Persian Gulf War: 25th Anniversary

This post is nearly a month late.

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces attacked Kuwait, reflecting what then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush a few days later called "brutal, naked aggression."

August 8, 2015, marked the 25th anniversary of  Bush's speech to the nation outlining the initial U.S. response. Bush emphasized America's commitment to Saudi Arabia:

I pledge here today that the United States will do its part to see that these sanctions are effective and to induce Iraq to withdraw without delay from Kuwait.
But we must recognize that Iraq may not stop using force to advance its ambitions. Iraq has massed an enormous war machine on the Saudi border capable of initiating hostilities with little or no additional preparation. Given the Iraqi government's history of aggression against its own citizens as well as its neighbors, to assume Iraq will not attack again would be unwise and unrealistic. 

And therefore, after consulting with King Fahd, I sent Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to discuss cooperative measures we could take. Following those meetings, the Saudi Government requested our help, and I responded to that request by ordering U.S. air and ground forces to deploy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Let me be clear: The sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States. This decision, which I shared with the congressional leadership, grows out of the longstanding friendship and security relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. U.S. forces will work together with those of Saudi Arabia and other nations to preserve the integrity of Saudi Arabia and to deter further Iraqi aggression. Through their presence, as well as through training and exercises, these multinational forces will enhance the overall capability of Saudi Armed Forces to defend the Kingdom. 

I want to be clear about what we are doing and why. America does not seek conflict, nor do we seek to chart the destiny of other nations. But America will stand by her friends. The mission of our troops is wholly defensive. Hopefully, they will not be needed long. They will not initiate hostilities, but they will defend themselves, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and other friends in the Persian Gulf.

Eventually, the Pentagon claimed that 250,000 Iraqi troops threatened Saudi Arabia.

A few months later, after obtaining Soviet satellite photos of the region, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Iraqi troops were NOT poised to strike Saudi Arabia. The headline of January 6, 1991, was simple: "Photos don't show buildup."

two American satellite imaging experts who examined the photos could find no evidence of a massive Iraqi presence in Kuwait in September. 

A Soviet commercial satellite took a photo of Saudi Arabia on Sept. 11 and a photo of Kuwait on Sept. 13. At the time the Defense Department was estimating there were as many as 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks in Kuwait. The photos were obtained by the St. Petersburg Times two weeks ago.

As of 2002, the Pentagon had never released its own satellite photographs, though US officials have admitted that they greatly overstated the size of the Iraqi military at the time.

That might not have been the largest lie told about the Iraqi threat. One personal narrative was especially powerful -- and pernicious.

 in the fall of 1990, members of Congress and the American public were swayed by the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as Nayirah.
In the girl's testimony before a congressional caucus, well-documented in MacArthur's book "Second Front" and elsewhere, she described how, as a volunteer in a Kuwait maternity ward, she had seen Iraqi troops storm her hospital, steal the incubators, and leave 312 babies "on the cold floor to die." 

Seven US Senators later referred to the story during debate; the motion for war passed by just five votes. In the weeks after Nayirah spoke, President Bush senior invoked the incident five times, saying that such "ghastly atrocities" were like "Hitler revisited." 

But just weeks before the US bombing campaign began in January, a few press reports began to raise questions about the validity of the incubator tale.
Later, it was learned that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and had no connection to the Kuwait hospital. 

She had been coached – along with the handful of others who would "corroborate" the story – by senior executives of Hill and Knowlton in Washington, the biggest global PR firm at the time, which had a contract worth more than $10 million with the Kuwaitis to make the case for war.

President Bush's National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft later claimed not to know that the story was fabricated, but acknowledged that "it was useful in mobilizing public opinion."


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Unanswered Questions about Saudi links to 9/11

Photo credit = secret1me's

So, here we are a decade after the 9/11 attacks and many long-time mysteries of the early Bush "war on terror" years have been solved -- Osama bin Laden was located in Pakistan and killed; Scooter Libby of Vice President Dick Cheney's office leaked covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak to bolster the dubious case for war on Iraq; and the anthrax terrorist was identified by the FBI after he committed suicide. Bruce Ivins was a Army-employed microbiologist.

Not every loose end has been tied together, of course. For example, we still don't know very much about alleged Saudi connections to the 9/11 hijacking plot.

As long-time readers may recall, neither congressional investigators nor the 9/11 Commission were completely forthcoming about this topic. From Salon, two days ago:

What's in the famously redacted 28 pages?

A joint inquiry of the House and Senate intelligence committees produced an 800-plus page report on activity of the intelligence community in connection with the 9/11 attacks, completed in December 2002. But 28 pages were redacted in the public version, all in the section titled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters." It has been widely reported that those pages -- which neither the Bush nor Obama administration have declassified -- deal with links between 9/11 hijackers and Saudi government officials. Newsweek, for example, reported that the section "draws apparent connections between high-level Saudi princes and associates of the hijackers."

As long as those pages remain classified, though, it's impossible to assess the nature of those connections.

I'm no "Truther," but as this story from McClatchy on September 7 reports, there are still puzzling mysteries concerning the alleged Saudi connection to the hijackers:

Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, Fla., leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open safe in a master bedroom.

