Just Foreign Policy News
August 17, 2006
In this issue:
1) Already Falling Behind
2) Bombs Aimed at G.I.'s in Iraq Are Increasing
3) Hizbullah Rejects Syrian Position
4) Lebanon Sends National Army to Patrol South
5) Cabinet members spar over proposed weapons compromise
6) Stocks Scandal Spells Doom of Embattled Israeli Army Chief
7) Deputy PM Prescott denies calling Bush "crap"
8) Iranian Says Talks Can Cover Uranium
9) President Joins in G.O.P. Attacks on Democrats About Terrorism
10) Democrats Counter G.O.P. and Lieberman on Iraq
11) Foreign Workers Flee War-Ravaged Country
12) South Lebanon Towns Reclaim Their Dead and Hold Funerals
13) Afghanistan: U.S. To Pay Families for Deadly Attack
14) For Many Israelis, a Bitter Homecoming: Border Areas Reflect
National Sentiment Over Failure to Eliminate Hezbollah
15) Iraqi speaker derails Bush's dreams
16) Hezbollah vs. Halliburton
17) Bloomberg Spins the Bolivia Gas Story: A Good Example of Bad
Journalism
18) Poll Shows Lamont Gaining Support, But Still Trailing
Lieberman
Contents:
1) Already Falling Behind
Editorial
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/opinion/17thur1.html
Hezbollah is taking charge of reconstruction in south Lebanon, while the world
is dithering over the makeup of a peacekeeping force. Large swaths of the
country are in ruins. Hundreds of thousands of people are without homes. Many
Lebanese are furiously blaming the United States
as well as Israel
for their suffering. Whatever anger they may also harbor toward Hezbollah is
being more than neutralized by the militia's swift on-the-scene response and
the large piles of cash it is handing out, courtesy of Iran. The Bush
administration provided $30 million in relief aid in the midst of the war, but
got little credit while it was doing nothing to stop Israel's bombing. Last week Washington committed
another $20 million, and officials say they'll pledge a lot more at a
conference at the end of this month. Promises can't compete with the visible
aid Hezbollah is already delivering. Washington's
pledges must be quickly translated into tangible on-the-ground help or
Hezbollah will clinch the battle for Lebanese hearts and minds even before the
peacekeepers arrive. It may turn out that the most that can be hoped for is a
slow political marginalization of Hezbollah. Even that will take all the
outside aid, technical support and spine-stiffening for Lebanon's
government that the international community can provide. The race has begun,
and Hezbollah is already ahead.
2) Bombs Aimed at G.I.'s in Iraq Are Increasing
Michael R. Gordon, Mark Mazzetti And Thom Shanker
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17military.html
The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest
monthly total of the war, offering more evidence that the anti-American
insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist
leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Along with a sharp increase in sectarian attacks,
the number of daily strikes against American and Iraqi security forces has
doubled since January. The deadliest means of attack, roadside bombs, made up
much of that increase. In July, of 2,625 explosive devices, 1,666 exploded and
959 were discovered before they went off. In January, 1,454 bombs exploded or
were found. The bomb statistics compiled by American military are part of a
growing body of data and intelligence analysis about the violence in Iraq that has
produced somber public assessments from military commanders, administration
officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. "The insurgency has gotten worse
by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high
levels," said a senior Defense Department official. "The insurgency
has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people
active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point in time."
A separate report by the Defense Intelligence Agency details worsening security
conditions inside the country and describes how Iraq risks sliding toward civil
war.
3) Hizbullah Rejects Syrian Position
Juan Cole, citing al-Zaman
Informed Comment (Cole's blog)
Thursday, August 17, 2006
http://www.juancole.com/#115580499108906603
Hizbullah declined to adopt the position of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad in
accusing the reformist politicians of standing against Hizbullah and the
resistance in Lebanon.
(Bashar has a feud with the 14 March group, but Hizbullah joined it in a
national unity government.) Husayn al-Hajj Hasan, a Hizbullah member of
parliament said, "we reject the idea of considering the 14 March group to
be agents of Israel and America."
