Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman denounces ‘propaganda and bias’

Link to ‘The Guardian’ video

Israel refused to accept the findings of a highly critical UN inquiry into the Gaza war and said today it would launch a diplomatic offensive to prevent any risk of prosecutions.

No independent inquiry into the military’s conduct during the war last January would be held, a clear rejection of one primary recommendation from the UN report.

The inquiry, headed by a former South African judge, Richard Goldstone, delivered a detailed and damning criticism of the war, accusing both Israel and armed Palestinian groups, notably Hamas, of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. It was by far the most serious international inquiry into the three-week war, which left 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead and which triggered a wave of criticism across the world.

“This report was conceived in sin and is the product of a union between propaganda and bias,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. “Israel is a country with a fiercely independent judiciary … Everything done by the military in Israel is open to judicial review by the independent judiciary.”

Israel had refused to co-operate with the inquiry, not letting the team enter Israel or the occupied West Bank. It said the UN human rights council, which commissioned the inquiry, was biased against Israel.

“The mandate was biased from the beginning and it would have been a mistake to give credibility to a mission that has more in common with a kangaroo court than it does with a serious investigation,” Regev said.

For its part, Hamas also rejected the criticism. “The Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance were in a position of self-defence and not of attack. One cannot compare the simple capabilities of the resistance with the great strength of the occupation,” said Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader and former Palestinian prime minister.

After the inquiry was published yesterday evening, a legal team from Israel’s foreign ministry met with other government officials to prepare an analysis of the UN report. Netanyahu reportedly held meetings into the night on the impact of the findings.

Israel is concerned that, when the UN human rights council discusses the report later this month, it could agree to pass it to the UN security council. The security council could then decide to pass the findings on to the international criminal court, where arrest warrants could be issued ahead of prosecutions.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, who is on a visit to Washington, said he would meet the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to minimise the impact of the report before it reaches the UN security council. Other senior figures from the Israeli government are expected to begin a round of telephone calls with ministers from other governments, particularly the five permanent members of the security council, to head off any decision that might lead to prosecutions. The Ha’aretz newspaper said priority calls would go out to EU nations, in the hope of influencing the debate at the UN human rights council in Geneva.

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the nation approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

“The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways,” wrote the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation’s highest-ranking officer. “It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway.”

Admiral Mullen’s essay appears in the coming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal that is distributed widely among the officer corps.

The essay is the first Admiral Mullen has written for the journal as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and veteran officers said they could not remember when a similar “all-hands” letter had been issued to remind military personnel to remain outside, if not above, contentious political debate.

The essay can be seen as a reflection of the deep concern among senior officers that the military, which is paying the highest price in carrying out national security policy, may be drawn into politicking this year.

The war in Iraq has already exceeded the length of World War II and is the nation’s longest conflict fought with an all-volunteer military since the Revolutionary War.

In particular, members of the Joint Chiefs have expressed worries this election year about the influence of retired officers who advise political campaigns, who have publicly called for a change in policy or who serve as television commentators on the war.

Among the most outspoken were those who joined the so-called generals’ revolt in 2006 demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, as well as former officers who have written books attacking the Bush administration’s planning for and execution of the war in Iraq.

(Continue reading: New  York Times)

The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come.

The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Until now, the Bush administration had signaled that it intended to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan. It had planned to transfer a large majority of the prisoners to Afghan custody, in an American-financed, high-security prison outside Kabul to be guarded by Afghan soldiers.

But American officials now concede that the new Afghan-run prison cannot absorb all the Afghans now detained by the United States, much less the waves of new prisoners from the escalating fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The proposal for a new American prison at Bagram underscores the daunting scope and persistence of the United States military’s detention problem, at a time when Bush administration officials continue to say they want to close down the facility at Guantánamo Bay.

(Continue reading: New  York Times)

CAMP STRYKER, Iraq—The first warning that many U.S. troops receive here in Baghdad isn’t about the rampant IEDs (improvised explosive devices), or the RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), or even the EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It’s about the PCPs: the pervasive combat paunches.