In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but also phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights — including leader Mohamed Atta — in discoveries never before revealed to the public.

Local counterterrorism officials describe a scene that sounds like it came from a movie you've already watched:

"The beds were made ... fruit on the counter ... the refrigerator full of food. ... It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie. ... (But) the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. ... A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they'd taken (another) computer and left the cord."

The story quotes former Florida Senator (and former Select Intelligence committee member) Bob Graham saying that this news "opens the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11. ... No information relative to the named people in Sarasota was disclosed."

Graham has raised similar concerns for years. Until more is revealed about what the US knows of the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks, people are going to keep asking these sorts of questions. Some will be formulating troubling conspiracy theories.


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Charlie Wilson's War

I saw "Charlie Wilson's War" on December 25 and was thoroughly entertained.

The film is a sharp satire and offers a long-term critique of American foreign policy. Before reading further, be warned that this review includes plot spoilers.

Texas Representative Charlie Wilson was apparently fairly liberal on domestic social policy, but he was a vehement cold warrior. During the early 1980s, he literally and politically climbed in bed with a wealthy member of the religious right, Joanne King Herring (the sixth richest woman in Texas). For ideological reasons, Herring helped convince Wilson to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Arguably, Charlie Wilson was a neocon.

The film clearly demonstrates that cynical neocon foreign policies can have counterproductive -- even disastrous -- consequences.

While the mujahideen's insurgency against the Soviet military undoubtedly contributed mightily to the red army's defeat in Afghanistan, the end of the cold war had multiple and complex causes.

The movie, in fact, reveals many of the dubious alliances the U.S. made during the cold war. In the case of Afghan policy, the U.S. teamed with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. As many cold warriors used to say, "They may be bastards, but they are our bastards."

In the film, as in real life, American officials simplistically characterize other states as good or evil -- and the designation seems arbitrarily to turn on a dime.

The average viewer of the movie may be tempted to cheer through the scenes when U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles shoot down Soviet jets and helicopters. However, by the end, the filmmakers clearly signal that America turned its back on Afghanistan and invited the blowback that led to 9/11.

Charlie Wilson's war didn't end the cold war -- and in many ways, his war continues to rage in Afghanistan.


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The confusing war on terror: July 2007

Lately, President Bush and other members of his administration have been implying that all the foreign fighters in Iraq are al-Qaeda. Consider these consecutive sentences from his speech at the Naval War College on June 28:

Our commanders [in Iraq] tell me that 80 to 90 percent of these suicide bombings are the work of foreign fighters, people who don't like the advance of an alternative to their ideology, and they come in and murder the innocent to achieve their objectives.

And that's their strategy. Al Qaeda's strategy is to use human beings as bombs to create grisly images for the world to see

Later in that same speech, the President briefly mentioned the Taliban in Afghanistan. He called them the "one-time allies of al Qaeda."

The duplicity in these words is galling.

On the one hand, the President wants Americans to believe that the U.S. is fighting the 9/11 terrorists in Iraq. He very badly wants this as this line from his July 12 press conference makes clear:

The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.

To a degree, the President is correct. LA Times, July 15:

Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

The senior US official claimed that "50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis."

You may recall that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Somehow, however, I don't think the President is trying to stir up trouble against the Saudis.

Meanwhile, the attempt to delink the Taliban and al Qaeda is also very odd. After all, the administration has spent years linking the two. As recently as May 1, the President referred to "the Taliban And Its Al-Qaeda Allies."

Perhaps the President realizes that the main threat the Taliban posed was its willingness to let al Qaeda establish a terror safe haven in Afghanistan. Now, he's trying to create fear that the same thing could happen elsewhere.

On that note, The Washington Post is advocating war against Pakistan, which it says knowingly hosts an al-Qaeda sanctuary. In a strongly worded op-ed piece on July 19, the Post referred to this sanctuary an "imminent threat of a revived al-Qaeda organization able to strike the United States from a secure base"

If Pakistani forces cannot -- or will not -- eliminate the sanctuary, President Bush must order targeted strikes or covert actions by American forces, as he has done several times in recent years. Such actions run the risk of further destabilizing Pakistan. Yet those risks must be weighed against the consequences of another large-scale attack on U.S. soil.

The National Intelligence Estimate that was released this week did refer to an al-Qaeda "safehaven" in Pakistan.

The President doesn't seem to talk about this very much, instead preferring to worry that Iraq might become such a safehaven after the U.S. withdraws. Actually, his messages about Pakistan seem kind of garbled:

Pakistan, by the way, is a -- Musharraf is a strong ally in the war against these extremists. I like him and I appreciate him. I'm, of course, constantly working with him to make sure that democracy continues to advance in Pakistan. He's been a valuable ally in rejecting extremists. And that's important, to cultivate those allies.

Bottom line: the commander-in-chief remains fixated on Iraq and his messages continue to signal a deep misunderstanding of the ongoing threat.


