted attention and problems.

At the same time, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was left rudderless. Its commander and co-founder, Juma Namangani (search), was reportedly killed in a U.S. bombing campaign in late 2001.He was replaced by Tahir Yuldash, known as a political philosopher rather than a military leader, said Katzman of the Congressional Research Service. “They didn’t have a strong figure any more to articulate their interests,” said Katzman, whose agency advises U.S. lawmakers. “They had to rely more on the Arab leaders of Al Qaeda.” The heat began to rise amid a Pakistani military crackdown that flushed many militants out of the region in 2003 and 2004.

The Uzbeks and other Central Asians found themselves competing with Arab members of Al Qaeda for hideouts and resources with Arabs having the political and economic advantage, Katzman said. Adding to the tensions was a lack of trust by senior Al Qaeda figures in the Central Asian fighters, said a senior Pakistani Interior Ministry official. Another Pakistani security agent said the Central Asians “were Al Qaeda’s foot soldiers, but they were never promoted. They felt ignored. The Central Asians were not happy,” he added. “Usama bin laden and [his Egyptian deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri (search) only trusted Arabs.” Increasingly, the two sides began operating independently, often competing for the same money, weapons and dwindling areas of influence among the Pakistani tribesmen. Captured Uzbek, Chechen and Tajik fighters felt far more loyalty to Yuldash than to the Arab Al Qaeda men. The Pakistani intelligence official said it was difficult to get captured Uzbeks to talk about Yuldash, “but it was a lot easier to grill them for clues about the Arabs and their possible hideouts. They felt far less loyalty.”

Another possible motivation for cooperation among captured Central Asians is a fear of being turned over to their home countries, which also have cracked down on Islamic militants. Information from captive Uzbeks and Chechens — as well as paid informants working with Pakistani and American intelligence — helped authorities carry out a devastating raid on Al Qaeda’s training camp in Shakai in June 2004, Pakistani officials told AP. That raid was a turning point, driving Al Qaeda militants from their hideouts and making them easier to find. Several militants, including a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (search) — the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who was captured in March 2003 — were arrested in Karachi after the Shakai raid.

Ultimately, police seized Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan (search), a 25-year-old computer expert whose hard-drives held information about apparent plans to attack Heathrow Airport, financial sites in the United States and other targets. Khan led authorities to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (search), a Tanzanian with a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head for his role in the deadly 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. Ghailani, a confidant of al-Libbi, was arrested July 25 after a gunbattle in eastern Pakistan. Less is known about what led to al-Libbi’s arrest.

The Interior Ministry official told AP al-Libbi narrowly escaped arrest in the northwestern city of Peshawar in August 2004, but that authorities never completely lost his trail. An intercept by U.S. agents of a cell phone call made by al-Libbi reportedly helped Pakistani agents track him down. They lay in wait — some disguised in women’s all-encompassing burqas — then pounced as he and a colleague drove by motorcycle across a cemetery in Mardan.

Pakistani security agents say they’re confident they have broken Al Qaeda’s back, although bin Laden and al-Zawahri remain at large.

“Al Qaeda is no longer intact in Pakistan as a network,” said Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the chief army spokesman. “Every organization needs a command structure and communication, and we have effectively destroyed both of them.”

Former German Minister Confirms CIA Involvement In 911 5-12-05

Rense - At 9-11, four planes for two hours were able to drive around, fly around even one hour in the direction going toward the west and then turn around and then comeback. The military air force was not able to interdict them. It’s [un]imaginable. And the whole story is totally unclear what happened between the Federal Aviation Agency (Administration) and NORAD.

AJ: Absolutely, now I don’t know if you,ve seen the associated press but the CIA was running a drill 15 miles from the World Trade Center that day of flying jets into buildings in New York and DC. My internal sources inside the Pentagon, the lawyers who represent them have said on this show that they were told to stand down because it was quote just a drill., That’s how you get the good military to stand down; you tell them it’s just a drill. And, that drill was going on at 830 in the morning. Is that not obvious, sir?

So for me, since the official version- it’s not credible at all, it’s totally incredible. The second solution for me is a covert operation. And this is a way to influence, to brainwash the American people into long, long, ongoing conflict with the Muslim world and all that you get to, for example the oil companies, the last oil reserves which we need for the next decades before the oil age is going out. And probably behind this is a geopolitical thinking that finally China has to be taken out. China is too big and you have to be able to- this is put down in the New American Century, which has been written by a lot of people who are now in government like Cheney, like Rumsfeld and others….(Click to Open Entire Article)

European Union and the Golden Internationale

France adopts ‘end of life’ law - April 13, 2005

BBC News – The French senate has approved a law granting terminally ill patients the right to end their life. The bill allows doctors to stop giving medical assistance when it “has no effect other than maintaining life artificially”. It had already been approved by the lower house of parliament. Supporters of the legislation say it stops short of permitting euthanasia, because it does not allow the doctor actively to end a patient’s life. They include the conservative government, the opposition Socialists and the Roman Catholic Church.

Sympathy for euthanasia – The new law opens the way for families to request the withdrawal of life support for unconscious patients. And it allows the administration of pain-killers to patients who have chosen to end their treatment, even if these drugs might hasten death. Some left-wing senators had wanted the bill to allow “active assistance” to those wishing to die. But Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: “As long as I am health minister, I will reject euthanasia.” Euthanasia was brought to the forefront of French national attention in 2003 with the case of Marie Humbert who had campaigned in vain for her crippled son’s right to die. She attempted to kill him with an injection of barbiturates, which sent him into a coma.
Doctor Frederic Chaussoy switched off his life support and he died shortly afterwards. Mr Chaussoy was then charged with “poisoning with intent to kill”. Following the incident, opinion polls suggested 80% support for a change in the laws regulating euthanasia in France.

Incentive to Murder: The possibility for misuse of these euthanasia laws as exemplified in the article above, are very great, and many a murder could be hidden as a result. It is the elderly and wealthy who have the most to fear, insomuch as in weakened condition they are forced to sign over the estate, and then the plug is pulled, with hospital and family benefiting financially from the untimely demise of the old gent. Laws always become more liberalized as time goes on. When once you start down this road, the more the application of such laws will widen. Without written consent, and simply on the word of your spouse, you can be legally murdered.

Russia and the Red Internationale

Putin Seeks Unity Amid Moscow Victory Celebrations (Update2) - May 9, 2005

Bloomberg – Russian President Vladimir Putin called on world leaders including U.S. President George Bush to unite in fighting terrorism and preserve a global order based on ``security and fairness.’’ Putin was addressing a crowd in Red Square that also included German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder among more than 50 world leaders in Moscow to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the end of World War II. ``Being an accomplice to aggression, indifference and standing aside leads to worldwide tragedies,’’ Putin said. ``This is why today, in the face of genuine threats of terrorism, we are obliged to keep an order in the world based on security and fairness, a new culture of relations, which doesn’t allow a repeat of either `cold,’ or `hot’ wars.’’

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk in Putins private residence in Moscow, Russia Sunday. (AP)

Fourteen years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, ending the Cold War that divided Europe for 45 years, the leaders of the former Allied and Axis nations are focusing on peace and security. That didn’t stop Bush expressing concern about Russia’s commitment to democracy at a dinner with Putin last night. Today’s Red Square parade will be followed by street concerts and a fireworks show. The events recognize the role the Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazi regime. May 8, 1945, ended a war that began with Germany’s invasion of Poland and led to the loss of 55 million lives globally.

Humanity First

The spirit of the celebration will be ``humanity before politics,’’ said Christopher Langton, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. ``The world’s leaders will show solidarity and it’s unlikely to be compromised by any kind of argument.’’ Still, the Russian military is on special alert, streets are cordoned off around the center of Moscow and anti-aircraft batteries have been set up to thwart terrorists. Since May 7, Russian police have blocked roads from the city’s major airports leading downtown and closed some subway stations. Streets surrounding Red Square will be closed for six hours starting at 6 p.m. today. Some streets in the central part of the city is blocked with tracks full of sand since May 8. Bush pressed Putin on democracy in Russia even as the two leaders focused on cooperating in the Middle East and on economic issues when they met yesterday at Putin’s presidential compound outside Moscow. The two leaders had dinner together.

Russian Democracy

``Russia is, of course, a democracy,’’ Putin said in an interview with CBS television, according to a transcript of the interview published by his press service on the Kremlin’s official Web site today. ``The basic institutions of democracy have been formed and the philosophy of society itself became democratic, there are no doubts about that.’’ European Union leaders will probably express concerns about whether Russia is adhering to human rights in dealing with Chechen separatists, who have fought for years for an autonomous Muslim state. ``It’s absolutely fair to say these problems will be stressed,’’ said Nikolai Petrov, Moscow-based analyst at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on May 4. ``The Kremlin is moving in the opposite direction from where it should be going.’’ Putin denied media censorship in the country and said his political opponents are allowed to ``openly express views, which is being done’’ in all the country’s 3,200 TV stations and ``practically in all’’ of about 46,000 newspaper and magazines. The state owns 10 percent of the TV stations, he said. Putin said he reads newspapers and watches news programs, as he wants his opinions to be based on ``independent sources.’’ In July 2002, Russia’s state-controlled OAO Gazprom took over NTV television channel, which was then Russia’s largest private television station. The government also controls two other major nation television channels, one of which it owns.

Uzbekistan: A Smoldering Fire of Conflicting Interests – May 14, 2005

Debkafile – Uzbek president Islam Karimov returned to his capital Friday night, May 13, after his troops cracked down on a violent disturbance in the eastern Uzbek town of Andijan. It was sparked by protesters storming and emptying the local prison, setting free 23 local Islamic leaders and 2000 inmates. Authorities say nine people were killed in the clashes with security forces. Protesters who filled the town square for two days say at least 200 died of indiscriminate shooting; bodies were seen to be removed by four trucks and a bus.

Despite the bloodshed of the day before, thousands streamed into Andijan’s streets Saturday morning amid sounds of sporadic gunfire. Thousands more attempted flight across the border into Kyrgyzstan but were stopped there. The town tipped over into protest over the trial of 23 local men charged with belonging to an Islamic group called Akramia, named after Akram Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was sentenced in absentia to 17 years in prison in 1999. Akramia has set up small businesses that provide employment for the impoverished town and thousands more around the Ferghana Valley which is both poor and a hotbed of violent Islamic groups. One of the 23 men on trial told a reporter: “All we want is freedom from hunger. Uzbeks live like dirt.”