4) Lebanon
Sends National Army to Patrol South
John Kifner And Robert F. Worth
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17mideast.html
The Lebanese Army moved into the country's south on Thursday, but finessed the
delicate issue of disarming Hezbollah. At several points, soldiers crossed the Litani River
into the long-held separate realm of Hezbollah. Hezbollah fighters were not
expected to resist the soldiers, nor to hand over their weapons. Instead, they
probably would simply put their weapons into hiding and melt away into the
civilian population. "Just like in the past, Hezbollah had no visible
military presence and there will not be any presence now," a Hezbollah
field commander said Wednesday. He said Hezbollah would maintain its presence
without displaying its arms and that since Israeli tanks were still in Lebanon, the
guerrillas reserved the right to respond accordingly. A Hezbollah representative
in Parliament said that his organization would not pull back over the Litani
and that the fate of its arsenal was not open to public debate. In Israel,
skepticism about the plan was evident. Still, the Israeli Army said Wednesday
it had started to hand over positions in Lebanon to UN troops. Hezbollah
guerrillas have operated in the south for years. They are almost entirely local
men hardened by 18 years of Israeli occupation after its 1982 invasion. During
that time, they lived and worked in their native villages, building an
elaborate social-service network and extensive underground fortifications and
stashes of modern weaponry that astounded Israel in a month of bitter
fighting. "For the next two or three years, Hezbollah will be like the Salvation
Army, tied up in rebuilding," said Michael Young, the opinion editor at
The Daily Star in Beirut.
"But the party cannot put Shiites through such trauma again for the
foreseeable future, maybe a decade, which means its ability to attack Israel
will be limited. The reason Hezbollah is so eager to rebuild is that they know
the condition of Shiites today could turn the community against them if it's
not dealt with effectively." Amid the growing debate in Israel over the handling of the war, Israel's
defense minister appointed a panel to investigate how the military and the
ministry had performed.
5) Cabinet members spar over proposed weapons compromise
Nada Bakri and Therese Sfeir
Daily Star (Beirut)
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74774
A compromise agreement currently being hammered out between Hizbullah and the
Lebanese government is expected to allow the party to keep hidden weapons in South Lebanon, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper
reported Tuesday. While Hizbullah would need to keep the weapons it possesses
south of the Litani
River hidden, an
agreement for areas north of the river would be "left to a long-term
solution," the paper said. If the proposed compromise is accepted by
Premier Fouad Siniora's Cabinet, it would violate the terms of UN Security
Council Resolution 1701. And it is also a violation of the "one
weapon" principle of Siniora's seven-point plan. Resolution 1701 calls for
Israel and Lebanon to support a solution based on previous
UN resolutions requiring "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon"
apart from state security forces.
6) Stocks Scandal Spells Doom of Embattled Israeli Army Chief
Marius Schattner
Agence France
Presse
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0816-06.htm
Israel's army chief, under fire for selling shares hours before launching an
offensive in Lebanon, was looking set to become the first head to roll in the
outcry over the state's handling of the month-long war. Israel's media have piled opprobrium on Dan
Halutz since the Maariv newspaper revealed Tuesday that he had sold shares
hours before the start of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon. The story has focused the
anger of many in a country struggling to come to terms with the less than
decisive outcome of its war against the Hezbollah militia."There's an old
Romanian saying that goes like this: 'the country is burning, but grandma is
combing her hair.' The country was on fire, and all that interested Halutz was
his investment portfolio," member of parliament Colette Avital said Tuesday.
Resignation calls have come from parliament but also from the highest circles
of the defense establishment.
7) Deputy PM Prescott denies calling Bush "crap"
BBC News
2006/08/17
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4800827.stm
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has denied saying the Bush administration
had been "crap" on the Middle East
road map. Labour MP Harry Cohen said the remark came during a meeting with
fellow Labour MPs. The White House said Bush had been called worse. Asked about
Prescott's denial, Cohen told the BBC he did not
think it was a "gaffe" by the deputy PM and that Prescott should not be embarrassed. Cohen
said he believed Prescott's
comment had been "an honest and good point well made". Asked why Prescott might deny it,
Cohen claimed it might be politically expedient "not to upset the
Americans". He said he thought many of his fellow MPs and the wider
population would agree that more should have been done by the US in pushing forward the Middle
East road map in recent years. He said Prescott
claimed he had only supported the Iraq war "because they were
promised the road map". Colin Brown, the deputy prime minister's
biographer, said "the fact is, a lot of people are cheering him on." Former
ministers were "right behind him on this", Brown added, and the
deputy prime minister had "never been more popular than he is now" as
a result. For the Liberal Democrats, Norman Lamb said: "John Prescott does
not always use the most appropriate language, but if these reports are to be
believed then his instincts on the Middle East
are certainly preferable to Tony Blair's."