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New Terror Study

Peter Bergen, working with Paul Cruickshank, has recently released a new study about post-9/11 terrorism rates. Their main finding:

The rate of fatal terrorist attacks around the world by jihadist groups, and the number of civilians killed in those attacks, has risen sharply since the invasion of Iraq. Comparing the period before the war (Sept. 12, 2001, to March 20, 2003) and the period since, there has been a 607% rise in the average yearly incidence of attacks - and a 237% jump in the fatality rate.

The authors relied upon data from the Rand Corp. and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism.

Much of this violence is in Afghanistan and Iraq -- fight them there, so "we" don't have to fight them here, right? Well, that's not a complete explanation:

even after excluding these two hot spots, there has been a 35% rise in the number of terrorist attacks globally and a 25% increase in attacks on Western targets....

This has particularly been the case in the Arab world, whose countries excluding Iraq have seen 783% more fatalities from jihadist terrorism since the U.S. invasion....

Excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, we see a 150% increase globally in the rate of suicide attacks by jihadist groups since the war began.

The authors, who are fellows at NYU's Center on Law and Security, also found evidence of so-called "blowback" attacks in Saudi Arabia, France and Jordan. Those are attacks perpetrated by veterans of the Iraq insurgency.

The study does not include violence by Palestinian extremists. These are acts of violence by al Qaeda-inspired Sunni extremists.

Good news: Not counting civilian contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan, only 18 American civilians have been terror victims since the start of the Iraq war.

The full study results are in the March/April Mother Jones. There's plenty more there, including this nugget about the country that supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11:

Mohammed Hafez, a visiting professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, in a study of the 101 identified suicide attackers in Iraq from March 2003 to February 2006, found that more than 40 percent were Saudi....

The Israeli researcher Reuven Paz, using information posted on Al Qaeda-linked websites between October 2004 and March 2005, found that of the 33 suicide attacks listed, 23 were conducted by Saudis, and only 1 by an Iraqi. Similarly, in June 2005 the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute of Washington, D.C. found by tracking both jihadist websites and media reports that of the 199 Sunni extremists who had died in Iraq either in suicide attacks or in action against Coalition or Iraqi forces, 104 were from Saudi Arabia and only 21 from Iraq.

Read the entire article at MJ.

Hat tip: AlterNet also has a story about this study: "The War on Terror Is the Leading Cause of Terrorism."


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Who owns your cable connection?

I learned something new and interesting in the July 21 Louisville Courier Journal. My cable TV company was purchased last year by the Carlyle Group:

Insight accepted a $710 million buyout offer last year from its co-founders and investment firm Carlyle Group, a move that took the company private.

Why is this interesting?

Well, newshounds might remember the publicity Carlyle received in fall 2001 when it was revealed that the multi-billion dollar company (apparently the "largest private equity firm in the world") included former President George H.W. Bush, his Secretary of State James Baker, and many other politicians among its Board of Directors and employees.

Moreover, Saudi members of Osama bin Laden's family were among the company's smaller investors -- at least until October 2001 when the connection was revealed. G.H.W. Bush reportedly twice visited the Bin Ladens in Saudi Arabia to represent the company's interests. Bush, however, apparently left the Board of Directors in fall 2003.

Some stories made it sound as if Carlyle was a sinister Republican profit-machine highly motivated to push a war agenda.

Bush and bin Laden, in cahoots, don't you see?

It was sometimes reported during the buildup to war in Afghanistan and Iraq that Carlyle is a defense contractor, but that is inaccurate. Rather, the equity firm owns controlling -- or sometimes partial -- interests in a number of defense contractors.

The always-controversial George Soros is also an investor. As I've noted before, these global elites tend to be networked together.

Indeed, if one reads some press reports about Carlyle, the journalists always come off like name-droppers. The company has hired former British Prime Minister John Major, AOL founder Steve Case, Colin Powell, Reagan-era defense secretary Frank Carlucci, etc.

Apparently, the Insight cable deal wasn't Carlyle's first move into media. A July 18 Business Wire press release summarized its activity:

The Carlyle Group is a global private equity firm with $41.9 billion under management. Carlyle invests in buyouts, venture & growth capital, real estate and leveraged finance in Asia, Europe and North America, focusing on telecommunications & media, industrial, automotive & transportation, aerospace, consumer & retail, energy & power, technology & business services and healthcare. Since 1987, the firm has invested $19.7 billion of equity in 500 transactions for a total purchase price of $79.7 billion. The Carlyle Group employs more than 670 people in 15 countries. In the aggregate, Carlyle portfolio companies have more than $46 billion in revenue and employ more than 184,000 people around the world. Significant telecom and media investments include Comhem, Insight, Taiwan Broadband, Willcom, PanAmSat, Hawai Telecom and VNU.

According to the Wikipedia article, over 30% of Carlyle's investments are in media and telecommunications.

As I've written before, much more needs to be explored about large corporate ownership of mass media.

Marshall McLuhan used to say that the "medium is the message." What message is Carlyle sending by acquiring so many media companies?

Is this just about profit?

Or, are media critics right? Large, private, corporate ownership of media reduces the number and variety of voices with access to the public sphere. This particularly limits audience access to local and minority perspectives. Ultimately, it also constricts competition and thereby reduces innovation and increases prices.

Maybe Carlyle's move into media explains why there doesn't seem to be as many negative stories about the firm as there were in 2001.