As I wait for my C-130 flight from Kuwait to western Baghdad, a soldier tells me about a PowerPoint slide that’s becoming popular in Army briefings: “Back in 2003, the average soldier lost 15 pounds during his tour of Iraq,” he recounts. “Now, he gains 10.”

Arriving at Camp Stryker, I get to savor the dilemma firsthand. My low-slung Army tent is pitched just down the road from a Pizza Hut, a Burger King and a Green Beans Coffee—the war-zone cousin of Starbucks that sells mocha frappes for a cheeky $4.25. Around the corner sits a massive chow hall run by former Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc. where troops load up on four varieties of fried meats and five flavors of Baskin Robbins. The facility is billed as “all-you-can-eat,” and, trust me, soldiers do.

Traveling all the way to a war zone to report on military calorie counts may seem like the height of triviality, especially as Baghdad’s security situation implodes. But Camp Stryker’s butterball cuisine is more than a frivolous aside; it’s an entree into the general engorgement of the war itself.

Where, for instance, do the mountains of beef patties, pecan pies and Coco Puffs come from? The Houston-based KBR farms out most of its $27-billion government contract to Gulf states middlemen, who greet initial food shipments in Kuwait. Low-wage Pakistani and Nepali subcontractors then distribute the goods to U.S. mess halls, where even lower-wage Indians and Sri Lankans prepare them for the troops. All along the route are markups galore, sometimes exceeding 500 percent.

(Continue reading: Truthdig)

America’s top military officer has ratcheted up the pressure on Iran by issuing an unusual public warning that the Pentagon is planning for “potential military courses of action”.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, blamed the Iranian government and Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for its “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. He said conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” for America’s overstretched forces, but added: “It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability.”

Mullen said he was increasingly concerned about Iran’s growing involvement in supplying munitions and training to rebel Shi’ite militias and “killing American and coalition soldiers in Iraq”.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference late on Friday, he said recent operations in the southern port city of Basra had revealed “just how much and how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability”. A Pentagon source said the admiral’s frankness was “extremely significant” and could pave the way for some form of attack on Iran. However, Mullen said: “The solution right now still lies in using other levers of national power, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.”

(Continue reading: Times Online)

A ship contracted by the US military fired warning shots towards two Iranian boats, American defence officials said today.

The Westward Venture, a cargo vessel chartered by the US department of defence, was travelling north in international waters in the central Gulf at around 8am local time yesterday when the incident took place, the US navy said.

“They were able to avoid a serious incident by following the procedures that we use,” said Commander Lydia Robertson, a spokeswoman for the US navy’s Bahrain-based fifth fleet.

The ship was approached by two unidentified small boats and its crew issued “standard queries” to the vessels by radio but did not receive a response, she said. The ship then fired a flare. The boats continued to approach the cargo ship and its security team fired “a few bursts” of machine gun and rifle warning shots, Robertson said.

“The small boats left the area a short time later,” she added.

However, Tehran played down the incident, saying there was no confrontation.

A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the boats were believed to be Iranian. Shortly after the incident, the ship received a radio query from a ship identifying itself as an Iranian coast guard vessel, Robertson said.

“It is not clear if this was one of the small boats or a separate boat,” she said.

The US said Iranian boats threatened its warships on January 6, along a vital route for crude oil shipments.

The incident coincided with a sharp warning to Iran over its alleged support for Iraqi militias by the Pentagon. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, accused Tehran of boosting its support for Iraqi militias and said Washington could resort to military means to force Iran to stop.

(Continue reading: The Guardian)

No weapon is more important to tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the carbine rifle. And for well over a decade, the military has relied on one company, Colt Defense of Hartford, Conn., to make the M4s they trust with their lives.

Now, as Congress considers spending millions more on the guns, this exclusive arrangement is being criticized as a bad deal for American forces as well as taxpayers, according to interviews and research conducted by The Associated Press.