8) Iranian Says Talks Can Cover Uranium
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html
Iran's foreign minister said
Wednesday that Iran was
willing to discuss suspending uranium enrichment during negotiations with
European countries and China.
The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, spoke two weeks before the Aug. 31
deadline set by the UN Security Council for Iran to halt the enrichment or face
sanctions. Other Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
have responded defiantly to the demand to suspend the program, which Iran says is
intended to make fuel for nuclear power plants and is not a cover for a secret
effort to make nuclear weapons. Iran
has said it will respond by Tuesday to a European-led offer of incentives to
suspend enrichment.
"We declared that the best way is to resume negotiations," Mr. Mottaki
said. "We can even discuss the issue of suspension, which is not
acceptable based on any logic," he added. "The Islamic Republic of
Iran will not back down from its rights under any circumstances."
9) President Joins in G.O.P. Attacks on Democrats About
Terrorism
Jim Rutenberg
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/washington/17bush.html
President Bush Wednesday picked up his party's attack against Democrats for
having the wrong approach to the fight against terrorism. But his was a kinder,
gentler approach than the one used by Vice President Dick Cheney and others in
recent days. Referring to the war in Iraq, Bush said: "There's some
good people in our country who believe we should cut and run. They're not bad
people when they say that, they're decent people." But he added, "I just
happen to believe they're wrong, and they're wrong for this reason: this would
be a defeat for the US
in a key battleground in the global war on terror." It was Bush's first public
political address since news broke last week that the British had disrupted a
major terrorism plot. The White House and the Republican Party had pounced on
that news, along with the defeat of Joseph Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary by antiwar
candidate Ned Lamont, to paint Democrats as weak on national security. Cheney
had gone so far as to imply that the defeat of Lieberman would embolden
"Al Qaeda types." There was no mistaking the president's target when
he said success in Iraq
was crucial in the fight against terrorism, adding, to loud applause:
"They want us to leave. They want us to cut and run." Phil Singer, a
spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, responded,
"Misstating the Democrats' position on Iraq
doesn't change the fact that the White House's Iraq policy has been a tragic
failure."
10) Democrats Counter G.O.P. and Lieberman on Iraq
Jennifer Medina
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/nyregion/17conn.html
Democratic leaders supporting Ned Lamont's Senate campaign struck back
yesterday at attacks suggesting that their party's support of him portrayed the
Democrats as weak on national security. Lamont's campaign has sought to
identify Lieberman with the Republicans, saying that the senator's criticism of
Lamont shows his alignment with the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Senator
Hillary Clinton said she had "deep regret that there's any effort to
politicize the war on terror." Lamont held a press conference Wednesday
afternoon specifically to counter the attacks from Republicans, calling them
"outrageous" and "disrespectful" of Connecticut voters. "We don't need any
sermons on the meaning of 9/11," Lamont said of remarks by Vice President
Cheney, adding that Lieberman was "becoming more and more the de facto
Republican candidate." Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent
a fund-raising appeal via e-mail to millions of his supporters, imploring them
to send contributions to Lamont, along with Senator Menendez of New Jersey and Senator Akaka of Hawaii. "Each of these candidates is
making the mess in Iraq
a central issue in their campaigns for the Senate," Kerry wrote.
"In the Senate," he added, "Ned Lamont will go head to head with
Don Rumsfeld, and our troops will benefit from Lamont's leadership. He knows
that patriotism isn't reserved for those who defend a president's position;
patriotism is doing what's right for our troops and our country."