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The free lunch

Wednesday, I attended a luncheon for Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal at the Muhammad Ali Center. Prince Turki is the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the US and this was very much a diplomatic visit. Hostess Lonnie Ali pointed out that she invited Prince Turki to drop by when the two met earlier this year in Davos.

Essentially, the luncheon, which featured brief remarks by Prince Turki followed by a Q&A session, was an overt effort at Saudi public diplomacy. After 9/11, over half of Americans had a negative view of the kingdom. Osama bin Laden is from a very wealthy and well-connected Saudi family, most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, the Wahhabite sect of Islam arguably foments terror, and the country's human rights record is horrific.

In the past few months, Prince Turki has visited 18 US cities in 10 or 12 states, he claimed. Most recently, he gave a speech in Nashville to the Chamber of Congress. Earlier, he was in New York City -- and Manhattan, Kansas. Obviously, Prince Turki is trying to correct whatever his government finds the matter with Kansas.

During the Q&A session, Prince Turki answered 8 handwritten questions from the 200 member-audience. Since he answered mine, I know that these were genuine, even though there were a couple of easy ones tossed his way. Mine concerned Iran: Did he think the ongoing dispute could be resolved diplomatically and did he think Iran would build the bomb? The ambassador basically ducked the latter question and was hopeful about the former.

The world, he said, certainly wants to exhaust all alternatives to war. Saudi Arabia, he claimed, has for 20 years supported a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction. He ticked off a list of states that should not have such programs and this list included Israel. The Bush administration, in its counterproliferation moments, virtually never talks about Israel's programs. I'm not sure if the audience noticed this subtle point.

Some other member of the audience (no question authors were identified) asked about the status of women in Saudia Arabia. Could an American woman visit? His reply said more than he intended about the role of women in the kingdom, I'm sure, as he said that an American woman could most certainly come to Saudi Arabia. In fact, the embassy would be happy to help arrange the trip -- and a possible marriage partner! The audience laughed, but human trafficking to Saudi Arabia is a serious problem according to the Bush administration.

The visit had a secondary purpose as well. Saudi Arabia needs more US cash to pump more oil for the US:

We have over $650 billion worth of investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia over the next 15 years, and American business should take advantage of that. In December we officially joined the World Trade Organization. This is providing us with great opportunities to increase foreign investment...

Michael Klare pointed out in Blood and Oil that the Bush energy strategy for the future not only hinges on significant production increases from oil-rich states, but also depends upon billions and billions of dollars worth of foreign investments in these states to improve technology.

The Prince claimed that US-Saudi relations are not just about "oil for security," but that most certainly is a very large part of the relationship.

I cannot recount all the hypocrisy and irony in the session, but let me note a couple of instances. Not long after explaining that diplomats have to speak carefully, avoiding both "yes" and "no" responses to simple questions, Prince Turki told us that King Abdullah had offered this advise concerning how he should "deal with President Bush and the American people? He turned to me without batting an eye, and he said: 'Just be frank with them.'"

Sure.

The Ambassador also emphasized elected municipal councils -- in the KINGDOM -- and said that the embassy had invited representatives from Freedom House to have a discussion about the group's finding that Saudi textbooks continue to "promote an ideology of hatred toward people, including Muslims, who do not subscribe to the Wahhabi sect of Islam." The Prince acknowledged that Saudi texts had previously promoted bigotry against non-Muslims, but said that the state had been working on that problem since 2001.

The most humorous line of the entire event came early on in the Prince's introductory remarks. Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, who offered some brief remarks at the event, was a Georgetown Law Center student in 1968 when Prince Turki was also a student there. Neither, however, was the most famous alum. As Prince Turki reminded the audience, the class of 1968 was the one that "didn't inhale."

While many members of the Louisville audience enjoyed the free lunch and seemed to find Prince Turki's apparently open and genial manner intoxicating, I tried to keep my wits.


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Foreign fighters

In comments, someone pseudonymously criticized my advice to "pro-war" Democrats for the 2006 elections. I argued that Dems should remind everyone that George Bush himself "flip flopped" on the justification for the use of force in Somalia because the "mission changed." Now that Iraq isn't about WMD or Saddam Hussein's nonexistent operational ties to al Qaeda, Dems could reject the grand nation-building mission without fear of being labeled wimps.

My advice would fail, wrote the commenter, because Republicans would just point out that the US is in Iraq to fulfill the primary post-9/11 mission: "kick terrorist butt."

I offered a fairly detailed response, but wanted to add a bit of data about one key point.

Let's turn this into a question for the post-Saddam era: Who is America fighting in Iraq?

War supporters say that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. Full stop. Terrorists are attacking American troops and innocent Iraqis, so the US needs to find them and kill or capture them.

War opponents emphasize the Iraqi nationalists who arguably constitute the lion's share of the insurgency. It is perfectly natural for people to resist foreign invasion and occupation. The President himself said as much. Pre-war, the Pentagon apparently screened "The Battle of Algiers" -- even if they didn't get the film's message.

Which view is more accurate?