“What we have is a fat contractor in Colt who’s gotten very rich off our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” saysSen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

The M4, which can fire at a rate of 700 to 950 bullets a minute, is a shorter and lighter version of the company’s M16 rifle first used 40 years ago during the Vietnam War. It normally carries a 30-round magazine. At about $1,500 apiece, the M4 is overpriced, according to Coburn. It jams too often in sandy environments like Iraq, he adds, and requires far more maintenance than more durable carbines.

“And if you tend to have the problem at the wrong time, you’re putting your life on the line,” says Coburn, who began examining the M4’s performance last year after receiving complaints from soldiers. “The fact is, the American GI today doesn’t have the best weapon. And they ought to.”

U.S. military officials don’t agree. They call the M4 an excellent carbine. When the time comes to replace the M4, they want a combat rifle that is leaps and bounds beyond what’s currently available.

(Continue reading: Associated Press)

American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months urged a widening of the war that could include American attacks on indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside Pakistan, according to United States officials.

 requests have been rebuffed for now, the officials said, after deliberations in Washington among senior Bush administration officials who fear that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger Pakistan’s new government, which is negotiating with the militants, and destabilize an already fragile security situation.

American commanders would prefer that Pakistani forces attack the militants, but Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas have slowed recently to avoid upsetting the negotiations.

Pakistan’s government has given the Central Intelligence Agency limited authority to kill Arab and other foreign operatives in the tribal areas, using remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But administration officials say the Pakistani government has put far greater restrictions on American operations against indigenous Pakistani militant groups, including one thought to have been behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

(Continue reading: New York Times)

In the

summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

(Continue reading: New York Times)

There is a heightened sense in the security establishment that a broad-scale ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip is necessary this summer to deal a severe blow to Hamas’s infrastructure, sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday, following the death of three soldiers in a Gaza ambush.

According to the sources, the incursion – similar but more difficult than Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in 2002 – would not take place until about a month or a month-and-a-half after US President George W. Bush’s planned visit here in mid-May. By then, the last of the world’s leaders to have come here to celebrate the country’s 60th anniversary would have left. The timing would also place the operation in the middle of summer, considered an optimal time for this type of operation.

(Continue reading: Jerusalem Post)

The US rationale for war in Iraq has morphed from ousting strongman Saddam Hussein, to countering Al-Qaeda militants to its latest incarnation — facing down what officials in President George W. Bush’s administration call the Iranian “threat”.

“Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: Al-Qaeda and Iran,” Bush said last week, renewing accusations that the Islamic republic is backing Iraqi militias hostile to US forces and covertly seeking nuclear weapons.

With Saddam dead and Al-Qaeda weakened — according to Bush — Iranian-financed extremists, which top US commander in Iraq David Petraeus has called “special groups,” have emerged as a key reason for maintaining US troop levels in Iraq.

However, exactly what steps the United States may take to counter this “threat” remain unclear, and depend largely on Bush’s decisions in his remaining nine months in the White House.

(Continue reading: AFP)

Two days of hearings on the progress of the Iraq war did nothing to bring President Bush and congressional Democrats any closer to a consensus on future action, as both sides have laid down increasingly combative markers today.

This morning, Bush announced that tours in Iraq and Afganistan for Army soldiers would be reduced from 15 months to 12 months, and that he would heed the advice of Gen. David Petraeus to halt further troop withdrawals. Bush also pointedly warned Congress against sending him an Iraq spending bill that exceeds his $108 billion request or includes any troop withdrawal language.

“If the bill meets all the requirements it will be a strong show of support for our troops,” Bush said. “If it doesn’t I will veto it.”

Not long after Bush’s statement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made it clear what they thought of Bush’s statements, using a press conference with Iraq veterans to lambast the president.

Reid said that the last two days of hearings with Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had given the administration the chance to answer two questions: “Has the war made us any safer? Are the troops any closer to coming home?” The answer to both, Reid said, was no.

Reid painted Bush’s latest tack as “one step forward, two back.” And while he welcomed the announcement that troops’ tours of duty would be shortened, Reid said that policy change should be codified into law and that the Senate would soon vote to do exactly that.