11) Foreign Workers Flee War-Ravaged Country
Many Found Themselves Trapped in Lebanon
Nora Boustany
Washington
Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601901.html
At times of peace and at times of war, they are the invisible people. They are
the migrant workers who slog at hard jobs in strange lands. In Lebanon,
they are everywhere. "They are not part of the collective
consciousness," said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization
for Migration. Chauzy has been helping to evacuate foreign workers who were
trapped in the war zone with no means to escape. Some have no legal documents.
Chauzy said, "We have to talk about this migratory dimension in human
terms, but unless they are Canadians or Americans, few people want to hear
their story." With assistance from its member states and the Lebanese
authorities, the IOM has been able to secure the safe passage of about 10,000
people in recent weeks. But the group's coffers are running dry, and it has
said it may be forced to suspend its evacuations of foreign nationals later
this week. It has appealed for more funding. More foreign workers want to
leave. Sister Amelia Torres, from the Daughters of Charity order, came to Lebanon to tend
to wounded fighters and civilians in the mid-1980s. "Those treated as
second-class citizens have to leave," she told an international relief
worker. "Now, some Lebanese women may have to clean their own
toilets." While some foreign workers describe wretched conditions, others
had made comfortable lives here and earned the gratitude of their employers.
One Lebanese woman was seen carrying her housekeeper's duffel bag to a
collection point; she started crying when she saw that the housekeeper would
have to sleep on the floor as she waited for her turn to leave on a bus.
12) South Lebanon Towns Reclaim Their Dead and Hold Funerals
Hassan M. Fattah
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17burial.html
For weeks the bodies were symbols of the helplessness many felt in the face of Israel's bombs.
But on Wednesday, Lebanon's
dead became symbols of closure as towns and villages throughout the south began
burying their loved ones. Families mourned for relatives and towns honored the
bodies of Hezbollah fighters in ceremonies in the rubble-strewn villages of the
south, vowing never to forget the price they paid in the fight against Israel.
13) Afghanistan:
U.S.
To Pay Families for Deadly Attack
August 17, 2006
Agence France-Presse
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/asia/17briefs-003.html
The US
military said it would pay $90,000 in compensation to the families of victims
of an air attack in May that killed at least 16 civilians in Tulokan, in the
Panjwayi district of Kandahar. But a military spokesman said the compensation
process — "family assistance, reconstruction and projects in the village'' —
would not start until security in Kandahar
improved. The airstrike came amid intense fighting with Taliban forces. While
the military and the Afghan government put the death toll from the strike at
16, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and local residents say 37
people were killed.
14) For Many Israelis, a Bitter Homecoming: Border Areas
Reflect National Sentiment Over Failure to Eliminate Hezbollah
Doug Struck
Washington
Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601811.html
Thousands of Israelis are returning now to their homes near the Lebanese
border. They are bitter and angry about what many call a futile war, and what
others call an outright loss. "Israel lost big-time," said
Ravit Ben-Simon, glumly reopening her cellphone store on Wednesday in Kiryat
Shemona. "It wasn't a worthwhile war at all. It all started because of the
kidnapped soldiers. Where are they now? Still kidnapped. It was all for
nothing." That view was reflected in a national poll released Wednesday,
showing that public support for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert has plummeted. The poll by the Maariv newspaper showed that Olmert's
support had dropped from 78 percent on July 19, shortly after the war began, to
40 percent.
15) Iraqi speaker derails Bush's dreams
The sunny scenario of Sunni Arab political integration gets dimmer as speaker
al-Mashhadani takes a hard line against Shiites -- and the U.S.
Juan Cole
Salon
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/08/17/mashhadani/index_np.html
When George Bush met the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, he liked him. During
his June trip to Baghdad,
Bush sang the praises of Dr. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. "I was impressed by
him," said Bush during a press conference. "He's a fellow that had
been put in prison by Saddam and, interestingly enough, put in prison by us.
And he made a decision to participate in the government. . . . It was
interesting to see a person that could have been really bitter talk about the
skills he's going to need to bring people together to run the parliament."
But when the Iraqi parliament reconvenes next month, the first item on their
agenda will be firing al-Mashhadani. He has put his foot in his mouth too many
times. Considering what he's been saying about the United States since his moment with
the president, the end of his tenure should come as a relief to the Bush
administration. "Who destroyed Iraq? Who plundered Iraq?"
exploded al-Mashhadani in a recent interview. "It is none other than the
blue jinn whose name is: the American Occupation."