It is not that simple. Uzbekistan’s unrest is a volatile brew of conflicting interests. As ruler since 1989 of the country of 26 million – the world’s third largest exporter of cotton – Karimov is one of the last Soviet-era rulers still in power. He has held on by rigged elections, questionable referenda, timely constitutional amendments and repression. He is challenged by two radical Islamic groups, Hizb-a-Tahrir and the IMU which is allied with al Qaeda, who are trying to unseat him. Karimov also stands accused of institutional torture; his methods of suppressing resistance have been denounced by Western human rights groups and the US state department.

The former Soviet republic is an important American ally in the global war on terror. It hosts American support bases for the war in Afghanistan. The White House spokesman Friday night urged restraint on both government and demonstrators.

The regime in Tashkent routinely blames the fundamentalist Hizb-ut-Tahrir for any violence in the country, although the troublemaker is more likely to be the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the IMU, whose founder Yuldashev, has nailed to his mast the goal of an Islamic state in the broad Ferghana Valley which straddles Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. His training camps and bases are located not far from the Afghan and Chinese borders.

In March and April, 2004, the IMU staged a wave of suicide terror attacks, the first seen in the republic. They were followed by street battles in which around 50 people were killed, 33 of them IMU adherents, among them 15 suicide bombers. In July, the group went on to send suicide bombers against the US and Israeli embassies and the Uzbek prosecutor-general’s office in Tashkent. Three Uzbek guards were killed and 9 injured.

This wave of violence was sparked by Yuldashev’s return to Tashkent. After spending most of the 1990s in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden, he had moved to South Waziristan – only to flee in early 2004 from the massive US-backed Pakistan military hunt for top al Qaeda men in that lawless region.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was founded in 1989, the same year Karimov took power, to become his most implacable enemy. Its exact membership is believed to be smaller than Hizb a-Tahrir’s 4,000 to 7,000 adherents. During Taliban rule in Afghanistan, dozens and perhaps hundreds of eager Uzbek supporters crossed south for intensive guerrilla training and Islamic religious indoctrination. Since the Taliban were ousted, IMU has declared war on the American air force and special forces presence in the country. Before 2004, they killed two US soldiers and wounded several others and tried to kidnap Americans from a secret base to ransom their jailed comrades. In neighboring Tajikistan, IMU agents are fed funds and logistical support by the Iranian embassy.

The multinational Islamic Hizb a-Tahrir (The Liberation Party), forced underground in much of Central Asia as well as Russia, maintains cells in most Muslim countries. Founded in the Middle East in 1953, Hizb a-Tarir is older, larger and less virulent than Yuldashev’s IMU although just as radical. Its leader Vahid Omran has stressed his movement’s goals as being to disseminate the word of Islam – not spread death. Nonetheless Hizb a-Tahrir cannot be counted out of any surge of violence in Uzbekistan considering the brutal persecution its followers suffer at the hands of the Karimov regime; 500 are currently in jail. Hizb a-Tahrir supporters live mainly in Samarkand and Bukhara, two important religious centers of the golden age of Islam situated along the traditional Silk Road. It maintains an office in London. Like many other parties and organizations in Central Asia, Hizb too runs bases of operation in the southeastern Ferghana region near the border with Tajikistan. There, young Uzbeks are indoctrinated in Islamic fundamentalism and recruited into a “Muslim Education Corps”. Their proximity to al Qaeda and other fundamentalist Islamic facilities gives rise to the charge in Tashkent that the party is not just dispensing “education” but building terrorist cells.

Such education consists of the familiar Islamic fundamentalist fare of nostalgia for past Islamic glories, homophobia, anti-Semitism and more recently, anti-Americanism.

Numbering an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 members around the Muslim world, Hizb a- Tahrir dreams of establishing a pan-Islamic caliphate rather than an Islamic republic across Central Asia, also targeting the Ferghana Valley as its world center. While not openly committed to violence, the Liberation Party will strike hard if an opportunity presents itself to overthrow the Uzbek or any other secular regime. At some crucial point, therefore, Omran could switch tactics and make a grab for power. Karimov’s troubles are far from over.

Russian volley-fire system becomes world’s most efficient weapon of the type 5-8-05

Pravda - It takes the Smerch unit only 38 seconds to volley-fire 12 rockets. The Russian volley-fire rocket system known as Smerch (Tornado) has no analogues in the world. The Smerch machine is usually made of six launchers and six transloaders (each transloader contains 12 rockets and has a crane to move them to the launcher). The unit is capable of delivering mines for the anti-tank and antipersonnel mining of a territory, destroying armored vehicles, fortified constructions and command posts. One volley fire of 12 free 300 mm missiles covers the square of 650x650 meters.

The commander of Russian missile troops, Vladimir Zaritsky, said that specialists were going to modernize the rocket system in order to increase its battling capacity by 20 percent. Increasing the power of the unit is not the most important goal that engineers will be pursuing in their work. Considerable deviations in the trajectory of missiles have always been the weak point of all volley-fire systems, beginning from the era of the legendary Katyusha missile launcher. The drawback became the biggest disadvantage in the work of the US-made MLRS. The system could fire its missiles at the distance of only 30-40 kilometers. A further increase of the launching power would result in a considerable dispersion of missiles, which is detrimental to the battling efficiency. Specialists of the Tula-based scientific and industrial enterprise Splav were apparently unaware of the circumstance, when they put forward the latest model of the Smerch unit to the arsenal of the Soviet Union Army in 1987. The range of its missiles outdistanced American achievements twice, whereas the target destruction precision (the dispersion of missiles) remained the same – 0.21 percent of the salvo range (about 150 meters).

Kuwait and United Arab Emirates paid attention to the battling capacity of the Smerch missile system in 1991, after the US-led operation against Iraq. The Arab authorities decided to acquire super-powerful weapons to secure themselves against a possible attack from Iraq. The Russian defense industry presented a new version of the volley-fire system at a recent exhibition of arms and defense technologies, IDEX-2005, in Abu-Dhabi. The show presented the new model of the Smerch unit, outfitted with the target designation system. “All volley-fire rocket and artillery systems have the reconnaissance problem. We found a very good solution to it. One may say that we inserted a spy plane in system’s rockets. Unlike other types of aircraft, it is hard to down such a plane, because it is transferred to a battling area inside a rocket, comes through air defense systems very fast and provides the fire correction within about 20 minutes,” the chief engineer of the Splav industrial association, Nikolai Makarovets said. It takes the Smerch unit only 38 seconds to volley-fire 12 rockets. Smerch has already proved its impressive destructive capacity during the anti-terrorist operation in the Northern Caucasus. Russian engineers plan to amend the multiple launch rocket system further as well and outfit the Smerch machine with homing missiles. Such an addition will make the unit become the up-to-date high-precision weapon.

China and the Red Internationale

China: The Gathering Threat – New Book

Amazon - In a book that is as certain to be as controversial as it is meticulously researched, a former special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency shows that the U.S. could be headed toward a nuclear face-off with communist China within four years. And it definitively reveals how China is steadily pursuing a stealthy, systematic strategy to attain geopolitical and economic dominance first in Asia and Eurasia, then possibly globally, within the next twenty. Using recently declassified documents, statements by Russian and Chinese leaders largely overlooked in the Western media, and groundbreaking analysis and investigative work, Menges explains China’s plan thoroughly, exposing:

· China’s methods of economic control.

· China’s secret alliance with Russia and other anti-America nations, including North Korea.

· China’s growing military and nuclear power-over 90 ICBMs, many of them aimed at U.S. cities.

· How China and Russia have been responsible for weaponizing terrorists bent on harming the U.S.

· Damage caused by China’s trade tactics (since 1990, we’ve lost 8 million jobs thanks to China trade surpluses).

Getting in on the Taiwan-China act – May 10, 2005
Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Lien Chan surprised everybody in Taiwan and the world with his bold journey for peace in China. His stroke of political brilliance to initiate the dialogue between China and Taiwan has become a critical turning point for the future of China.

Lien’s declaration of “we can grasp the opportunity of the future of China” has been widely reported in the world press as a brave breakthrough move. But his peace initiative for a unified Chinese nation will have to wait for the blessings from all political persuasions. He asks all Chinese people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait “to join in their discussions on issues concerning the interests of the people across the Taiwan Strait”. His candid talk with the leader of the Communist Party of China Hu Jintao will indeed be recorded as a historical meeting if it turns out to be the watershed for an enduring multi-party political infrastructure in China.

By emphasizing a consensus of opposing “Taiwan independence” with Hu, Lien has not only enunciated his belief in a dynamic status quo in the Taiwan Strait to promote mutual integration in economics and political exchanges, but also planted the seed for an advantage in the next general election for the KMT in Taiwan at 2008.

Witnessing all the fanfare of Lien’s success trip in China, President Chen Shui Bian in Taiwan has been forced to do some soul-searching for his governing Democratic Progressive Party’s response. Chen understands a lame duck stalemate in the Taiwan Strait or plunging into a steady-fast independent movement for Taiwan will go nowhere for his political legacy. As a smart politician and life-long fighter for freedom and equality in Taiwan for the past 40 years, Chen probably has to expand his idea of “one China, one system” to a higher level. Chen should have made his agenda known to the world that China and Taiwan reunification will surely be a possibility but will be subjected to the Beijing government’s acquiescence to a multi-lateral system of democracy as practiced now in Taiwan. Chen should stand firm on his demand that without that promise and process, people of Taiwan will never give up the claim for its own sovereignty and independence.

By getting Hu to agree on inviting all walks of life to join in the discussion on issues, Lien already made his wish public in his speech at Beijing University. He has conveyed his conviction to promote democracy and liberalism in China in line with the call from the students for democracy and science on May 4 almost 100 years ago. As a political scientist, Lien is convinced that an authoritarian regime will never be able to govern a free and prosperous society.

Hopefully Lien will be able to exercise his influence when he returns back to Taiwan to engage all walks of life and convince the wider population that a peaceful relationship with China is indispensable to Taiwan’s prosperity and stability. During this campaign process he probably has to face up to challenges from the independence-minded factions in Taiwan. Lien will have to persuade them to understand that antagonism against China is destined to fail and to harm the long-term interest of Taiwanese people. Lien does not have to go too far when the examples of Puerto Rico, a United States’ territory in the Caribbean, and Quebec, a province in Canada, with great differences in culture and language background, have both rejected the independence referendum numerous time just for the sake of economic privileges alone. They knew that a better life and security are more important to their daily life than following the empty words of a few ambitious politicians.

While the Taiwan administration under Chen is slow to realize that the United States and Japan, the primary sources for their cause of separation from China, owe their economical revitalization to China’s growing market and industrialization. The economically slumping Japan has just recovered recently due to Chinese economic growth. And the iconic US corporations such as IBM and General Motors are banking their revivals on close business cooperation with China. Their leaders know better than to kill the goose who is laying the golden eggs for their own survival. Their national interests are definitely not for a confrontation against China.