Pelosi echoed that point, saying “we need better answers from the president” on what conditions would be necessary in order to bring more troops home. And she emphasized — as Democrats repeatedly have in recent weeks — the connection between America’s economic woes and the financial drain of Iraq. The “failed war … has taken us deeply into debt, and that debt is taking us into recession,” Pelosi said.

No one on either side of the debate believed that the Petraeus/Crocker hearings would bring everyone together for a round of “Kumbaya.” But it is striking that Bush and Democratic leaders are growing further and further apart. Pelosi today said she feared Bush was “leaving all the tough decisions” to the next president. It may well be up to that next president to bridge the gap on Iraq, since the current breach shows no signs of narrowing anytime soon.

via/ washington post-capital briefing

Document outlines powers but sets no time limit on troop presence

by Seumas Milne

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked “secret” and “sensitive”, is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security” without time limit.

The authorisation is described as “temporary” and the agreement says the US “does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq”. But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces – including the British – in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.

Iraqi critics point out that the agreement contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries. The agreement is intended to govern the status of the US military and other members of the multinational force.

Following recent clashes between Iraqi troops and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army in Basra, and threats by the Iraqi government to ban his supporters from regional elections in the autumn, anti-occupation Sadrists and Sunni parties are expected to mount strong opposition in parliament to the agreement, which the US wants to see finalised by the end of July. The UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

One well-placed Iraqi Sunni political source said yesterday: “The feeling in Baghdad is that this agreement is going to be rejected in its current form, particularly after the events of the last couple of weeks. The government is more or less happy with it as it is, but parliament is a different matter.”

It is also likely to prove controversial in Washington, where it has been criticised by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has accused the administration of seeking to tie the hands of the next president by committing to Iraq’s protection by US forces.

The defence secretary, Robert Gates, argued in February that the planned agreement would be similar to dozens of “status of forces” pacts the US has around the world and would not commit it to defend Iraq. But Democratic Congress members, including Senator Edward Kennedy, a senior member of the armed services committee, have said it goes well beyond other such agreements and amounts to a treaty, which has to be ratified by the Senate under the constitution.

Administration officials have conceded that if the agreement were to include security guarantees to Iraq, it would have to go before Congress. But the leaked draft only states that it is “in the mutual interest of the United States and Iraq that Iraq maintain its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence and that external threats to Iraq be deterred. Accordingly, the US and Iraq are to consult immediately whenever the territorial integrity or political independence of Iraq is threatened.”

Significantly – given the tension between the US and Iran, and the latter’s close relations with the Iraqi administration’s Shia parties – the draft agreement specifies that the “US does not seek to use Iraq territory as a platform for offensive operations against other states”.

General David Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, is to face questioning from all three presidential candidates on Capitol Hill today when he reports to the Senate on his surge strategy, which increased US forces in Iraq by about 30,000 last year.

Both Clinton and Democratic rival Barack Obama are committed to beginning troop withdrawals from Iraq. Republican senator John McCain has pledged to maintain troop levels until the country is secure.

via/ The Guardian

Challenging The Spin

Who in the Senate swallowed Petraeus’s Iraq spin and who challenged it? It took a Democrat who is not running for President to speak the full truth.

Sure, Arizona Senator John McCain’s campaign may still be selling him as some kind of “maverick” or “independent thinker” — and most of the media may still be buying that ridiculous line.

But when it comes to the fundamental foreign policy issue of the 2008 race – whether to continue the war in Iraq, and at what cost – McCain’s a yes man.

When Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. general in charge of spinning the Iraq quagmire as something other than a quagmire, and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, the U.S. diplomat charged with similar responsibilities, appeared before Congress, McCain greeted them the on-bended-knee position he has adopted since he decided that he would rather be the Republican nominee for president than a serious member of the U.S Congress.

Declaring with as straight a face as he could muster success in Iraq was “within reach,” McCain explained to Petraeus and Crocker that they would get no advice or counsel from this senator.

“Our goal — my goal — is an Iraq that no longer needs American troops, and I believe we can achieve that goal, perhaps sooner than many imagine,” McCain told his task masters. “But I also believe that the promise of withdrawal of our forces regardless of the consequences would constitute a failure of political and moral leadership.”