The Pentagon says there likely aren't very many foreign fighters in Iraq. USA Today had a fairly good story about this last November 6:

Maj. Angela Hildebrant, a military spokeswoman, said the U.S. military estimates the number of foreign fighters by counting the number of foreigners killed in suicide attacks or captured by coalition forces in Iraq.

Only 3.5% of the 13,885 detainees held by U.S. forces in Iraq are foreigners...

Yet, the Pentagon asserts that these foreign fighters "are often behind the deadliest suicide bombings and provide financing and organization to Iraq's insurgency." I've seen no definitive data that support the claims, but there is anecdoctal support.

Obviously, if the US is fighting terrorists in Iraq, it helps legitimize the mission both at home (with voters) and inside Iraq. That fact should make everyone more skeptical about the Pentagon's claims. The Washington Post had a valuable story November 17:

"Both Iraqis and coalition people often exaggerate the role of foreign infiltrators and downplay the role of Iraqi resentment in the insurgency," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who is writing a book about the Iraqi insurgency.

"It makes the government's counterinsurgency efforts seem more legitimate, and it links what's going on in Iraq to the war on terrorism," he continued. "When people go out into battle, they often characterize enemies in the most negative way possible. Obviously there are all kinds of interacting political prejudices they can bring out by blaming outsiders."

In December, Cordesman (with the Assistance of Sara Bjerg Moller) released a study (warning, pdf) estimating that between 4 and 10 percent of the roughly 30,000 insurgents are foreign.

A Post story from last May 15 revealed that US military analysts do not think the foreign fighters are major terrorists even if they are linked to al Qaeda:

Many of the suicide bombers appear to have been novices in warfare, attracted by the relative ease of access to Iraq and the lure of quick martyrdom. "This is not al Qaeda's first team," said [Col. Thomas X.] Hammes of the National Defense University. "These are the scrubs who could never get us in the States."

In short, the US government knows that the insurgency is overwhelmingly Iraqi, and some officials admit it (on or off the record). The November 17 Post story quotes a military commander in Iraq:

"The foreign fighters' attacks tend to be more spectacular, but local nationals, the Saddamists, the Iraqi rejectionists, are much more problematic," said Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, commander of the Army's 42nd Infantry Division. His unit, which lost 59 soldiers during its tour here, was based in the northern city of Tikrit, Hussein's home town, before transferring the region to the 101st Airborne Division this month.

Al Qaeda in Iraq maintains a presence in the region, he said, "but they're not having much of an impact. Their message is not resonating."

And from State, in the same story:

In Washington, a senior State Department official called foreign fighters "an important element to the insurgency," but added that "it would be a mistake to imagine that this isn't a largely Iraqi-based operation with critical support from foreign elements."

Politics

John Murtha's primary reasons for calling for withdrawal from Iraq are that the US troops are feeding the insurgency and the military is being destroyed by the prolonged engagement. Thus, even if the insurgency is boosted by key foreign elements, that does not mean that the best US foreign policy is built upon counterinsurgency and nation-building. It may be there are insufficient troops to win in Iraq. It may be that there are higher security priorities.

Moreover, even if the foreign fighters are providing critical support for the insurgency, there's bad news for the Republican administration buried in the data. Most foreign fighters apparently come from Saudi Arabia, an alleged US ally in the war on terror and a state very close to the Bush White House:

An NBC News analysis of hundreds of foreign fighters who died in Iraq over the last two years reveals that a majority came from the same country as most of the 9/11 hijackers — Saudi Arabia....The U.S. military also says Saudi Arabia and Syria are the leading sources of insurgents.

Reuven Paz, an Israeli expert on terrorism and Director of Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, published a report last March (warning, pdf) finding that 61% of the foreign insurgents killed in Iraq over the previous six months were from Saudi Arabia (thanks for the link to Evan Kohlmann of The Counterterrorism Blog).

The Cordesman/Moller study found a more varied array of foreign fighters.

Democrats who want to be anti-war in Iraq can nonetheless remain quite hawkish about other global terror and WMD threats -- by focusing more attention on Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. As loyal readers know, I've blogged repeatedly that the US is not doing much about the threats emanating from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Numerous national security experts agree.

I'll stand by my original point: Democrats should repeatedly point out that the "mission changed" in Iraq and that the Republicans really don't have an "exit strategy." As a result, America is bogged down in a quagmire that costs billions and doesn't markedly improve US security. The "real" war on terror should be fought on more important fronts.

That does not mean that Dems should allow the administration to change the subject to Iran.


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Rendition

Friday, I gave a paper at the ISA conference discussing how America's dubious human rights practices in the "war on terror" undermine (rather than enhance) the legitimacy of American foreign policy.

This weekend, the NY Times reported on the Bush administration's dubious "rendition" policy:

The Bush administration's secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice Departments, according to current and former government officials.

The unusually expansive authority for the C.I.A. to operate independently was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said....

As part of its broad new latitude, current and former government officials say, the C.I.A. has been authorized to transfer prisoners to other countries solely for the purpose of detention and interrogation.

The unnamed CIA official quoted in the article claims, laughably, that the US outsources these suspects because holding them is too costly and manpower-intensive.