In these scenarios, Taiwan has much more to gain to have closer economic integration with China for now and in the future. With advanced technology and a free market system in place, Taiwan’s businesses will benefit enormously by their investment and market activities in mainland China. It is vital for the Taiwan industries to have an advantage in China to have a winning chance in competition with South Korea and Japan for the economic upper-hand. With a similar ethnic and cultural background, Taiwan should be in the best position to profit from the fast-expanding Chinese economy.

It is abundantly clear that when an overwhelming and instantaneous welcome is given to Lien and his entourages by ordinary people in China, they are telling the world that they need reforms and changes. Empty promises and political intimidation are not enough for the general population anymore. They are looking for opportunity to have a prosperous life under the principles of freedom and equality.

The Beijing government should pay special attention to Lien and James Soong’s visits for peace (Soon is chairman of the People First Party, PFP). And pledge their willingness to a smooth transitional timetable of reunification with Taiwan. In order to accomplish their most important goal, the Chinese Communist Party and its leader Hu Jintao should let the world be informed that they will take immediate steps to show that China is a peaceful nation with no ambition and agenda for military expansion. And China will step up concrete plans to facilitate gradual transformation to attend the rules of democratization in China. Taiwan’s success story in a democratic society can be a perfect example to China that the best way to limit government corruption and inefficiency is to eliminate a rigid authoritarian political system.

As modern history shows, the communist parties in Russia and other Eastern European nations are both doing pretty well in maintaining their constituencies and political influence. The prospect of a communist party being a significant force in China politics in the future is a reasonable assumption. A scheduled plan for a general plebiscite at all levels of government for all political parties and groups in China and Taiwan can be implanted as soon as both sides of the Taiwan Strait can reach an agreement of peace and cooperation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has enunciated repeatedly that the US’s national interest in Pacific Asia is to seek a continuously expanding market economy in China. Her vision for America is to seek a friendly partner in China in trade and investment first, then extending to political liberalization. Washington never has had the appetite to confront China militarily in that part of world for the next decades when US diplomatic priorities are involved in Middle East terrorism and the North Korea nuclear threat.

Rice mapped out a clear picture of US resolution for the future to maintain peace and cooperation in the Taiwan Strait until a political settlement on democratic terms is available in China; US officials have sent numerous messages to the Taiwan government that any unilateral moves to disrupt the status quo will not be tolerated.

It will take a great deal of courage for the leaders both in China and Taiwan to resist the conservative and radical elements in their own parties who are against any changes. Both Hu and Chen should take advantage of their political positions to advance permanent change in Chinese history. Sometimes a real political leader has to lead with his own wisdom for the well-being of the people in China and Taiwan. Both of them will definitely encounter obstacles from the die-hard factions in their parties. But if they want to go the route of some of the most influential political figures in history, they will understand why those leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin had to take risks to stick to their convictions and to stand up to the challenges for the sake of their historical legacies.

Hopefully Soong of the PFP will carry President Chen’s tacit blessing on his peace-bridging mission. Soong should make it crystal clear to Hu that the majority of people in Taiwan are for a peaceful and unified China, but only when a democratic system can be installed in the country. The governments in Beijing and Taipei should use all their resources to negotiate a permanent resolution for a one China and one system for a long overdue reconciliation for both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The Progressive Assimilation of Taiwan and China

Taiwan Politician, China President Meet – May 12, 2005

BEIJING (The Guardian) – A visiting Taiwanese opposition leader said Thursday that Chinese communist leaders agreed that military conflict with Taiwan can be ``effectively avoided’’ so long as the self-ruled island doesn’t pursue formal independence. James Soong made the comment after becoming the second Taiwanese opposition figure in a month to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao, whose government is trying to discourage Taiwan from trying to make its independence permanent.

Soong and Hu also issued a joint statement pledging to work together to promote an end to hostilities between the two sides, which split in 1949 amid civil war. Beijing claims the island as its own territory and has threatened to take it by force if necessary. At a news conference, Soong said that during his visit, he and Communist Party leaders agreed that ``as long as Taiwan authorities do not pursue Taiwan independence a conflict across the Taiwan strait could be effectively avoided.’’

Soong’s visit is part of Chinese efforts to isolate Taiwanese activists who want formal independence by forging ties with groups such as Soong’s People First Party, which opposes independence. ``Both sides believe that relations across the Taiwan Strait are at a critical juncture, and both parties believe they should seek peace and stability,’’ said the Hu-Soong statement.

The Progressive Conflict between Japan and China

Koizumi: War shrine visit private – May 28, 2005
China Daily - Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says his pilgrimages to a war shrine are made as a private citizen amid demands by China he end visits to the sanctuary associated with militarism. "I have been saying that I am not bothered whether the visits are private or official," Koizumi told a parliamentary committee. "I have been paying homage, not as a duty of the prime minister, but out of my personal belief." When pressed on the issue by the opposition, he said: "Junichiro Koizumi, who is the prime minister, is making the visits as an individual."

Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi speaks to the Russia's President Vladimir Putin during talks in Moscow, in this May 9, 2005 file photo. [Reuters]

The remarks were interpreted by Japanese media as a conciliatory gesture toward Beijing after Koizumi outraged China by indicating he would keep visiting the Yasukuni shrine in central Tokyo. The Shinto sanctuary is dedicated to the 2.5 million Japanese who died in the country's wars. The names of 14 top war criminals from World War II are enshrined there, including those of seven hanged for war crimes, among them wartime premier Hideki Tojo.

Koizumi had earlier been ambiguous about whether he visits Yasukuni in an official or private capacity. Critics point out he travels in an official car and signs his name in the guest book with the title of prime minister. The prime minister has visited the Yasukuni shrine each year since taking office in 2001, with his last trip there on January 1, 2004. Koizumi visited the shrine a number of times before becoming premier as well. He says he is showing respect to the dead and opposition to war, but the pilgrimages are also popular among conservative supporters of his party. The visits have been formally protested by China and South Korea, which suffered bloody occupations by Japan up to 1945.

A top lawmaker of Koizumi's party called on him Friday to stick to his beliefs on the pilgrimage. "The prime minister should decide by his own judgment" on visiting Yasukuni, Liberal Democratic Party secretary general Tsutomu Takebe said. "This is not an issue that would be solved if he stops visiting there in the face of protests from other countries," he was quoted as saying by Jiji Press news agency. But Takenori Kanzaki, who heads Koizumi's Buddhist-oriented coalition partner New Komeito, was more cautious. "Given Japan's relations with China and South Korea, we want (Koizumi) to act not only out of his personal belief but also by taking a broad view of the situation," he said. Speaking in another parliamentary committee Monday, Koizumi defended his visits by saying Japan was staunchly pacifist six decades after the war and that other countries did not have the right to tell Japanese how to mourn.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said a day later: "It is not a question of worshipping the dead, but rather of how to face up to history."

Koizumi is due on Monday to meet with Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, an experienced negotiator who is on a goodwill visit to Japan. She has tried to downplay disputes between the two nations during her trip, instead proposing greater commercial cooperation, including a free-trade pact. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, which suffered under Japanese rule but in recent times has enjoyed warm relations with Tokyo, this week added his voice to those of leaders urging Koizumi not to return to Yasukuni.

China's Wu Yi cancels meeting with Japan PM Koizumi – May 23, 2005

TOKYO (BBC News) - Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi canceled a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday and returned home a day early, prompting a diplomatic stir. Wu and Japanese officials cited domestic commitments as the reason for canceling the meeting, which had been seen as a chance to improve frigid Sino-Japanese ties.

Wu Yi, Chinese Vice Premier in Foreign Trade

But the cancellation -- a rarity in diplomacy -- clearly angered some Japanese officials, with one calling on Beijing to give a "clear explanation" of what could be taken as a diplomatic snub. "The prime minister of the country had made plans for a meeting and it was canceled for some reason which is not very clear. I think they (China) need to give an explanation," a top Japanese foreign ministry official told reporters. "What do they think of diplomatic manners or rules?" he asked. "There seems to be something in common with the recent vandalism against our diplomatic missions," he said, referring to the anti-Japanese protests which swept Chinese cities last month. Sino-Japanese relations have been troubled by a series of feuds including anger in China at Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead seen by Beijing as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Kyodo news agency quoted Wu as saying: "I have some domestic business," while officials in Beijing had no immediate comment.

Koizumi said he did not know why Wu had to leave early. "It would have been a good opportunity since the meeting was proposed by them," Koizumi told reporters. "I would meet them anytime if they want to meet," he said. "If they don't want to meet, there is no need to." …

"If it is due to urgent business it can't be helped, but many people in Japan may feel it is rude," Shinzo Abe was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency.

Wu has handled crises ranging from foreign trade spats to public health issues, having taken over as health minister in 2003 after her predecessor was sacked for his handling of the SARS virus. Though she recently relinquished the health portfolio, as a vice premier and member of the 24-member Politburo, Wu, a former oil executive, oversees foreign trade. In a speech on Monday morning, in which she also reiterated China's commitment to reforming its yuan currency, Wu emphasized the need for Japan and China to improve ties. "Currently the relationship between the two countries is not satisfactory or benign," she said through an interpreter. "The maintenance of such a situation will not serve the interests of the two countries. We must change the trend as quickly as possible," Wu said.

"China is praying for friendship between the two countries."

Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao pulled ties back from the brink last month after a rare public apology by Koizumi for suffering caused by Japan's past military aggression. But tensions persist, putting at risk the growing economic ties between the two countries that generated nearly $170 billion worth of trade in 2004.

On Sunday, Chinese President Hu Jintao criticized Japan's handling of its war history and its policy toward Taiwan, saying that Sino-Japanese ties could be damaged "in an instant," Japanese media reported. Hu made the remarks at a meeting in Beijing with Tsutomu Takebe, secretary general of the LDP, and Takebe's counterpart in the LDP's junior coalition partner.

Iraq and the United States Golden Internationale

Al-Sadr steps out of hiding into middle of Shiite-Sunni divide – May 22, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CJAD Online) After eight months in hiding, the firebrand Shiite cleric who launched two uprisings against U.S. forces last year is back in the limelight railing against America, denouncing terrorism and mediating a sectarian rift that threatens to plunge Iraq into civil war.

Muqtada al-Sadr's return last Monday, in a news conference at his Najaf home, seemed perfectly timed. Fellow Shiites now rule Iraq's political scene, the U.S. forces he opposes are struggling against a raging insurgency, and he has taken on a statesmanlike role to resolve a bloody feud between Shiite and Sunni leaders.