Apparently confusing “moral leadership” with the denial of reality, McCain declared against all evidence that, “Success, the establishment of peaceful, democratic state, the defeat of terrorism — this success is within reach. Congress must not choose to lose in Iraq. We must choose to succeed.”

To describe McCain’s comments at the Petraeus-Crocker hearing as “meaningless” would be an insult to meaninglessness. He added nothing to the discussion except cheerleading, and he sent the general and the ambassador back to Iraq without the benefit of the experience and insights of a member of Congress whose background could have been of value.

McCain’s decision to go AWOL was as embarrassing as it was disappointing.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama both made more of an effort to live up to their responsibilities as senators.

As someone who voted with McCain to get into the mess that is Iraq, Clinton acknowledged reality when she told Petraeus and Crocker that it was “time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing our troops” from Iraq.

Clinton was still a little soft when she said, “It might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced results that have been promised time and time again.”

But at least she was on the side of realism — even if she arrived there late in the game.

Obama, who had the foresight to oppose authorizing President Bush to go to war, was at least as sound as Clinton Tuesday.

“The most important issue is still the one that was asked in September which is how has this war made us safer and at what point do we know that there is success so we can start bringing our troops home,” the Democratic contender explained before the hearing.

“My belief is that we are not in a situation where staying another 10, 15 or 20 years is going to change the fundamentals on the ground,” explained Obama, who added that, “What we have not seen is the Iraqi government using the space that was created not only by our troops but by the standdown of the militias in places like Basra, to use that to move forward on a political agenda that could actually bring stability.”

So, as a senator, McCain failed the test Tuesday. But which Democrat offered the strongest challenge to the Petraeus-Crocker spin?

Clinton? Obama?

No, Russ Feingold.

The Democratic senator from Wisconsin, who is not running for president but probably should be, continued to take his job as a senator more seriously than any of his colleagues.

Feingold told Petraeus and Crocker: I hope you won’t take it personally when I say that I wish we were also hearing today from those who could help us look at Iraq from a broader perspective. The participation at this hearing of those charged with regional and global responsibilities would have given us the chance to discuss how the war in Iraq is undermining our national security. It might have helped us answer the most important question we face – not “are we winning or losing in Iraq?” but “are we winning or losing in the global fight against al Qaeda?”

Like many Americans, I am gravely concerned by how bogged down we are in Iraq. Our huge, open-ended military presence there is not only undermining our ability to respond to the global threat posed by al Qaeda, but it is also creating greater regional instability, serving as a disincentive for Iraqis to reach political reconciliation, straining our military, and piling up debt for future generations to repay.

I am pleased that violence in parts of the country has declined, but as the increase in violence in Mosul and recent events in Basra and now Baghdad indicate, long-term prospects for reconciliation appear to be just as shaky as they were before the surge. In fact, the drop in violence could have serious costs, as it is partly attributable to the deals we have struck with local militias, all of which could make national reconciliation that much more difficult.

We need to redeploy our troops from Iraq and I am disappointed that you are calling for a halt in troop reductions, General Petraeus, because the presence of about 140,000 troops in Iraq will exacerbate the conflict, not stabilize it, and it will certainly not contribute to our overall national security. Some have suggested that we should stay in Iraq until reconciliation occurs. They have it backwards — our departure is likely to force factions to the negotiating table in an attempt to finally create a viable power-sharing agreement.

If we redeploy, Iraq will no longer be the “‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world,” as the Intelligence Community so clearly stated. Iran, as well as Turkey, Syria, and other regional actors, will have to decide if Iraqi instability is really in their interests once we are no longer on the hook. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we will be able to adequately address what must be our top priority – the threat posed by al Qaeda around the globe, and particularly its safe haven in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Nothing could be clearer than the need to refocus all our instruments of national power to combat this threat.

Redeployment does not mean abandoning Iraq. We must work for a peaceful outcome in that country. But if we continue to leave our military caught up in the sectarian divisions that consume Iraq, we will be doing so at grave risk to Iraq’s progress, the region’s stability, and our own national security.

Source: The Nation