Right. How much has security-related spending increased since 9/11?
Oh yeah, a hell of a lot.

The official also denies that torture is involved in these cases:

former government officials say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A. has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists from one foreign country to another, including to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan.

Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons....

The covert transfers by the C.I.A. have faced sharp criticism, in part because of the accounts provided by former prisoners who say they were beaten, shackled, humiliated, subjected to electric shocks, and otherwise mistreated during their long detention in foreign prisons before being released without being charged.

While the anonymous "official" claims compliance with the non-torture policy is "very high," he or she acknowledges that it likely was not 100%.

According to the new CIA director, the new Attorney General may be a liar. Both are quoted by the Times:

Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, said in written Congressional testimony in January that "the policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States." Mr. Gonzales said then that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy."

...In Congressional testimony last month, the director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, acknowledged that the United States had only a limited capacity to enforce promises that detainees would be treated humanely. "We have a responsibility of trying to ensure that they are properly treated, and we try and do the best we can to guarantee that," Mr. Goss said of the prisoners that the United States had transferred to the custody of other countries. "But of course once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do. But we do have an accountability program for those situations."

An accountability problem?

In the Bush White House?

The laugh test

Yesterday, in Belgium, President Bush said this during a joint press conference with EU leaders:

And finally, this notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table. (Laughter.)

Note the parenthetical laughter?

The White House webpage also inserts (applause) during presidential speeches.

In any case, this reaction to the President's words reflects a measure of public accountability. The US position on Iran couldn't even pass the laugh test.

Today, after meeting with Germany's Gerhard Schröder, Bush issued a public correction to yesterday's remark:

We spent time talking about Iran, and I want to thank Gerhard for taking the lead, along with Britain and France, on this important issue. It's vital that the Iranians hear the world speak with one voice that they shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. You know, yesterday I was asked about the U.S. position, and I said all options are on the table. That's part of our position. But I also reminded people that diplomacy is just beginning. Iran is not Iraq. We've just started the diplomatic efforts, and I want to thank our friends for taking the lead and I will -- we will work with them to convince the mullahs that they need to give up their nuclear ambitions.

How long will this take? Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter says bombing is slated for June, 2005.

Oh, let me note one other recent "laugh test." A young man from Virginia, who was valedictorian of his Alexandria, VA, high school class, has reportedly been charged with plotting to assassinate President Bush. Apparently, the guy was held in Saudi Arabia for 20 months and claims he was tortured -- with the cooperation of US officials:

Abu Ali did not enter a plea at his brief court hearing, but 100 or more of his supporters let out an audible laugh when a summary of the assassination plot was read aloud.

Abu Ali was arrested in Saudi Arabia while taking his final exam, then his home in Falls Church, VA, was raided one week later. Here are some of the more disturbing logistical details from the story:

According to court records and other documents related to the case, a grand jury initially investigated links between Abu Ali and a group of men in Virginia who allegedly used paintball games as a method of training for terrorist attacks. The grand jury completed its deliberations in early 2004 and declined to indict Abu Ali.

Since then relatives and supporters have lobbied Washington for Abu Ali's release, and been told that American officials were powerless because he was in Saudi custody. Abu Ali's father, who works as a systems analyst at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, claimed that unnamed Saudi officials told him his son had not broken any Saudi laws, and that his detention was the result of an "American case."

A federal judge in Washington ruled in December that Abu Ali's supporters could pursue his release through the American courts. The ruling, noting evidence that Abu Ali had been tortured while in prison, suggested that he had been kept in Saudi Arabia to "avoid constitutional scrutiny by American courts."

Certainly, if true, the charges are disturbing.

However, the apparent US method in this case are quite troubling. Why was the guy held for 20 months in an allied -- but undemocratic -- country, where he had apparently committed no crime? His alleged activities had already been investigated by a US grand jury too. Is this an example of the US outsourcing torture?

World's Worst Dictators

Last Sunday, Parade magazine released its latest annual list of the world's 10 worst dictators.

Don't laugh, as reported in the Times of India, it was "compiled by writer David Wallechinsky in consultation with Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders - human rights groups that 'have not hesitated to expose the policies of dictatorships of both the left and the right.'"

1. Kim Jong Il of North Korea
2. Omar al-Bashmir of Sudan
3. Than Shwe of Burma
4. Hu Jintao of China
5. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
6. Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya
7. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan
8. Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan
9. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe
10. Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea

As pointed out by AlterNet, this is an interesting list because it brings these issues into the mainstream. After all, Parade has a "huge circulation of 35 million weekly with 77 million readers." Note: not everyone on the left is excited by this annual list.

How do these dictators figure into American foreign policy?

In a recent op-ed from The Australian, Texas A&M Professor Michael Desch pointed out that China is America's top trading partner and "the countries that have been among the US's closest allies in the global war on terrorism have been authoritarian regimes such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan."

The President mentioned a couple of those states in the State of the Union address a few weeks ago:

The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.

He sure told them, eh? I'll bet the dictators in those allied states can barely sleep at night.