From left, Muqtada al-Sadr's aide Hazim al-Araji, Muqtada al-Sadr's aide Abdul-Hadi al-Daraji and Senior Sunni Cleric Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi leave a meeting between the two religious groups at Baghdad's Sunni Um al-Qura mosque in Iraq Sunday. (AP/Karim Kadim)

On Sunday, al-Sadr dispatched top aides to patch up a troubling dispute threatening to inflame wider Shiite-Sunni violence. Ten Shiite and Sunni clerics are among more than 550 people killed in a wave of attacks following April 28's announcement of the new Shiite-led government. Al-Sadr's team met the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni group accusing the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of Iraq's largest Shiite group, of killing Sunni clerics. ''There is a wound that needs to be treated and Muqtada was the first to offer his medicine,'' said the association's spokesman Sheik Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi.

The Badr Brigades, which denies the association claims, will soon meet with al-Sadr's officials in an effort to find a way to end the bloodshed and acrimony.

If successful, al-Sadr will win political credence in a troubled country where all sides U.S.-led forces, Iraqi authorities and ordinary citizens alike are tired of incessant insecurity and mayhem. Laith Kuba, spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, urged Sunni Muslim leaders to take a strong stand on the killing of security forces and others at the hand of the insurgents. Sunni extremists are believed to be driving Iraq's insurgency. ''They should also give their opinion about the killing of civilians,'' he said. ''The Iraqi people want to hear that.''

Many regard the Sunni fall from grace as a key factor in Iraq's insurgency, which claimed more victims Sunday with gunmen killing Trade Ministry official Ali Moussa and his driver while they headed to work. In a sign of official intolerance of the violence, a court on Sunday sentenced to death three Sunnis linked to the feared Ansar al-Sunnah Army terror group for killing three police officers last year. U.S. forces, backed by at least 2,000 and Iraqi troops, launched a major offensive against insurgents in Baghdad's western Abu Ghraib district, where attacks along the dangerous airport road and the notorious U.S. detention facility have been commonplace. A ''substantial'' number of suspected insurgents were captured, the military said without elaborating. Also Sunday, two U.S. soldiers were killed one in a car bomb attack just north of Tikrit and another in a vehicle accident near Kirkuk.

In addition, the Polish military said Sunday that Polish and Iraqi forces have arrested 187 people suspected of carrying out, planning or supporting insurgent attacks in central Iraq, seizing explosives and ammunition. The arrests were made Thursday and Friday in Wasit province, which borders Iran. Separately, the government said its security forces captured Ismail Budair Ibrahim al-Obeidi, a ''terrorist'' close to the network of Jordan-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on Tuesday in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad. The terror suspect had planned Baghdad car bomb attacks and rigged booby-trapped cars for foreign fighters, the statement said.

Iraqi authorities also announced that Ghazi Hammud al-Obeidi, 65, one of the most-wanted officials from Saddam Hussein's former regime, was released last month because he was apparently terminally ill.

Al-Obeidi, suffering from stomach cancer, was the former regional chairman of the ruling Baath Party in the southern Iraqi city of Kut. He was detained May 7, 2003, and released April 28, making him the first of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis to be freed. He was No. 51 on the most-wanted list. Three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-American guide who had been held hostage for nearly two months in Iraq were released. The Romanians newspaper reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian, TV reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci were kidnapped in Iraq on March 28, along with their Iraqi-American guide, Mohammed Monaf. Their kidnappers had threatened to kill them unless Romania pulled its 800 troops out of Iraq, but the Romanian president had refused. Iraq's government joined U.S. calls in demanding Syria do more to stop foreign fighters from crossing the porous border into Iraq to fight coalition forces. ''It is impossible for about 2,000 people coming from the Gulf to pass through Syria and cross from Qaim or other border points without being discovered, despite our repeated calls,'' government spokesman Kuba said.

Al-Sadr ordered mass rallies Friday to protest a U.S.-Iraqi raid days earlier on one of his offices south of Baghdad that netted 13 supporters. Thousands responded by stomping on American and Israeli flags painted outside Shiite mosques Friday. One protest, in Nasiriyah, turned violent, with members of his al-Mahdi Army militia fighting security guards protecting a provincial governor's office. About 20 people, mostly al-Sadr supporters, were wounded. The violence sent worrisome signals to many here, particularly the Americans, who remember how the burly, black-bearded cleric, launched two uprisings against U.S. forces in Baghdad and Najaf in April and August last year. ''It would be very good for Mr. al-Sadr to stay in the political process,'' a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. ''It is important for Mr. Sadr to urge his followers to stay away from violence. We really don't need a repeat of the fighting of last year.''

Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq – May 12, 2005

WSWS.org - Iraqi doctors are making renewed efforts to bring to the world's attention the growth in birth deformities and cancer rates among the country's children. The medical crisis is being directly blamed on the widespread use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the US and British forces in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and the even greater use of DU during the 2003 invasion. The rate of birth defects, after increasing ten-fold from 11 per 100,000 births in 1989 to 116 per 100,000 in 2001, is soaring further.

Dr Nawar Ali, a medical researcher into birth deformities at Baghdad University, told the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) last month: "There have been 650 cases [birth deformities] in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals. That is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher." His colleague, Dr Ibrahim al-Jabouri, reported: "In my experiments we have found some cases where the mother and father were suffering from pollution from weapons used in the south and we believe that it is affecting newborn babies in the country."

The director of the Central Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, Wathiq Ibrahim, said: "We have asked for help from the government to make a more profound study on such cases as it is affecting thousands of families." The rise in birth defects is matched by a continuing increase in the incidence of childhood cancers. Six years ago, the College of Medicine at Basra University carried out a study into the rate of cancer among children under the age of 15 in southern Iraq from 1976 to 1999.

It revealed a horrific change between 1990 and 1999. In the province of Basra, the incidence of cancer of all types rose by 242 percent, while the rate of leukaemia among children rose 100 percent. Children living in the area were falling ill with cancer at the rate of 10.1 per 100,000. In districts where the use of DU had been the most concentrated, the rate rose to 13.2 per 100,000. The results were cited at the time in campaigns to end the UN-imposed and US-enforced sanctions against Iraq, which were held responsible for the death of as many as 500,000 Iraqi children from malnutrition and inadequate medical treatment.

The study noted: "Most doctors and scientists agree that even mild radiation is dangerous and increases the risk of cancer. The health risk becomes much greater once the [DU] projectile has been fired. After they have been fired, the broken shells release uranium particles. The airborne particles enter the body easily. The uranium then deposits itself in bones, organs and cells. Children are especially vulnerable because their cells divide rapidly as they grow. In pregnant women, absorbed uranium can cross the placenta into the bloodstream of the foetus. "In addition to its radioactive dangers, uranium is chemically toxic, like lead, and can damage the kidneys and lungs. Perhaps, the fatal epidemic of swollen abdomens among Iraqi children is caused by kidney failure resulting from uranium poisoning. Whatever the effect of the DU shells, it is made worse by malnutrition and poor health conditions.... "Iraq holds the United States and Britain legally and morally responsible for the grave health and environmental impact of the use of DU ..." (A version of the report is available at: http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du_iraq.htm). Terrible as these results were, the last six years have witnessed a further rise in the number of children under 15 falling ill with cancer in Iraq.

The rate has now reached 22.4 per 100,000-more than five times the 1990 rate of 3.98 per 100,000.

Dr Janan Hassan of the Basra Maternity and Childrens Hospital told IRIN in November 2004 that as many as 56 percent of all cancer patients in Iraq were now children under 5, compared with just 13 percent 15 years earlier. "Also," he said, "it is notable that the number of babies born with defects is rising astonishingly. In 1990, there were seven cases of babies born with multiple congenital anomalies. This has gone up to as high as 224 cases in the past three years."

The statistics point to the long-term consequences of depleted uranium contamination. Munitions containing an estimated 300 tonnes of DU were unleashed by coalition forces in southern Iraq in 1991. A decade after the war, DU shell holes are still 1,000 times more radioactive than the normal level of background radiation. The surrounding areas are still 100 times more radioactive. Experts surmise that fine uranium dust has been spread by the wind, contaminating swathes of the surrounding region, including Basra, which is some 200 kilometres away from sites where large numbers of DU shells were fired.

A 1997 study into the cancer rate among Iraqi soldiers who fought in the Basra area during the 1991 Gulf War found a statistically significant increase in the rate at which they were stricken with lymphomas, leukaemia, and lung, brain, gastrointestinal, bone and liver cancers, as compared to personnel who had not fought in the south. One in four of the American personnel who fought in first Iraq war-more than 150,000 people-are also suffering a range of medical disorders collectively described as "Gulf War Syndrome". While the US military denies there is any relationship, exposure to depleted uranium is one of the factors blamed by veterans and medical researchers.

Somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 tonnes of DU was expended during the three-week war in 2003. Unlike 1991, however, where most of the fighting took place outside major population centres, the 2003 invasion witnessed the wholesale bombardment of targets inside densely-populated cities with DU shells. Christian Science Monitor journalist Scott Peterson registered radiation on a simple Geiger counter at levels some 1,900 times the normal background rate in parts of Baghdad in May 2003. The city has a population of six million.

Given that it was two to four years after the 1991 war before cancer and birth defect rates began to rise dramatically, the fear among medical specialists is that Iraq will face an epidemic of cancers by the end of the decade, under conditions where the medical system, devastated by years of sanctions and war, is unable to cope with the existing crisis. Dr Amar, the deputy head of the Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basra, one of the main hospitals treating Iraqi cancer patients, told the Sydney Morning Herald on April 29: "We don't have drugs to treat tumours. I have a patient with tumours who is unconscious and I don't have drugs or a bed in which to treat him. I have two women with advanced ovarian cancer but I can give them only minimum doses of only some of the drugs they need. "Two or three days ago we had to cancel all surgery because we had no gauze and no anaesthetics. Our wards are like stables for horses, not humans. We can't properly isolate patients or manage their diets. We don't have proper laboratory facilities.... "If you are sick don't come to this hospital for treatment. It is collapsing around us. We're going down in a heap."Nuclear war would be worse: If depleted Uranium munitions used in Iraq can produce the cancerous results, and the death of children as described in the article above, you can well imagine the results of a nuclear war in the Middle East, or for that fact the world.

Bin Laden henchman ‘seriously wounded’ – May 15, 2005

Times on Line - IRAQ’S most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been seriously wounded, according to a doctor who claims to have treated him last week.

The doctor told an Iraqi reporter in the western city of Ramadi that Zarqawi was bleeding heavily when he was brought into hospital on Wednesday. After treating his wounds the doctor tried to persuade him to remain, but the Jordanian-born terrorist’s minders drove him away. The claim was supported yesterday by a senior commander in the Iraqi resistance who had been to Ramadi to investigate the report. The doctor, who refused to specify the nature of the wounds and asked not to be identified, was detained by the Americans on Friday for questioning, residents said.