16) Hezbollah vs. Halliburton
Robert Weissman
Huffington Post
8.16.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weissman/hezbollah-vs-halliburton_b_27370.html
What does it say that Hezbollah can organize efficient reconstruction --
commencing as soon a ceasefire was announced, but the U.S. contractors in Iraq have utterly botched
reconstruction there? Sure, security problems in Iraq have made the contractors'
work extra challenging -- and by now, perhaps impossible in many cases -- but
that's only part of the story. And it doesn't explain the failure to
successfully undertake reconstruction projects early in the occupation. The
real issue is that the U.S.
contractors, on the whole, saw their mission as corruptly siphoning as much
Iraqi and U.S.
taxpayer monies as they could, rather than doing actual reconstruction. And
their U.S.
government overseers -- to the extent even this function wasn't privatized --
didn't care. In fact, they too were interested in facilitating the cronyism.
17) Bloomberg Spins the Bolivia Gas Story: A Good Example
of Bad Journalism
Gretchen Gordon
The Democracy Center
Sunday, August 13, 2006
http://www.democracyctr.org/blog/2006/08/bloomberg-spins-bolivia-gas-story-good.html
Bloomberg posted an article on problems facing the Bolivian government's oil
and gas "nationalization" efforts. The article references a report in
the La Paz-based newspaper La Razon. The Bloomberg article paints an entirely
different picture of Bolivia's
oil and gas nationalization. La Razon's says: "...the participation of [Bolivia's state
oil company] in the entire chain of production of the [oil and gas] sector 'is
temporarily suspended, due to the lack of economic resources.'"Bloomberg
says La Razon says: "Bolivia
temporarily suspended a plan to seize oil and natural gas fields controlled by
foreign companies, saying the state oil company lacks the necessary funds to
execute the process, La Razon reported." Between La Razon and Bloomberg, Bolivia's
state company "participating" in the chain of production becomes the
government "seizing" oilfields and assets. The La Razon article is
devoted to laying out in detail just how little has changed since Bolivia's
"nationalization" decree. The Bloomberg article goes on to tell how
"Bolivian President Evo Morales seized the assets of Petrobras and other
international oil companies on May 1."
18) Poll Shows Lamont Gaining Support, But Still Trailing
Lieberman
Associated Press
August 17 2006, 7:42 AM EDT
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-lamont-lieberman-poll-0817,0,6520516.story
Ned Lamont, whose anti-war campaign rattled the political
landscape by toppling Sen. Joe Lieberman last week in Connecticut's Democratic primary, is gaining
support in November's three-way Senate race, according to a poll released
Thursday. But the Quinnipiac
University poll shows
Lamont still has an uphill battle against Lieberman, now running as an
independent. Lieberman leads Lamont among registered voters 49% to 38%.
Republican Alan Schlesinger gets support from 4%. That's an improvement for
Lamont, who trailed Lieberman 51% to 27% in a three-way race in a July 20
Quinnipiac poll. That survey of registered voters showed Schlesinger with 9%. Thursday's
poll quizzed both registered voters and voters likely to cast ballots in the
general election. The July 20 poll only questioned registered voters. Among
likely voters in Thursday's poll, Lieberman was supported by 53%, compared to
Lamont's 41% and Schlesinger's 4%. Lieberman's advantage comes from broad
support among unaffiliated and Republican voters. "Senator Lieberman's
support among Republicans is nothing short of amazing. It more than offsets
what he has lost among Democrats," poll director Douglas Schwartz said. When
pollsters asked if Lieberman should drop out of the race because he lost the
Democratic primary, 58% of all those surveyed said no, but among Democrats, 56%
said he should. Some Senate Republicans are throwing their support behind
Lieberman instead of Schlesinger. Thursday's poll showed Lieberman with 75% of
the Republican vote, compared to 13% for Lamont and 10% for Schlesinger. Among
unaffiliated voters, Lieberman garners 58%, compared to 36% for Lamont and 3%
for Schlesinger. Among Democrats, Lamont leads Lieberman with 63%. Lieberman
gets 35% of Democratic voters.
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
