Senior European policy-makers are increasingly worried that the US administration will resort to air strikes against Iran to try to destroy its suspect nuclear programme.

As transatlantic friction over how to deal with the Iranian impasse intensifies, there are fears in European capitals that the nuclear crisis could come to a head this year because of US frustration with Russian stalling tactics at the UN security council. "The clock is ticking," said one European official. "Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the US has changed."

As the Americans continue their biggest naval build-up in the Gulf since the start of the Iraq war four years ago, a transatlantic rift is opening up on several important aspects of the Iran dispute.

The Bush administration will shortly publish a dossier of charges of alleged Iranian subversion in Iraq. "Iran has steadily ramped up its activity in Iraq in the last three to four months. This applies to the scope and pace of their operations. You could call these brazen activities," a senior US official said in London yesterday.

Senior members of the US Congress have raised concerns that the US will attack Iran in retaliation for its alleged activities in Iraq.

More from Guardian Unlimited.

It is important to keep in mind that legally, the president cannot launch any military action against Iran without authorization from Congress. Whether Congress will have the courage to hold him to the law is another question.
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

More lies from the lying liars in the White House:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. scientists felt pressured to tailor their writings on global warming to fit the Bush administration's skepticism, in some cases at the behest of an ex-oil industry lobbyist, a congressional committee heard on Tuesday.

"Our investigations found high-quality science struggling to get out," Francesca Grifo of the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

A survey by the group found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 incidents.

"Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,' 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications," Grifo said.

Rick Piltz, a former U.S. government scientist who said he resigned in 2005 after pressure to soft-pedal findings on global warming, told the committee in prepared testimony that former White House official Phil Cooney took an active role in casting doubt on the consequences of global climate change.

Cooney, who was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, resigned in 2005 to work for oil giant ExxonMobil.

Documents on global climate change required Cooney's review and approval, Piltz said.

More at Reuters News Service.
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

As the Senate prepares to debate a resolution against the proposed “surge” in Iraq, the Democratic Party faces something of a conundrum: will it heed the calls of its base and take concrete action to end the war, or will it simply use the opportunity to position itself in opposition to Bush’s policy in the hopes of retaking the White House in 2008?

So far, it appears that congressional Democrats are leaning toward the latter strategy.

Although the Democrats can thank a growing antiwar sentiment across the country for their victory in the Nov. 7 elections, so far the party’s leadership has balked at taking bold measures to force a withdrawal from Iraq or even to prevent an escalation of the war, and there is little indication that the party leaders intend to do so.

A proposal by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., that would have required the President to seek additional congressional approval before sending 21,500 more troops into battle was quickly shot down, and instead the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a non-binding resolution mildly expressing Congress’s disapproval of Bush’s plan.

More analysis at Consortium News
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

As Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates joins in baiting Iraq War critics for supposedly aiding the enemy, the Democrats have been taught once more the value of handing a bipartisan olive branch to George W. Bush.

In December 2006, ignoring warnings from former CIA officers who had worked with Gates, Senate Democrats embraced his nomination to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They fawned over Gates at a one-day hearing, spared the former CIA director any tough questions, and then unanimously endorsed him.

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and others hailed Gates’s “candor” when he acknowledged the obvious, that the United States wasn’t winning the war in Iraq, a position that even Bush subsequently embraced.

In December, the “conventional wisdom” was that Bush would bend to the troop-drawdown recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and that Gates – as a former member of the ISG – would guide the President toward disengagement from Iraq.

But in rushing Gates’s nomination through with only pro forma hearings, the Democrats sacrificed a rare opportunity to demand answers from the Bush administration about its war policy at a time when the White House wanted something from the Democrats, i.e. the quick confirmation of Gates.

Gates allegedly played important but still-secret roles in controversial U.S. policies toward Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. In addition, former CIA officers have criticized Gates for “politicizing” the CIA’s intelligence analysis as a top CIA official in the 1980s.

Some of the CIA institutional and personnel changes that Gates implemented led to the CIA’s malleability in the face of White House pressure over Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction in 2002-03, former CIA officials said.