Zarqawi, described as Osama Bin Laden’s “emir” in Iraq, is the Americans’ top target. He has been blamed for countless suicide bombings and for the execution of western hostages, including Ken Bigley, the Liverpool engineer. There is a £13m bounty on his head. Last week US forces launched an offensive near al-Qaim, more than 100 miles northwest of the city, and claimed to have killed scores of insurgents. According to the doctor, Zarqawi was escorted into Ramadi general hospital by smartly dressed men. “He was bleeding heavily and his escorts were well dressed with a look about them that was different from the casualties and family members we had been receiving from the al-Qaim offensive,” he was quoted as saying. “I treated his injury and asked that he remain in hospital for further observations and told him that we would have to register him and take down his name and details. But he became very nervous and agitated. He refused and told me he would not be staying. “The three men with him asked me politely that he be allowed to leave hospital immediately and that I supply them with a prescription and a list of medication that he may need.” The doctor, who recognised Zarqawi from his photograph on television, followed them to their vehicle to try to convince them that the patient should remain in hospital. At that point, he said, he saw machineguns. They threatened to kill him if he told anyone what he had seen. They then produced a wad of US dollars to secure his silence. The doctor said that he had refused to take the cash.

Operation Matador Marines Beat Back Heavy Resistance – May 14, 2005

Insurgents, Iraq, "Operation Matador" 2 OBEIDI, Iraq (WSB TV) - The U.S. military pronounced its weeklong offensive near the Syrian border over Saturday, saying it had successfully "neutralized" an insurgent sanctuary and killed more than 125 militants. Many more suspected insurgents were injured and 39 with "intelligence value" were captured, the military said in a statement. It provided no details about the detainees. Nine U.S. Marines were killed and 40 injured during the campaign known as Operation Matador, during which American forces searched the Euphrates River villages of Karabilah, Rommana and Obeidi for followers of Iraq's most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

An insurgent in Qaim, Iraq, during "Operation Matador," May 13, 2005. (AP)

The pronouncement came hours after U.S. forces had encircled the Euphrates River village of Obeidi, causing frightened residents to flee indoors as American helicopters hovered overhead and military vehicles briefly rumbled through Obeidi's old quarter, meeting no resistance. Insurgents, meanwhile, staged a series of attacks elsewhere in Iraq, killing at least 10 people, including a top Iraqi Foreign Ministry official who was assassinated in a drive-by shooting as he stood outside his Baghdad home.

U.S. air strikes also destroyed two unoccupied buildings near Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, on Saturday that the military identified as an insurgent command center. Marines based in the area said the targeted buildings were about 20 miles northwest of Fallujah, the scene of a large scale November campaign west of Baghdad to rout militants responsible for multiple attacks. No casualties were immediately reported. Matador Marines Met Heavy Resistance More than 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors participated in Operation Matador, which began late Saturday in Qaim, a border town of 50,000 people about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad. Marines met resistance soon after from heavily armed insurgents - some in body armor - in the nearby village of Obeidi, home to 10,000 people, the statement said. Some 70 insurgents were killed in the first 24 hours alone, the military said. Thousands have fled the area, pitching tents along sandblown desert highways or seeking shelter in schools and mosques in nearby towns. The remote desert region, an ancient smuggling route and insurgent hideout, had been used as a staging area where fighters who slipped over the border from Syria received weapons and equipment for deadly attacks in Iraq's major cities, according to the military statement. "During the seven-day operation, Marines disrupted the known infiltration routes through the region and disrupted sanctuaries and staging areas," the military said. It said U.S. and Iraqi forces would return in the future.

Insurgents, Iraq, "Operation Matador" 1 Marines searching small towns near the Syrian border discovered numerous weapons caches containing machine guns, mortar rounds and rockets. Six car bombs and material for making other explosive devices also were found, the statement said. The military said the operation confirmed previous intelligence about the region north of the Euphrates River, including the existence of "cave complexes" in the nearby escarpment. It did not elaborate. The military denied resident reports they had been without water and electricity in some areas since the offensive began. "Throughout the course of the operation, Marines strove to ensure the well-being of the local Iraqi citizens," the statement said. "The Marines were greeted with greater hospitality from local villagers than is normally encountered." In Obeidi, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the campaign's first days, residents retreated indoors as a large convoy of mainly Marines, backed by tanks and helicopters, rolled across the river from Rommana.

Insurgents in Qaim, Iraq, during "Operation Matador," May 13, 2005.

Shelling began several hours later, damaging a house in the old part of the village and wounding five people, said Dr. Saadallah Anad at Obeidi General Hospital.

Anad said he did not know if U.S. weapons fire hit the house but helicopters were hovering over the area. "We are living in a catastrophic situation. We don't have medicines or equipment, and we are worried that when our ambulances go out the Americans could strike at them," he said. Marines launched a "cordon and search" operation in Obeidi, looking for insurgents, foreign fighters, weapons and bomb-making material, U.S. military spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool said. But he denied Obeidi was hit by air or artillery strikes Saturday. Rival insurgent groups are fighting among themselves in the nearby town of Qaim, trading mortar, rocket and machine gun fire almost nightly, Pool said. Residents acknowledged fighting in Qaim began before the U.S. offensive, characterizing it as tribal clashes.

While armed fighters control Qaim's streets, Obeidi residents said they have seen no more gunmen in their village, where the U.S. military says it killed more than 50 insurgents the first night of the campaign, the largest since insurgents were forced from Fallujah six months ago. The operation was aimed at allies of al-Zarqawi, whose terror network has claimed responsibility for scores of bombings, ambushes and kidnappings in Iraq.

60 Insurgents Detained North Of Baghdad

Also Saturday, Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. forces captured 52 men suspected of insurgent activities in a raid in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Haider al-Tamimi told Associated Press Television News. Iraqi soldiers also raided the Sunni Muslim Sheik Nasar Mosque after midday prayers in central Baghdad, arresting eight members of a suspected militant cell, including their leader, known as Abu Huthaifa, said police Lt. Col. Foad Asaad.

Weapons and ammunition were confiscated during the arrests of the eight men, who police said were wanted in connection with multiple attacks and assassinations.

Foreign Ministry Official Killed Jassim Mohammed Ghani, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry's director-general, was killed at about Saturday evening in western Baghdad's al-Kharijiyah district, Capt. Talib Thamer said. Three bystanders were also wounded.

Insurgents have routinely targeted Iraqi government officials in a relentless campaign to derail the country's postwar reconstruction efforts.

A car bomb also targeted a police patrol in central Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least five Iraqis and injuring 12, most civilians, police said. The afternoon blast destroyed cars and set fire to a minibus. Shards of glass and pieces of flesh were strewn in the bloodstained street.Earlier Saturday, a roadside bomb exploded - apparently prematurely - in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, killing three Iraqi street cleaners and injuring four, police and hospital officials said.

In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded when a joint army and police patrol passed by, killing a 10-year-old boy and wounding two Iraqi soldiers and a policeman, police Col. Wathiq Mohammed said. A car bomb in the same city injured three policemen, he said. At least 1,620 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Iran and the Red Internationale

So much for diplomacy: Teheran's atomic clock ticks down – May 12, 2005

UNITED NATIONS (World Tribune) - Delegates at the U.N.'s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference may soon be singing the blues given grievous violations by some states both inside and outside the global accord. The Islamic Republic of Iran gratuitously and graciously confirmed American fears about nuclear proliferation when its Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told the UN conference that his country indeed intends to pursue nuclear enrichment procedures - a technology which brings Teheran closer to bomb making capability.

Though enriched uranium can be used either to fuel power reactors or for atomic weapons production, Iran's actions are in direct violation of earlier commitments to Britain, France and Germany - The EU-3 - to suspend such activities. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Rademaker told the NPT conference, that Washington demanded a "permanent cessation of Iran's enrichment and reprocessing efforts, as well as a dismantlement of equipment and facilities related to such activities."

Thus diplomatic efforts by the EU-3 have failed to stop the ticking atomic clock in Teheran. It appears that the Atomic Ayatollahs have snookered the international community and have brought the ongoing crisis to a new level. So what's next? Though Iran's Russian-built Busheher reactor is slated for electric power production, the sites at Nantaz are focused on uranium enrichment and Arak facility is focused on plutonium production. Sadly the Iranian challenge becomes a case of not If but When.......more.

War: The Neocon/Zionist alliance will use Iran's nuclear ambitions as revealed in the article above, to instigate a war with Iran, using propaganda, and the threat of terrorism, or perhaps even set up a covert terrorist act in order to justify a war with Iran, as revealed in the article below. This coming war will go nuclear, and will escalate into a full blown regional confrontation that the Neocon/Zionist alliance will be unable to control. The Bible foretold of these coming events, but assures us that the days will be shortened in order to prevent the destruction of all flesh upon the planet - Jesus - Matthew 24: 21-22, which is to say, that a divine intervention, and the arrival of the Kingdom of God, will put a stop to the war. Look upon these events as another sign that the arrival of the Kingdom of God is at the door.

Israel, Iran, Mossad and a Nuclear False Flag Attack – May 12, 2005

Progressive Convergence - New information and threats, including this commercial video (available from the Iran Freedom Foundation home page) and other neoconservative rants regarding an "Iranian" nuclear threat have prompted an essential update to this piece regarding the extensive record of recently arrested Israeli, not Iranian operatives, often around nuclear facilities in America.

This campaign designed to prepare the American people to blame Iran for a possible upcoming nuclear terrorist attack fits the description of a Mossad false flag operation, especially because of Israel's numerous, even flagrant recent violations of American nuclear security. Israel's long record of using terrorism and especially "false flag" terrorism - covert military operations designed to pin blame on an enemy - is extensive and well documented, beginning with the bombing of the Hotel King David by Menachem Begin's Irgun fighters, through the Lavon Affair and recently includes the bust up of a phony al Qaeda cell that was in reality manufactured by the Mossad.

For those still under the illusion that Israel has always been a US ally, please note the USS Liberty Incident , wherein Israeli fighter planes and torpedo boats nearly sunk an unarmed US intelligence vessel in international waters, and also the US Army War College's assesment of the Mossad: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target US forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act." - Washington Times.

Even the US army acknowledges that Israel can and does engineer "false flag" attacks. Here's why they say history repeats itself. America, doesn't this sound a bit too familiar: "As during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the neocons have embarked on another inane search for monarchic exile groups to prop up as future leaders of a "free and democratic" Iran. This effort, according to the Financial Times, is led by a gruesome twosome -- Iran-Contra scumlord, Michael Ledeen, and Swift Boat washup, Jerome Corsi -- along with AIPAC and a laundry list of wingers in congress." - Max Blumenthal "A prominent backer of the Alliance [for "Democracy" in Iran - forerunner to the Iran Freedom Foundation] is Jerome Corsi, well known for his role in the Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth campaign against John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate...

