Just Foreign Policy News October 23, 2006 No War with Iran: Petition More than 3100 people have signed the Just Foreign Policy/Peace Action petition through Just Foreign Policy's website. Please sign/circulate if you have yet to do so: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html
Just Foreign Policy ad on Juan Cole's blog: Tell us what you think. www.juancole.com Just Foreign Policy on MySpace: If you're on MySpace, add us: http://www.myspace.com/justforeignpolicy Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html Summary: U.S./Top News An estimate by public health experts that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died because of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is likely an accurate assessment, researchers say, according to Reuters. Two Republican senators, including the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks over North Korea's nuclear program, the Washington Times reports. A senior State Department official apologized Sunday for saying the US had acted with "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its campaign in Iraq. Administration officials had earlier claimed that his remarks had been mistranslated from Arabic. The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, the New York Times reports. Although the plan would not threaten the Iraqi government with a withdrawal of American troops, officials said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it. "Plan B" - anything but "staying the course" - has been on the lips of virtually every foreign policy analyst in Washington this past week when the entire capital appeared to decide that whatever the U.S. has been doing in Iraq is failing spectacularly, writes Jim Lobe for Inter Press Service. Iran President Ahmadinejad said Monday Western powers were wrong if they thought Iran would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear plans, Reuters reports. Some European diplomats say a tough UN sanctions resolution could boost support for Ahmadinejad's conservative government. Iraq More than three million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighbouring countries are facing what the UN refugee agency describes as a "very bleak future" after the agency's budget for offices across the region was halved for the coming year, the UN reports. The brother of NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan after quitting his team to join the Army Rangers, has spoken out against the the war in Iraq and the Bush administration, AP reports. "Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes," Kevin Tillman wrote. A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his legacy, the Guardian reports. After three years of trying to thwart a potent insurgency and tamp down the deadly violence in Iraq, the American military is playing its last hand: the Baghdad security plan, the New York Times reports. Baghdad security may not be a sufficient condition for a more stable Iraq, but it is a necessary condition for any plan that does not simply abandon Iraqis to their fate. Israel Israel confirmed Sunday it had used phosphorus shells, controversial munitions condemned by many human rights groups, during its war in Lebanon, the Washington Post reports. The Red Cross and human rights groups have urged a world ban on the munitions, saying they cause undue suffering through severe burns. Many times, this or that Israeli politician has been accused of being a fascist, Uri Avnery writes. But Avigdor Liberman, currently being recruited to join the Israeli government, is the real McCoy. Liberman has called for Israel to be made free of Arabs by swapping Jewish settlements in the West Bank for Palestinian areas in Israel. That's not going to happen, Avnery says. But he fears that Liberman's inclusion in the government will help to legitimize in Israeli political discourse a more realistic possibility which would be even worse: expulsion of the Palestinian population while retaining their land. Palestine For decades, Palestinian foreign nationals have entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip on three-month tourist visas, renewing them regularly, because residency cards were difficult to obtain, the Washington Post reports. But in recent months Israel's Interior Ministry has refused in many cases to grant new visas, separating thousands of family members from relatives in the occupied territories. Israeli human rights groups say an estimated 70,000 foreign nationals are awaiting visitor permits, which the military rarely issues. Tensions between rival Fatah and Hamas loyalists continued to smolder Sunday as an informal cease-fire quickly disintegrated, the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, some Israeli cabinet members called for retaking control of Gaza's southern border with Egypt. Panama Panamanians Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the country's aging canal, the New York Times reports. The Times notes that as skyscrapers go up at a furious pace in Panama City, 40 percent of the country's 3 million residents live in poverty. Bolivia, Ecuador Trade Preferences A senior Bush administration official said this week that the White House would push Congress to pass a bill continuing trade benefits for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, the Los Angeles Times reports. It wants the bill passed during the "lame-duck session" after the November elections. The benefits are set to expire Dec. 31. The White House said it would push Congress for an extension of trade preferences for all four countries even though relations with Ecuador and Bolivia have been strained. One analyst said the new U.S. posture was a clear effort to send a message to Ecuadorean voters to support candidate the pro-US candiate in the Nov. 26 presidential election. Contents: U.S./Top News 1) Iraq Death Rate Estimates Defended by Researchers Deena Beasley, Reuters, Sunday, October 22, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-03.htm A controversial estimate by public health experts that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died because of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is likely an accurate assessment, researchers said on Saturday. "Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston. The study, published earlier this month by the Lancet medical journal, employed a method known as "cluster sampling" in which data are collected through interviews with randomly selected households. Critics, including President Bush, have said the results are not credible, but Rush said traditional methods for determining death rates, such as counting bodies, are highly inaccurate for civilian populations in times of war. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad estimated with 95 percent certainty that the war and its aftermath have resulted in the deaths of between 426,000 and 794,000 Iraqis. Other estimates have calculated the number of extra Iraqi deaths to be much lower. The Iraq Body Count Database calculates that between 43,850 and 48,693 extra civilians have died since the invasion. [This is comparing apples and oranges. Iraq Body Count is a tally of deaths in Western press reports. Iraq Body Count acknowledges that its numbers are an undercount, as they are guaranteed to be: even the U.S. Census, carried out under much better conditions, it is generally acknowledged, is an undercount of the U.S. population. What is at issue is whether IBC's numbers are a _gross_ undercount. If the methodology of the Hopkins researchers is sound - which experts in the field say it is, as reported in this article - then the probability that the IBC number is roughly correct is well under 2.5% - that's what a 95% confidence interval allows you to say. Reuters deserves credit for reporting the 95% confidence interval, the key conclusion, rather than the "point estimate" of 610,000, a relatively meaningless number. - JFP] Rush, speaking at a meeting in Los Angeles on the medical consequences of the Iraq war, said that the relatively small size of the sample -- 1,849 households -- doesn't change the findings, although it does widen the "confidence limits," hence the large range of the estimated additional deaths. In addition, the biases inherent in cluster sampling, such as wording of questionnaires, would tend to undercount, rather than inflate, the number of deaths, Rush said. "I think this is an extremely credible study," said Michael Intriligator, professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles. Intriligator, who said he commonly uses cluster sampling in his own work, noted that the study's most remarkable finding was the death rates in the country have risen from 5.5 per thousand Iraqis per year before the invasion to 13.2 per thousand per year as of the study's July cutoff. In addition to violence, death rates in Iraq are on the rise because of threats to public health, including poorly equipped hospitals, said activist Dr. Dahlia Wasfi. "The affects on the civilian population of the war in Iraq have been grossly underestimated," said Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. 2) Direct Talks Urged With N. Korea Eric Pfeiffer, Washington Times, October 23, 2006 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061023-123503-6186r.htm Two Republican senators, including the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks over North Korea's nuclear program. The panel's top Democrat said the other four nations in the six-party negotiations -- China, Russia, South Korea and Japan - have privately urged the same path on the US, which has long rejected bilateral talks with North Korea. "I believe that is going to happen," said Sen. Richard Lugar, Foreign Relations chair, on Fox News Sunday. "I hope it happens sooner rather than later. But I think it is inevitable, if this is to be resolved diplomatically," he said. Sen. Arlen Specter also broke ranks to endorse bilateral talks North Korea. Sen. Biden and Sen, Levin, ranking members on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, respectively, also support direct U.S. talks, with Biden saying that representatives from all the other nations involved in negotiations with North Korea have endorsed direct talks to resolve the standoff. But the State Department would have to conduct the talks, and the White House has repeatedly rejected earlier calls, mostly from Democrats, for direct talks with North Korea. 3) State Dept. Official Apologizes for Criticism of Iraq Policy Neela Banerjee, New York Times, October 23, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/23diplo.html A senior State Department official apologized Sunday for saying the US had acted with "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its campaign in Iraq. The apology from Alberto Fernandez, director of the office of press and public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, involved a comment that he had made during an interview conducted in Arabic and broadcast Saturday on Al Jazeera, the Arab television network. In the interview, Fernandez, who speaks Arabic fluently, said, "History will decide what role the US played." According to a CNN translation, he said while the US had tried its best, its role might be criticized by future historians "because undoubtedly there was arrogance and stupidity from the US in Iraq." Other news sources have translated the remarks in a similar way. After news of the remarks spread Sunday, American officials said they did not reflect the administration's views. "I can only assume his remarks must have been mistranslated," said a senior administration official. "Those comments obviously don't reflect our position." In a statement released Sunday by the State Department, Fernandez said, "Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase 'There has been arrogance and stupidity by the U.S. in Iraq.' This represents neither my views, or those of the State Department. I apologize." Some Iraqi lawmakers welcomed the remarks. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, said more American officials should be willing to be self-critical about missteps in Iraq. "I have been expecting American officials, someday, last year, this year, to say something about this, that this policy has not worked," Othman said. "It has been a failure. They should admit it before it is too late." 4) U.S. to Hand Iraq a New Timetable on Security Role David S. Cloud, New York Times, October 22, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/world/middleeast/22policy.html The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said. Details of the blueprint, to be presented to Prime Minister Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country. Although the plan would not threaten Maliki with a withdrawal of American troops, officials said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it. A senior Pentagon official involved in drafting the blueprint said Iraqi officials were being consulted as the plan evolved and would be invited to sign off on the milestones before the end of the year. But he added, "If the Iraqis fail to come back to us on this, we would have to conduct a reassessment" of the American strategy in Iraq. In a statement issued Saturday, a White House spokeswoman said the Times's account was "not accurate," but did not specify what officials found to be inaccurate. 5) Iraq: A Consensus Develops: Leave the Course Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service, October 21, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1021-04.htm "Plan B" - anything but "staying the course" - has been on the lips of virtually every foreign policy analyst who considers him or herself worthy of the name this past week when, it seemed, the entire capital appeared to decide that whatever the U.S. has been doing in Iraq for the past three months, six months, or three years is failing, and failing spectacularly. The sombre tone of this week's military briefings in Iraq certainly reflected that view as active-duty senior officers who finally went public with their growing frustrations. Indeed, the fact that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Peter Pace, earlier this month launched a comprehensive, 60-day review of Iraq strategy belied Bush's notion that the current strategy is fundamentally sound. Even a few of the war's most enthusiastic neo-conservative supporters have come to admit that it may in fact have been a serious strategic mistake. "The Iraq war was a mistake," wrote hard-line war hawk Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times Thursday, suggesting that Iraqis hold a special plebiscite on whether they want the U.S. to withdraw from their country. "That the Iraq war is, if not a failure, failing, requires little demonstration," conceded Eliot Cohen, a member of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board (DPB), in a column entitled "Plan B" published in the Wall Street Journal Friday. Iran 6) Iran Won't Retreat From Atomic Rights: President Reuters, October 23, 2006, Filed at 8:51 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-iran-ahmadinejad.html President Ahmadinejad said Monday Western powers were wrong if they thought Iran would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear plans, even as the country faces possible sanctions. Iran faces the prospect of penalties after its case was sent back to the U.N. Security Council for failing to heed a U.N. demand to suspend uranium enrichment, a process the West believes Tehran is using to develop atomic weapons. France, Britain and Germany are drafting a Security Council sanctions resolution. But Iranian officials have shrugged off the threat, and say Iran will press ahead with its program. "They (the West) should know that taking advantage of nuclear energy is the demand of all the Iranian nation ... All the Iranian nation insists on this right and will not retreat one iota," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say in nuclear and other matters. But, like Ahmadinejad, he has also insisted Iran will not give up its atomic plans. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, insists it wants to produce fuel for nuclear power plants and dismisses charges it wants nuclear weapons. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday noted that so far there was no resolution before the Security Council and there was still the possibility of an agreement with Iran which would "open the way to negotiations." European states say any measures against Iran will be incremental. Diplomats say steps are likely to initially target nuclear-related activities. Some European diplomats say a tough resolution could boost support for Ahmadinejad's conservative government. "It (a tough resolution) would play right into the hands of the conservatives because they will have the perfect excuse for any economic failures," one European diplomat said. Iraq 7) Three million uprooted Iraqis face "bleak future", UNHCR says IRIN, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 22 Oct 2006 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/a3eca4b722faa10052fe47a33d29b706.htm More than three million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighbouring countries are facing what the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) describes as a "very bleak future" after the agency's budget for offices across the region was halved for the coming year. Funds for the agency's Iraq programme have been drastically reduced for 2007 because of donors scaling back their contributions. As Iraq makes up a significant proportion of UNHCR's work in the Middle East, the cut in funds for Iraq roughly halves a region-wide budget that is already "totally insufficient to provide tangible results," according to Andrew Harper, coordinator for the Iraq unit at UNHCR in Geneva. "Iraq has seen the