So, was Gates a closet neoconservative ideologue hiding behind Boy Scout looks and mild manners? Or was he more a yes man who would bend to the will of his superiors? His record could be interpreted either way.

But the Democrats politely evaded these thorny questions.

In recent months, two extensively documented reports from New Jersey's Seton Hall Law School, based entirely on Defense Department data, rebut the administration's contention - exemplified by departed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - that most of the detainees "are the best-trained, most vicious killers on the face of the Earth."

Researched and written by law professor Mark Denbeaux; his son, Joshua (counsel to two Guantanamo detainees); and law students at Seton Hall, the reports demonstrate that: "Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized (in the Defense Department data) as Al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40 percent have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda at all." As for those picked up in Afghanistan, "86 percent were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody."

And there is this revealing information: "This 86 percent of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time when the U.S. offered large bounties for capture of suspected terrorists." The captives in these mass roundups were hardly screened carefully for their terrorist connections by the bounty hunters - nor were they carefully screened, according to international law criteria, by our armed forces.

Once at Guantanamo, to what extent were these prisoners given the due-process rights ordered by the Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)? This is what the Seton Hall reports found in the Defense Department documents: "When considering all the hearings, 89 percent of the time, no evidence was presented on behalf of the detainees." And the government's classified evidence, intended to be the most powerful - evidence the prisoners were not allowed to see and rebut - was always presumed by the tribunal to be reliable and valid. So much for any presumption of innocence - essential to due process.

More at the Journal Times
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

There is almost no scientific evidence to back up the U.S. intelligence community's use of controversial interrogation techniques in the fight against terrorism, and experts believe some painful and coercive approaches could hinder the ability to get good information, according to a new report from a U.S. intelligence advisory group.

The 374-page report from the Intelligence Science Board says no significant scientific research has been conducted in more than four decades about the effectiveness of many techniques the U.S. military and intelligence groups use regularly.

"Since there had been little or no development of sustained capacity for interrogation practice, training, or research within intelligence or military communities in the post-Soviet period, many interrogators were forced to 'make it up' on the fly," wrote Robert A. Fein, chair of the study, published by the National Defense Intelligence College. "This shortfall in advanced, research-based interrogation methods at a time of intense pressure from operational commanders to produce actionable intelligence from high-value targets may have contributed significantly to the unfortunate cases of abuse that have recently come to light," including at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

More from the Star Tribune
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

This story doesn't deal directly with Iraq, but it does reveal the web of corruption involving Primt Minister Tony Blair, British defence companies, and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it is yet another example of Tony Blair lying to parliament.

Britain's secret intelligence service, MI6, has challenged the government's claim that a major corruption inquiry into Saudi Arabian arms deals was threatening national security.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, told parliament before Christmas that the intelligence agencies "agreed with the assessment" of Tony Blair that national security was in jeopardy because the Saudis intended to pull out of intelligence cooperation with Britain. But John Scarlett, the head of MI6, has now refused to sign up to a government dossier which says MI6 endorses this view.

Whitehall sources have told the Guardian that the statement to the Lords was incorrect. MI6 and MI5 possessed no intelligence that the Saudis intended to sever security links. The intelligence agencies had been merely asked whether it would be damaging to UK national security if such a breach did happen. They replied that naturally it would.

The issue has now come to a head because ministers are under pressure at an international meeting today to justify why they terminated an important corruption investigation into the arms company BAE Systems.

In a controversial move last month, Tony Blair ordered the Serious Fraud Office inquiry to be halted, and said he took the responsibility for doing so, after BAE lobbied him that it might otherwise lose a lucrative Saudi order for more arms sales. The decision was condemned by MPs and anti-corruption campaigners, and is now the subject of an inquiry by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is responsible for rooting out corruption around the world. Britain signed up to its anti-bribery convention which made the payment of bribes a specific criminal offence under UK law in 2002.

Whitehall officials will be questioned by 35 other governments at the Paris meeting, which can "name and shame" Britain if it finds against them. As part of the government's preparations to provide a justification to the OECD, MI6 was asked to sign up to a dossier which made the claim that MI6 "endorsed" Mr Blair's national security claim, according to those who have seen it.