The Alliance says it is in partnership with the rightwing Hudson Institute. Alliance members are also inspired by Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, an influential neoconservative policy group, who is a veteran campaigner for regime change. " - Financial Times. The Hudson Institute, the ultraconservative, organic food bashing home of neocon all star Meyrav Wurmser, co- author of the famous Project for a New Pearl Harbor, I mean Project for a New American Century document, Rebuilding America's Defenses provides insitutional cover for this poorly disguised covert intelligence operation.

Hudson Institute features the Bilderberger criminal, "Lord" Conrad Black as one of its trustees. Here's what New World Order genius-in-chief Henry Kissinger has to say about the Hudson Institute: "Hudson Institute is today one of America's foremost policy research centers, in the forefront of study and debate on important domestic and international policy issues, known and respected around the globe, a leader in innovative thinking and creative solutions to the challenges of the present and the future." - Henry A. Kissinger.

This recent propaganda effort streaming through wild-eyed right-wing rags like World Net Daily is well-organized and may perhaps indicate that the "provocation" designed to legitimate the planned June 2005 war with Iran, is about to occur. Neocon bullhorn World Net Daily blares: "NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR: Iran nuke commercial hits TV markets. Spot depicting atomic terror attack in NYC to be seen in 20 cities." Citizens can afford to waste no time informing the President, the Pentagon, Congress, State Officials, FBI Counter Intelligence and the press that we are aware of the intent of this propaganda campaign and are not fooled.

Recent Israeli and US efforts to publicly distance themselves from war plans for Iran may be part of a campaign to appear peaceful, such that a terrorist attack falsely blamed on Iran with the full force of the international media will look all the more brutal and undeserved. We have seen these types of "terrorist attacks" both real and imagined used to legitimate foreign military adventures that are deceptively sold to an unwitting public as if they were in our "National Interest," or "Promote Democracy." No, no, as Major General Smedley Butler put it in 1935:

War is a Racket. When was the last time this Administration warned us about mushroom clouds over US cities? Where are those weapons of mass destruction today? Read on for the details of the Israeli agents arrested near US nuclear facilities or in other suspicious circumstances. All instances documented in mainstream press. External articles rendered in Arial Font. Israeli nationals, recently arrested all around the country, may be part of a possible false flag attack on the United States, perhaps even involving nuclear weapons or an attack on nuclear facilities. These attacks may be designed to frame Muslim nations in order to legitimate resource and world domination wars. Look at the below published news reports and documents… (Click to Open for More)

Egypt and the “King of the South”

Egypt detains members of outlawed Muslim Brotherhood - Crackdown comes ahead of referendum on electoral changes – May 22, 2005

story.egyptprotest.ap.jpg CAIRO, Egypt (Edition CNN) -- Egyptian authorities arrested the fourth-highest official in the powerful Muslim Brotherhood early Sunday, one of 25 members of the outlawed movement picked up in a major crackdown ahead of a referendum on presidential election rules the group opposes.

An anti-Mubarak protester, right, shouts as a supporter carries a banner in Cairo on Friday

Mahmoud Ezzat, secretary-general of the Islamist group and head of its Cairo operations, is the highest-profile Brotherhood arrested since 1996, said a police official. Egyptian police policy is to only speak to reporters on condition of anonymity. Ezzat and 24 others were picked up in dawn sweeps of several provinces, police and Brotherhood officials said. Brotherhood deputy leader Mohammed Habib confirmed Ezzat's arrest. Three of the others also held senior positions within the banned group, which advocates the peaceful establishment of an Islamic state.

Prosecutors have begun questioning the detainees on charges of membership in -- or in the case of Ezzat and the three others, leadership of -- a banned group and organizing demonstrations without a permission from the government. "The arrest is an escalation against the Brotherhood and a message to the group that no one is beyond arrest," Abdel-Galil el-Sharnoubi, editor of the group's Web site, said.

The Egyptian regime "is arresting the leading figures who are capable of moving the people in the street to boycott the referendum. Arrests, at this time, affect the people stance," he added. Wednesday's referendum allows Egyptians to approve or reject changes to the constitution that will allow the nation's first multi-party presidential elections in September.

Opponents of President Hosni Mubarak, including the Brotherhood, have urged a boycott of the referendum, saying the changes will provide little more than window dressing to the current yes-no, one candidate system.

Mubarak, who has served 24 years as president, has always been handily reinstalled in referendums in which there were no other candidates. The Brotherhood commands a substantial following in Egypt and it alone among Mubarak's opponents could prove a tough challenger. More than 800 members of the outlawed Brotherhood have been detained in connection with May protests in several Egyptian provinces, part of a growing opposition campaign for democratic political reform. At times, the Brotherhood has protested alongside secular opposition groups that also have complained steps toward multi-candidate presidential elections don't go far enough.

Ezzat, 60, was arrested under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser who banned the Brotherhood in 1954. Arrested in 1965 during the days of harsh crackdowns on a group that sought to overthrow the regime and replace it with an Islamic system, Ezzat was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in 1974. By then, the Brotherhood was heading toward peaceful advocacy of an Islamic system for Egypt. Ezzat was arrested in 1995 -- once again an election year -- for his activities, and he was sentenced by a military court to five years in prison.

North Korea and the Red Internationale

Letter from Pyongyang – by Anonymous Author - July August 2002

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (58:04) - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has a population of nearly 20 million people, but only two citizens--and one of them is dead.

The Soviet Union under Stalin tried hard to erase any vestige of civil society and the important people in it, but failed. Russia was known for its famous people, even as they fell under the blade of Stalinism. But no one in North Korea is famous except for the Kims. Led by the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, the family also includes the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, and the mother of all Korea, Kim Jong Suk. (Kim Jong Suk's picture crops up from time to time and place to place, but she is of little or no importance.)

So two Kims, one alive and one dead, control all aspects of life in this tiny, impoverished country, where Kim Il Sungism is the reigning ideology. Questioning that ideology brings banishment from the cities, imprisonment, or public execution. All visits to North Korea start with an obligatory visit to Mansudae Hill and the 20-meter-tall statue of the Great Leader. Built in 1982 to celebrate his seventieth birthday, the statue is now the focal point for all pilgrimages to Pyongyang. Each person or delegation is expected to bring flowers to lay at the feet of the giant bronze, and bowing is mandatory. On either side of the statue are massive statues of workers, peasants, and especially soldiers fighting against Japanese or U.S. soldiers in the struggle for liberation.

Two basic images of the Great Leader can be found everywhere. The standard image, displayed on all government buildings and in all homes, is the stern portrait that glares down upon the population. The new image, the "smiling portrait," was painted after Kim's death, and has become very popular.

The official portrait of the younger Kim emphasizes his seriousness while de-emphasizing his Elvis-style hair and excess weight. It hangs everywhere beside the portrait of his father, including inside railway carriages and subway cars. Hotel rooms for foreigners seem to be an exception to the ubiquity of these official portraits, but staff areas are never without them. Pictures of Kim Jong Suk show her wearing the army uniform she is said to have worn during the fight against the Japanese.

The national art gallery displays numerous paintings of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader giving "on-the-spot guidance" to happy workers, peasants, and soldiers. One of the newest additions to the collection is a massive work showing the Dear Leader with his Mercedes.

There are only two public pictures in Pyongyang of people who do not belong to the Kim family--in the main square are two smallish images, one of Marx and one of Lenin.

President for all eternity

After Kim Il Sung's death, the constitution was altered to enshrine him as the eternal president of Korea. This is why Kim Jong Il has not assumed the title of president, ruling instead as chairman of the National Defense Commission.

In keeping with Kim Il Sung's posthumous position as permanent president, the presidential palace has been converted to the world's largest mausoleum. His former home and office were sealed up with granite and marble, and the world's longest moving sidewalk was installed to take visitors past his body. Dead-leader-visiting junkies will be disappointed to learn that they may not get in to see Kim as easily as when they visited Lenin, Mao, or Ho Chi Minh: Only ideologically appropriate people are invited to gaze upon the eight-year-old corpse and father of "juche" (pronounced "joo-chay").

According to the official line, juche "means that the masters of the revolution and construction are the masses of the people and they are also the motive force of the revolution and construction. In other words, one is responsible for one's own destiny." More succinctly, juche refers to the idea that the state must be totally self-reliant. North Koreans abhor what they call "flunkeyism," or reliance on foreigners. In fact, no mention is ever made of the role of either the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China in building or defending North Korea. Those countries are apparently of no importance to the past, present, or future of Korea.

The "Tower of the Juche Idea" is a massive glass flame, lit in a way to appear to be burning with the red flame of revolutionary idealism. But the word "juche" also appears everywhere else--on all buildings and in every workplace.

Another obligatory stop is at the shrine at Mangyongdae, the birthplace of the Great Leader. Koreans are obliged to visit this place on a regular basis. But it is one of the nicer parks in Pyongyang, so many Koreans visit of their own free will. One is unlikely ever to see anything as obviously fake, however, as the alleged childhood home of the Great Leader, the "original" peasant house on the edge of a former graveyard. A wooden and thatch shack, it is beautifully kept and adorned with family photographs.

Even more completely fake is the legendary birthplace of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, who is said to have been born in a humble log cabin at sacred Mount Paektu in the northernmost reaches of Korea during the anti-imperialist war against the Japanese. He was actually born in the Soviet Union.

Other fakes in the northern areas include slogans gouged into tree trunks. More of these carvings, said to have been made by anti-imperialist fighters led by comrade Kim Il Sung between 1925 and 1945, seem to be discovered every day. They appear amazingly fresh, free from weathering or overgrowth. When found, they are preserved behind Plexiglass. Their message: that there has always been only one true leader of all Korea, the Great Leader, who almost single-handedly defeated the Japanese Imperial Army.

Understanding the depth of yearning for international recognition comes with a visit to the International Friendship Exhibitions at the Myohyangsan Mountains. There one repository is dedicated to Kim Il Sung, and another to Kim Jong Il. Both exhibits, housed inside a mountain, contain tens of thousands of gifts--impressive ones from world leaders and silly little gifts from ordinary people. Many items look odd displayed behind glass, particularly common household goods like a working-class dining room table or small trinkets from souvenir shops around the world. The display is apparently intended to show both foreigners and Koreans that the world recognizes how important the Great and Dear Leaders are. And there is, in fact, an almost religious quality to the way the collection of relics is displayed.

The streets of Pyongyang--and everywhere else--are filled with posters. There is no advertising in a commercial sense, but there is a great deal of advertising telling Koreans how to think about the Great and Dear Leaders. Newly painted posters regularly replace older ones, and most carry socialist-realist images; the rest carry pictures of the Great Leader and his edifying words, urging the population on to greater feats of revolutionary heroism.