Bush said nothing about Pakistan, other than to praise them for helping to win the war on terror. China wasn't mentioned, save indirectly as a source of assistance in the ongoing effort to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

al Qaeda financing

Here's a line from the September 11 Commission report (as posted on the MSNBC website) last week that I missed in the news coverage I read:

There is no convincing evidence that any government financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11 (other than limited support provided by the Taliban after Bin Ladin first arrived in Afghanistan).

That sort of minimizes Saddam Hussein's potential mischief, eh? What exactly did the administration think he was doing if it didn't include any financial support?

This bit on Saudi financing has been more widely quoted, but I wanted to include it here since I've often blogged about the Saudi connections to the Bush family and to terror.

Some governments may have turned a blind eye to al Qaeda’s fundraising activities. Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior officials within the Saudi government funded al Qaeda. Still, al Qaeda found fertile fundraising ground in the Kingdom, where extreme religious views are common and charitable giving is essential to the culture and, until recently, subject to very limited oversight.

Since Saudi Arabia has come under increasing violent attack by al Qaeda, they are less willing to look the other way.

As I've often pointed out, Pakistan, America's newest "major non-NATO" ally did support bin Laden up until 9/11:

Pakistan did not break with the Taliban until after 9/11, although it was well aware that the Taliban was harboring Bin Ladin. The Taliban’s ability to provide Bin Ladin a haven in the face of international pressure and UN sanctions was significantly facilitated by Pakistani support. Pakistan benefited from the Taliban-al Qaeda relationship, as Bin Ladin’s camps trained and equipped fighters for Pakistan’s ongoing struggle with India over Kashmir.

Given their nuclear proliferation record, I really hope the US is keeping a very close eye on the situation in Pakistan.

Finally, as my students can attest, I've long been interested in the alleged links of terrorists to the drug trade and "blood" diamonds. The 9/11 commission says this is mythical.

No persuasive evidence exists that al Qaeda relied on the drug trade as an important source of revenue, or funded itself through trafficking in diamonds from African states engaged in civil wars.

Hmmm, remember those Super Bowl commercials about how people who use drugs support terror?

Note: Thanks to Brad DeLong for reproducing most of an editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which quoted the key first line above.

War emblems

Kentucky isn't really a central front in the war on terror, but 2 interesting recent stories make some strange connections.

First, remember the September 2001 flights out of the US (during a time when air traffic was grounded) filled with Saudi nationals? Well, the St. Petersberg Times is reporting today that the 9/11 Commission is interested in a flight that departed Tampa for Lexington, KY and then returned to Tampa. The Saudis on board, including "a prince," apparently departed the US from Lexington:

Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.

The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

The story includes a fair amount of detail about how more than 140 Saudi nationals were allowed to leave the country that week. The local officials, however, say that none of the 3 Saudis on board the Tampa-Lexington flight were screened in any way. Either the FAA, FBI or White House likely approved the flight.

Another Saudi-Kentucky angle has also been circulating (most recently in this syndicated NY Daily News Story by Michael O'Keefe) for about a month (originally in a Baltimore Sun story by John Eisenberg). Prince Ahmed bin Salman, owner of 2002 Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem has been named as a conduit between the Saudi royal family and al Qaeda. The allegations are made in Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud and Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, by journalist Gerald Posner. From Eisenberg:

According to Posner's book, it was Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaida's chief of field operations and a confidant of Osama bin Laden, who revealed a link between the prince and al-Qaida. Captured by American soldiers in Pakistan in March 2002, 6 1/2 months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Zubaydah was given sodium pentothal to make him talkative and questioned by Arab-Americans posing as Saudi interrogators.

From memory, Zubaydah provided the home phone and cell phone number of a Saudi royal family member and suggested his interrogators make the call.

"He will tell you what to do," Zubaydah said, according to Posner's account.

The phone numbers reportedly belonged to Prince Ahmed bin Salman.

Unger relies on Posner's account, along with his own followup investigation. He claims that the Prince's role was to keep terror out of Saudi Arabia, rather than to fund terror.

Zubayday allegedly named 2 other intermediaries and all 3 died within 4 months, one from a car crash, one from dehydration in the desert, and the Prince allegedly of a heart attack.

Some circumstantial evidence is also noted:

According to Unger's book, the late prince's father, Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is "the powerful governor of Riyadh [Saudi Arabia] who had worked closely with Osama bin Laden ... during the Afghanistan war" with the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

What to make of these Kentucky connections? From the O'Keefe story:

"In the book, I don't draw conclusions," Posner agrees. "I don't have the final answers. I'm still trying to chase this down. But I think what this means is we need a more serious investigation of the Saudis. We need a push by the Bush administration to get more answers."

Maybe we'll hear more when Michael Moore's movie starts attracting US press attention.

Update: Snitch had this story in April and interviewed Unger. He says that the Prince was definitely on the manifest for the September 13, 2001, flight that left the country filled with Saudis. He also says that at least some of the round-up flights were supposed to have been grounded. The Tampa-Lexington flight, among others, has never been acknowledged by the Bush administration (including the FAA and FBI).

Time magazine apparently had the story about the Zubaydah interrogation -- and Steve Gilliard excerpted a lot of it on his news blog.

Memo: King Richard to Lord Hastings

"Off with his head!" Or that's how Shakespeare put it.