When it was sent to MI6 headquarters last week, Mr Scarlett, refused. Officials made it clear there were "differences" between the intelligence agencies and the government over the language used by Lord Goldsmith. A source said that Lord Goldsmith's claims to parliament in December "contained quite a degree of conjecture". One official said there was "nothing to suggest" that the Saudis had actually warned "if you continue with this inquiry, we will cut off intelligence".

The dispute echoes the intelligence row about "sexing-up" the Iraq arms dossier, when Mr Scarlett, then head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was persuaded to endorse false government claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Sources close to the intelligence agencies say Mr Scarlett was unwilling to again provide cover for ministers by endorsing another set of controversial government claims.

More from Guardian Unlimited
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

Six Iranians held in a US military raid in northern Iraq were working there with the approval of the authorities, Iraq's foreign minister has said.

The Iranian liaison office in Irbil did not yet have full consular diplomatic status but it had been operating for years, Hoshyar Zebari said.

The US said it believed the six people seized in Thursday's raid had targeted Iraqi and US-led coalition forces.

Russia said the raid was "unacceptable" and a violation of international law.

"It is absolutely unacceptable for troops to storm the consular offices of a foreign state on the territory of another state," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said.

"It is also not clear how this fits in with American statements that Washington respects the sovereignty of Iraq," he said.

Iraq's foreign minister said details of the detainees had been passed to the Americans.

"We contacted the US embassy and submitted all the information available to us on the nature of their work and the place of their work," he said.

"They have been working under the approval of the government."

More from BBC News
- posted by truthspeaker    Comments

Last night, President Bush offered his "new" plan for "getting the job done" in Iraq. His new plan ignores the advice of his generals, the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group, and the Iraqi Prime Minister. Ironically, he acknowledged for the first time that he made a mistake in 2003 in choosing to ignore the advice of a general who said a larger post-invasion force was needed to stabilize the country. Apparently, he thinks he can rectify that mistake four years later.

But this is no surprise. Ignoring expert advice is part of Bush's personality. Before the invasion, his neo-con advisers convinced him that the Middle East experts in the State Department and Pentagon who warned against invading Iraq were overcautious and out of touch, not bold enough to embrace his dream of bringing democracy to the Middle East with military force. He called the millions of Americans who protested the invasion a "focus group". Bush thinks of himself as a holy warrior who receives instructions from God himself. That mere mortals oppose his plans just plays into his martyr complex. Certainly there is no need for him to analyze their reasons for disagreeing with him.

In the same speech, Bush distanced himself further from the advice of the Iraq Study Group. They had suggested working with Syria and Iran on a regional approach to the Iraq situation. Instead, Bush decided to antagonize them further. Today his words were put into action when US forces raided an Iranian consulate.

And through all this, Bush still clings to the fundamental Big Lie of the Iraq war: that the war in Iraq is a vital part of the war on terrorism. Never mind that we have known for four years that Saddam and al Qaeda never worked together. Never mind that we have known for four years that Iraq had no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons to sell to terrorists. Never mind that al Qaeda militants are only a tiny part of the violence in Iraq. Like Stephen Colbert, Bush's opinions never change even when the underlying facts do. Except Bush isn't a comedian playing a satirical part, he's the real thing, and he's still in charge.

So we can expect more American soldiers and marines to die for nothing. It also looks like we can expect a wider conflict involving Iran and Syria. Democrats in Congress, and even some Republicans, have belatedly found the political courage to follow the will of the American people and oppose this madness. How long this courage will last remains to be seen. But Bush doesn't listen to criticism and, thanks to the War Powers Act and the Iraq War Resolution, Congress is limited in what it can do.

Further reading:

Lawmakers Demand Answers on New Iraq Plan
Report: U.S. Troops Raid Iranian Consulate in Iraq
The U.S.-Iran-Iraq-Israeli-Syrian War
Iraqis split on Bush's last gamble
Full text: Bush address on Iraq