Things really are engraved in stone, too. The words of the Great Leader are frequently carved in chunks of granite, which may range in size from small monuments at the roadside right up to massive letters carved into the side of a hill or a mountain. Adding to the two Kims' deification is the constant reference to them in song and dance. One need only listen to a few minutes of radio or television to hear each one mentioned several times. While the two Kims have not named places after themselves (other than Kim Il Sung University) they have had various items named in their honor. Both men have flowers named after them, and these flowers are always prominently displayed.

Pyongyang - capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

KCCKP.Net - Pyongyang, capital of DPRK is the centre of politics, the economy and culture. It has a 5,000-year history as a capital city, since Tangun, founder king, established Ancient Korea and set Pyongyang as its capital. The Moran Hill, the "Garden of the Capital", is full of flowers and the picturesque River Taedong flows through the city centre. It seems Pyongyang nestles in park.

Such surroundings make Pyongyang the "World Best Beauty".

Hagap Unidentified Underground Facility Myohyang Mountains – October 16, 2002

On October 16, 2002 Bush administration officials disclosed that North Korea had admitted to American diplomats that it has been operating a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 "agreed framework" between the two countries. The surprise development would appear to put the American-North Korean relationship into a deep freeze. Over the summer of 2002 the US reached these conclusions, and became convinced that the DPRK had this program ongoing for several years. There had been indications and hints, but it was not possible several years ago for the US to reach that conclusion. The October exchange was prompted by the discovery by US intelligence of North Korean attempts to to acquire large quantities of high-strength aluminum which could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium. In addition, US intelligence had received reports of significant construction activity that appeared related to a uranium-enrichment facility.

It appeared that North Korea for several years had been trying to enrich uranium, and the only purpose for doing that is to develop nuclear weapons. The State Department argued that this activity is a "serious violation" of the 1994 accord, under which North Korea was to have scrapped its nuclear weapons program, in exchange for Western nuclear power plants and other aid.

Reports that North Korea had built gas centrifuge to produce highly enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons have been circulating for years though the consensus amoung experts is that such a facility is still two to three years away from being producing HEU. Evidence of attempted aluminum procurement is believed to be a key indicator that a uranium-enrichment program was in development. As of late 2002 the US Government did not appear to know with certainty where the uranium research and development is taking place. The US evidently determined the North had an HEU weapons program based on intelligence concerning procurement activities, not satellite imagery. US officials initially did not reveal the location of an HEU facility, though previous speculation about uranium enrichment plants had centered on three locations, including the underground facilities at Yongjo-ri / Yongo-dong, about 12 miles from the Chinese border in Yanggang province, as well as a suspected underground facility in Changang province known as Hagap. In March 1999 it was reported that US intelligence believed that North Korea was building four large underground facilities at Chagando, Hagap, Pyonganbukto (between Taechon and Kusong), and Chagando, 10km from the first. It was suspected that the first site at Chagando is used for nuclear testing.

An unidentified underground complex at Hagap was reported on in the press in 1998 citing a classified Defense Intelligence Agency report titled "Outyear Threat Report". The DIA was unable to identify the purpose of the facility but speculated that it could be used for nuclear production and/or storage. The facility, located three miles north of Hyangsan, P'yongan-Pukto Province, consists of three main areas. The operations area is said to have 30 buildings and 5 additional buildings that are under construction. The location is at the foot of the Myohyangsan mountains that has at least four tunnel entrances and 11 support buildings. Reports indicate that four tunnels connect to dozens of building. This facility is said to be unique as it is the only one of several potential nuclear facilities that has been built underground. According to reports published in mid-August 1998, some 15,000 North Koreans were working on a large-scale tunneling and digging operation into the mountainside about 25 miles northeast of the former nuclear research center at Yongbyon. Some US intelligence analysts were said to believe that the construction is either a nuclear reactor or a reprocessing plant, though the site was two to six years years from completion, and as of August 1998 workers had not begun pouring cement for the foundation of the facility. Subsequent reports demonstrated that the facility in question is not located at the previously reported "25 miles northeast of .. Yongbyon" but rather at Kumchangni near Sakchu.

The Clinton Administration first briefed a few of Members of Congress on intelligence reports that some type of large-scale digging had begun at the site in the Spring of 1998. European diplomatic sources and some US executive branch officials expressed doubts concerning these reports.Building a nuclear reactor underground is an enormously difficult technical task for any country. Nonproliferation officials in three key US agencies who track clandestine foreign nuclear programs were not apprised of such a development, and one senior US nonproliferation official said that routine intelligence data showed the DPRK was " ... building thousands of tunnels all over the country at any one time, for all kinds of projects, it is possible that somebody in Washington is spin-doctoring information about this kind of activity to project it as a serious nuclear threat."

The reports concerning this project coincided with the inability of the Clinton Administration to win Congressional approval of a request for $35 million to continue providing heavy fuel oil to Pyongyang. The shipments are part of the 1994 Agreed Framework under which north Korea are to be supplied with two modern nuclear reactors to produce electricity, in exchange for halting its own nuclear program. Before Congress recessed, the Senate had approved the administration's request, but the House, where there was opposition to the deal, had not acted.

The Great Leader Kim Il Sung is said to have loved the Myohyang Mountains (mountains of singular fragrance), and the area is famed as a summer resort. The tallest peak in the Myohyang Mountains is Piro Peak, some 1,909 meters high. The most inportant facility on Mt. Myohyang is the International Friendship Exhibition (IFE), a six-story Korean-style building, which opened in August 1978. The Center contains displays of the more than 2 million gifts which presented to great leader President Kim Il Sung and the respected General Kim Jong Il from party and state leaders, prominent public figures and progressive people of the world. General Secretary Kim Jong Il gave his first on-the-spot guidance to the International Friendship Exhibition on Augsut 25, 1979 and visited it several times later. In October 1996 a two story building dedicated to the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il and the presents given to him was added to the complex.

Until recently only a few foreign tourist came to the Myohyang Mountains, but on 10 October 1997 the highway from Pyongyang was completed, improving access to the Myohyang Hotel, which is restricted to use by foreigners. Hyangsan village is located where the Myohyang River comes together with the Chongchon River. Hyangsan only has one main street, with traditional Korean houses on both sides.

The Pyongyang-Hyangsan Expressway was constructed to facilitate transport to and from munitions factories in Jagang Province as well as helping foreign tourists visit the scenic Mount Myohyang. The Pyongyang-Hyangsan Expressway was opened in 1996, partly to facilitate the tourism of the famous Mount Myohyang. Except for the Pyongyang-Kaesong Highway and portions of the Pyongyang-Hyangsan Highway, no North Korean expressways have midline lane dividers. On the Pyongyang-Hyangsan highway, motorists have no trouble running at 100km per hour. But one can hardly avoid feeling alone on that highway. Expressways in North Korea give motorists a sense of desolation, primarily because they encounter few vehicles during hours of driving.

Hyangsan Hotel is situated in Mt. Myohyang, a scenic spot of Korea. The hotel with unique triangular architectural style was opened in May Juche 75 (1986). The 15-storeyed hotel has a total floor space of more than 32,500 square meters. It boasts the peculiar architecture of the main lobby, the lobby on the first floor, the revolving restaurant and its modern welfare and service facilities. The skylights of the main lobby were built in such a way as to keep it well-lighted. the main lobby is so gorgeously decorated with a fountain and varieties of fittings that it is reminiscent of picturesque Mt. Myohyang. The hotel is always bustling with Korean and foreign visitors. The DPRK and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) held talks in Hyangsan, north of Pyongyang, to discuss the long-delayed construction of nuclear power plants. The entrance to the 'Valley of Falls' is, via the road along the Myohyang River, 4½ km from Hyangsan Hotel. From the entrance to the valley there is a 2.6 km long path leading up to the Nine Falls and another 3.6 km long path is going down and back. The path up begins just after the path down.

Spy photos spot signs of N Korea nuclear test site – May 12, 2005

Guardian - American officials believe that new satellite photographs of North Korea show intensive preparations for a possible nuclear weapons test, it was reported yesterday. The imagery is said to show tunnels being dug under a mountain in the north-east of the country and then rock and building materials being taken back in, possibly in an effort to contain an underground blast. The pictures also show what appears to be an observation stand a few miles away. Details of the satellite intelligence were reported by the New York Times yesterday, quoting Pentagon and White House officials, who pointed out that the apparent test preparations could be a ruse to pressure the United States into making concessions at the negotiating table.

The prospect of a nuclear test by North Korea has alarmed its neighbours, who have spent the past two years trying to head off a confrontation between Pyongyang and Washington that could destabilise the region. But with six-nation regional talks stalled for almost a year, South Korea and China are increasingly worried that an underground test is a matter of when, not if. Since rumours began circulating about a possible test at the start of the year, Chinese officials have been visiting the US embassy in Beijing to request intelligence updates about the likely site and timing. South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, and his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, warned Pyongyang yesterday that any further escalation of the 30-month nuclear standoff would backfire diplomatically.

Meanwhile, Japan has threatened punitive actions unless North Korea returns to the six-party talks. "If there is no progress, we have to think of other options, such as taking this matter to the United Nations security council," said the Japanese foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura. A US Defence Intelligence Agency official told the Guardian yesterday that the New York Times account was accurate. "There was nothing in that report that I would dispute," said the official. "There are different tricks of the trade the North Koreans could be doing, and there is so much you don't know about what they're thinking."

Yesterday's report suggested, however, that there was disagreement within the US intelligence community over the significance of the photographs. It noted: "Officials at one American intelligence agency said they were unaware of the new activity." Officials at the CIA would not comment on the report yesterday. It would not be the first time the CIA has been more cautious over intelligence reports than the Pentagon and the White House. "I'm told the White House is obsessed with this. It might be an effort by the administration to get China to put more pressure on the North Koreans," said David Albright, director of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, who has closely followed the North Korean nuclear programme.

Mr Albright said he had not seen the satellite imagery in question, but felt that the evidence sounded less than conclusive. "You don't know for sure. Don't forget you're looking at something from 200 miles up," he said. "I didn't see anything in [the article] that would elevate it above a suspect site." Whatever the merit of the satellite images, Mr Albright argued, the alert should be used to make diplomatic preparations for a future North Korean test, so that the US and countries in the region can maintain a common front. "You don't want to be unprepared, because the region is so volatile," he said. North Korea's intentions remain unclear. It has boasted about its "nuclear deterrent", but has yet to demonstrate that it has the technology to explode a bomb. Until two years ago, the CIA estimated that North Korea might have enough plutonium for two bombs. Since then, however, Pyongyang has resumed operations at its Yongbyon nuclear plant, potentially producing enough material for eight weapons

Fallout from test would be troubling for everyone – May 25, 2005

Taipei Times - A nuclear weapons test by North Korea would reverberate around the world, altering the nuclear balance in Asia and posing stark new challenges for US policy-makers and military planners. It could also induce China, Russia and other powers to join the US in seeking UN-approved penalties against the hard-line communist country, analysts suggest. With US officials increasingly concerned that North Korea may conduct a test soon, how would Washington respond?