What can I say about the tragic death of Nick Berg? The beheading was horrible and I certainly hope that the terrorists are brought to justice.

Of course, I'd like to see more discussion of the relatively common use of beheadings. This is from the February 2004 State Department Country Report on Human Rights:

The Government punished criminals according to its interpretation of Shari'a. Punishments included imprisonment, flogging, amputation, and execution by beheading. At year's end authorities acknowledged 32 executions, lower than the 43 in the previous year. Executions were for killings, narcotics-related offenses, rape, and armed robbery. The authorities punished repeated thievery and other repeated offenses by amputation of the right hand and left foot.

Can you guess the country?

It is Saudi Arabia, of course. According to Amnesty International's latest (2003) country report, Saudi Arabia has executed more than 1000 people in the last decade. Meanwhile, over 30 nations have banned the death penalty during the 1990s, bringing the number to over 105.

So what does the US think of Saudi Arabia? As I've blogged before, there's an interesting relationship between Bush and the Saudis.

President George W. Bush in 2002 on his relationship with Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Abdallah of Saudia Arabia:

I was honored to welcome Crown Prince Abdallah to my ranch, a place that is very special for me, and a place where I welcome special guests to our country. The Crown Prince and I had a very cordial meeting that confirmed the strong relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.

Our partnership is important to both our nations.

...one of the really positive things out of this meeting was the fact that the Crown Prince and I established a strong personal bond. We spent a lot of time alone, discussing our respective visions, talking about our families. I was most interested in learning about how he thought about things. I'm convinced that the stronger our personal bond is, the more likely it is relations between our country will be strong...

It's a strong and important friendship, and he knows that and I know that...

On May 16, 2003, the President added simply:

Saudi Arabia is our friend...

Is the White House outraged when the Saudis behead someone?


You can find similar photos here.

Bush and the Saudis

In the October issue of The American Prospect, Michael Steinberger has an article (also posted on-line) entitled, "Bush's Saudi Connections; And why this is a crucial issue in 2004."

Basically Steinberger weaves a thread through a number of news stories that have appeared over the past couple of years. Some of the anti-Saudi material is familiar:

** Osama bin Laden is a Saudi and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi (even if Americans mysteriously believe Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks).

** Saudi Arabia is the home of the Wahhabite sect of Islam that "educates" the young men who are recruited into a life of terrorism.

** The Saudi family finances terrorism. This includes direct and indirect payments to al Qaeda and anti-Israel groups, such as Hamas.

Steinberger then turns to the more explosive claim that the President, his family, and the administration are directly connected to the Saudis and have acted to head off investigations or public disclosures that might upset the relationship. Consider:

** Almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi government was allowed to "spirit" two dozen members of bin Laden's family out of the US before the FBI could interview them thoroughly. Byron York of National Review Online previously asked lots of questions about this dubious decision.

** George H.W. Bush is a Senior Advisor in the defense-related Carlyle Group, which also counted wealthy members of bin Laden family among its investors. The right-leaning group Judicial Watch has been harping on the link since 9/11. There are also concerns about conflicts-of-interest given that Carlyle is a defense contractor and Junior Bush is quite friendly to the defense sector.

** As I noted previously, many members of Congress and 9/11 families are dissatisfied because the government failed to release a lengthy section about Saudi Arabia when it last reported on the 9/11 investigation.

** Saudi Arabia bankrolled the Bush Presidential Library, Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, obtained many lucrative contracts from Saudi Arabia, and James Baker's Texas law firm has been retained to defend the Saudis against lawsuits brought by 9/11 family members. Even the business press (such as Fortune magazine) has noted some of the odd connections.

It is not controversial to be unhappy with the world's addiction to Saudi oil, with the American tolerance of a corrupt and oppressive regime, and with the apparent link to terrorism. For more information, see Robert Baer's article on "The Fall of the House of Saud" in the May 2003 Atlantic, which is not on-line because the author has a new book on the same topic (of course, a diligent surfer might be able to find it).

In any event, Steinberger's conclusion is much more controversial. He says the Democrats running for President should use this story (and the unanswered questions) to bash Bush on the way to winning the White House in 2004.

Someone posting to one of the John Kerry blogs reproduced the story in late September, but otherwise I haven't seen any evidence that Steinberger's argument is being taken seriously.

Personally, I'm not sure how this story would resonate with voters. Does it sound too much like a wacky conspiracy theory?

The Democrats would almost certainly have to nominate someone squeakly clean on this issue. Does that mean Howard Dean? As I noted oreviously, Dean has been talking about energy a little bit, but that's clearly not the issue that has brought him so much attention and cash.

By contrast, Wesley Clark has ambiguous ties to George Soros (Clark and Soros, for example are on the board of the International Crisis Group, which Soros's Open Society Institute gave $2.5 million), who has ties to the Carlyle Group. I'm not pointing that out to foment some sort of odd conspiracy theory -- just to note that global elites are often closely networked to one another (regardless of political party or nationality), and that trying to play the "Saudi card" might be quite difficult for a Democratic candidate for President given the party's own connections to people with deep pockets.

So I guess today's entry turns out to be a roundabout argument for public financing of political campaigns!