First, the Bush administration probably would try to involve the UN. Less clear is whether US President George W. Bush would consider a risky military strike -- given North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's million-man army, heavy conventional weaponry and perhaps several nuclear weapons. "The North Koreans are basically hellbent on proving to the world that they need to be taken seriously. That's dangerous," said Representative Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "A North Korean test would embarrass China and might actually rally other nations to our position. But the result might push Kim Jong-il to take whatever steps he felt were necessary to rally his people into war," Weldon said.

Weldon, who led a delegation to North Korea in January, said he met last Monday in New York with North Korea's deputy UN ambassador, Han Song-ryol, and told him, "If you do a test, you're going to set this process back years and years, and it's going to lead to consequences neither of us want." Meanwhile, North Korea has indicated a willingness to return to the bargaining table but said it is waiting for Washington to clarify conflicting statements on US policy. Citing differences between Washington's public and private statements, the North's official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman Sunday as saying Pyongyang "will continue to closely watch the US side's attitude, and when the time comes we will officially deliver to the US side our position through the New York contacts."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday that the Bush administration sees no contradictions in its statements on North Korea. "The six-party talks are the way forward to resolving this issue. We want to see them come back to the talks. We have no preconditions for returning to the talks and we've made that very clear," he said.

US officials want China to exert more pressure on its longtime ally. China says bullying rhetoric by the US makes it harder to coax the North Koreans back to the negotiating table. "The potential downside of a test is enormous," said Kurt Campbell, former assistant secretary of defense for Asia in the Clinton administration. "It would set off a chain reaction in the region with completely impossible-to-predict consequences." It could even lead South Korea and Japan to rethink their policy against nuclear arsenals, he said.

North Korea 'may have six bombs' – May 12, 2005

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei BBC News - UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohammed ElBaradei has said North Korea could possess several nuclear bombs. Speaking on US television, he said Pyongyang had enough plutonium to make five or six nuclear weapons. The country also has the necessary infrastructure to convert the plutonium into weapons, Mr ElBaradei added. North Korea announced in February that it had nuclear arms - but that claim has not been verified by Mr ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency.

ElBaradei wants Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table

When asked by CNN if it was the IAEA's assessment that North Korea already had as many as six bombs, Mr ElBaradei replied: "I think that would be close to our estimation." "We knew they had the plutonium that could be converted into five or six North Korea weapons," he went on to say. "We know that they had the industrial infrastructure to weaponise this plutonium. We have read also that they have the delivery system." IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told the BBC there was no way the agency could know for sure whether North Korea had six bombs. But she said it would not be surprising if it did. 'Cry for help'

The agency's inspectors were kicked out of North Korea at the end of 2002. Pyongyang has shunned multilateral talks on its nuclear programme for almost a year. Recently, reports have suggested it is preparing to test a nuclear bomb. Mr ElBaradei warned that a nuclear test would have disastrous political and environmental consequences. "I do hope that the North Koreans would absolutely reconsider such a reckless, reckless step," he told CNN. He said that whether the activity observed by satellites was real or simply a bluff, "it involves crying for help, frankly." "North Korea, I think, has been seeking a dialogue with the United States, with the rest of the international community... through their usual policy of nuclear blackmail, nuclear brinkmanship, to force the other parties to engage them," he said. Mr ElBaradei has already urged the international community to put pressure on North Korea not to go ahead with the test, and appealed to Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table.

N. Korea Removes Nuclear Rods From Reactor – May 12, 2005

SEOUL, South Korea (ABC News) - North Korea said Wednesday it has completed removing spent fuel rods from an atomic reactor, enabling it to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium. It was the communist state's latest provocation amid deadlocked talks over Pyongyang's nuclear program. A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country had "successfully finished" removing 8,000 fuel rods from the reactor at its Yongbyon complex, which was shut down last month, so it can "bolster its nuclear arsenal."

A South Korean protester participates in an anti-U.S. rally opposing the United States' policy against North Korea near the U.S. embassy in Seoul, Tuesday, May 10, 2005. North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of making a "fuss" by notifying allies of its possible preparations for a nuclear test, and maintained it would stay away from international disarmament talks.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

North Korea kicked out international nuclear inspectors in late 2002, making it impossible to verify the claim. While experts have previously said the 8,000 rods could yield enough plutonium for five to eight bombs, South Korean media said the current batch would likely yield material for a couple bombs because of the shorter time it was inside the reactor. To get the plutonium, the rods would need to cool and then be reprocessed, which takes months. The announcement came a day after China rejected using sanctions to prod Pyongyang to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear ambitions, with a spokesman saying Beijing's political and trade relations with its neighbor should be kept separate. "We stand for resolving the issue through dialogue. We are not in favor of exerting pressure or imposing sanctions," China foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular briefing. "We believe that such measures are not necessarily effective."

A Bush administration official said the United States has asked China to redouble its efforts to lure North Korea back to negotiations. The U.S. appeal, disclosed by a State Department official Tuesday on condition of anonymity, reflects a growing frustration over North Korea's refusal to reopen six-nation talks for nearly a year and rhetoric from Pyongyang that U.S. officials consider alarming. The talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions have been stalled since June, with Pyongyang insisting it won't return until Washington drops its "hostile" policy. North Korea says the United States is planning an invasion, a claim Washington denies...(Click to open)

Holloman Sends More F-117 Stealths To S Korea – May 24, 2005

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (Free Republic) - Fifteen F 117A Nighthawk stealth fighters are leaving Holloman Air Force Base this week for South Korea. The 49th Fighter Wing announced the deployment of about 250 airmen and the stealths Monday. About two dozen stealths and 300 airmen were deployed from Holloman to Kunsan Air Base in South Korea last summer. Officials wouldn't disclose where in South Korea they would be going. The deployment comes as North Korea threatens a nuclear weapons test.

Pyongyang threatens pre-emptive strike against US – May 25, 2005

Taipei Times - North Korea yesterday threatened to employ a pre-emptive attack, while also claiming it was committed to the six-party talks. The North poured out anti-US rhetoric -- a tactic it has used in the past before entering negotiations -- claiming that Washington's "hostile policies" led it to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent, and warning against any attack to dislodge its leadership. "The United States should be aware that the choice of a pre-emptive attack is not only theirs," the North's official news agency quoted the Cabinet newspaper Minju Joson as saying. "To stand against force with force is our unswerving method of response."

The commentary came amid a flurry of contacts aimed at convincing the North to resume six-nation talks, suspended since the third round ended last June, on its nuclear program. Washington is awaiting a response to an overture it made May 13 -- days after the North announced it had removed fuel rods from a reactor, a possible step toward extracting weapons-grade plutonium -- at North Korea's office at the UN. South Korea repeatedly raised the nuclear issue last week during its first face-to-face talks with the North in 10 months. Pyongyang refused to allow a mention of the issue in a final joint statement, but it agreed to follow-up meetings.

The two countries were holding talks yesterday in the North Korean border village of Kaesong on working out details of a South Korean delegation's visit to Pyongyang next month for the fifth anniversary of a historic summit accord. There have been reports that President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) may be arranging a visit to Pyongyang. South Korean opposition leader Park Geun-hye met with Hu on Tuesday, and the South's Yonhap news agency quoted Hu as saying it will take time to overcome the mistrust between the North and the US. "There would be a degree of difficulty in resuming the six-nation talks for a while," Hu was quoted as saying. "In recent days, North Korea and the United States have been sending positive messages. This looks like evidence that the two countries haven't completely shut their doors to dialogue and negotiations."

Yonhap also reported that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun will meet with Bush in Washington on June 10 to discuss ways to bring the North back to nuclear disarmament talks. Roh's office wouldn't confirm the report. North Korea on Tuesday repeated claims that its nuclear weapons protect regional peace.

"It is in the East Asian region, including the Korean Peninsula, where the US moves for vicious attacks and war ... are carried out most seriously," the Minju Joson said. "It is our nuclear deterrent that basically guarantees peace and stability." North Korea yesterday threatened to employ a pre-emptive attack ... The North poured out anti-US rhetoric ... claiming that Washington's 'hostile policies' led it to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent, and warning against any attack to dislodge its leadership. 'The United States should be aware that the choice of a pre-emptive attack is not only theirs', the North's official news agency quoted the Cabinet newspaper Minju Joson as saying. 'To stand against force with force is our unswerving method of response'."

`North Korean Missile Warhead Found in Alaska’ – March 4, 2005

The Korea Times - The warhead of a long-range missile test-fired by North Korea was found in the U.S. state of Alaska, a report to the National Assembly revealed yesterday. ``According to a U.S. document, the last piece of a missile warhead fired by North Korea was found in Alaska,’’ former Japanese foreign minister Taro Nakayama was quoted as saying in the report. ``Washington, as well as Tokyo, has so far underrated Pyongyang’s missile capabilities.’’

The report was the culmination of monthlong activities of the Assembly’s overseas delegation to five countries over the North Korean nuclear crisis. The Assembly dispatched groups of lawmakers to the United States, Japan, China, Russia and European Union last month to collect information and opinions on the international issue.

The team sent to Japan, headed by Rep. Kim Hak-won of the United Liberal Democrats, reported, ``Nakayama said Washington has come to put more emphasis on trilateral cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the United States since it recognized that the three countries are within the range of North Korean missiles.’’

According to the group dispatched to the U.S., American politicians had a wide range of opinions over the resolution of the nuclear issue, from ``a peaceful resolution’’ to ``military response.’’

Doves, such as Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and co-chairman of the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, called for a peaceful settlement of the current confrontation, by offering food, energy and other humanitarian aid to the poverty-stricken country, while urging the North to give up its nuclear ambitions. Rep. Markey also said the North should return to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the U.S. should make a nonaggression pact with the communist North. Hardliners, however, warned that the North’s possession of nuclear weapons will instigate a nuclear race in the region, provoking Japan to also acquire nuclear weapons. Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican, said the U.S. might have to bomb the Yongbyon nuclear complex should the North try to export its nuclear material to other countries. Over the controversy concerning the withdrawal of U.S. forces stationed here, most American legislators that the parliamentary delegation met said U.S. troops should stay on the peninsula as long as the Korean people want, the report said.

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