largest and most recent displacement of any UNHCR project in the world, yet even as more Iraqis are displaced and as their needs increase, the funds to help them are decreasing," said Harper. "This growing humanitarian crisis has simply gone under the radar screen of most donors." Harper added that this reduction of funds had led to the suspension of a number of priority UNHCR projects. These include work to identify and aid the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees, including single mothers, the sick and the elderly. UNHCR estimates that more than 1.5 million Iraqis are internally displaced in Iraq, including some 800,000 who fled their homes prior to 2003 and 750,000 who have fled since. A further 1.6 million Iraqis are refugees in neighbouring countries, the majority in Syria and Jordan. Donations to UNHCR's Iraq programme from the US, EU nations, Japan and Australia have been in free fall since the start of the US-led occupation of Iraq, despite the ever-increasing numbers of refugees fleeing the deadly violence there. 8) Pat Tillman's Brother Blasts Iraq War, Bush Associated Press, Monday, October 23, 2006; A12 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102200937.html The brother of an NFL player who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan after quitting his team to join the Army Rangers has spoken out. Kevin Tillman, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with his older brother, Pat, has been silent since his brother died in 2004. But last week, he wrote a scathing indictment of the war in Iraq, the Bush administration and American apathy. "Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes," Kevin wrote on Truthdig.com, an online magazine that bought his work. The brothers joined the Army in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Pat Tillman, who played defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals, was killed near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in April 2004. The Defense Department is investigating allegations of a coverup, including failure by the Army to tell Tillman's family for several weeks that he had been killed by gunfire from his fellow Army Rangers. Kevin Tillman has not spoken publicly about the war or his brother's death since his discharge from the Army. But on Truthdig.com, he wrote openly about the war and America's response to it. "Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this." 9) The genteel revolt that is remaking US policy on Iraq Republican veterans push for end to interventionist approach Julian Borger, The Guardian, Saturday October 21, 2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1928058,00.html A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his legacy. Many senior Republicans believe the "Bush Doctrine" has hit a wall in Iraq and lies in ruins. The rebels, including many foreign policy veterans close to the president's father, see it as an obstacle to stabilising Iraq and extricating US forces. But they have decided that earlier, head-on challenges have only deepened the president's resolve, and a less confrontational approach was needed that avoided blame for past mistakes if there was to be any hope of a fundamental rethink. "It's a polite rebellion by moderate and military-minded Republicans," said Steven Clemons, a Washington analyst. "Any walk-away from the Bush line is going to be covered with a lot of cosmetics to make it look like it's not really a big change." The focus of the new approach is the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan commission co-chaired by the first President Bush's secretary of state, James Baker, which will present its recommendations after the November elections. Those elections are another reason for urgency. If the Democrats capture the House of Representatives, as expected, they will be in a position to cut funding for the war if they are not listened to. Even if they fall short of an absolute majority in the Senate, there are now Republican senators signalling that they could side with the opposition if there is not a decisive rethink on Iraq. David Mack, a diplomat in the first Bush administration who helped rally Arab support for the Gulf War, said: "We are really at a point where any talk of victory is an illusion." 10) To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, October 23, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/middleeast/23baghdad.html After three years of trying to thwart a potent insurgency and tamp down the deadly violence in Iraq, the American military is playing its last hand: the Baghdad security plan. The plan will be tweaked, adjusted and modified in the weeks ahead, as American commanders try to reverse the dismaying increase in murders, drive-by shootings and bombings. But military commanders here see no plausible alternative to their bedrock strategy to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias, insurgents and arms caches, hold them with Iraqi and American security forces, and then try to win over the population with reconstruction projects, underwritten mainly by the Iraqi government. There is no fall-back plan that the generals are holding in their hip pocket. The Iraqi capital, as the generals like to say, is the center of gravity for the larger American mission in Iraq. Their assessment is that if Baghdad is overwhelmed by sectarian strife, the cause of fostering a more stable Iraq will be lost. Conversely, if Baghdad can be improved, the effects will eventually be felt elsewhere in Iraq. Many ideas - new and not so new - are being discussed in Washington, like a sectarian division of Iraq (which the current government and many Iraqis oppose); and starting talks with Iraq's neighbor, Iran (which the Iraqi government is already doing, but the US is not). However the broader strategy may be amended, nothing can work if Baghdad becomes a war-torn Beirut. Baghdad security may not be a sufficient condition for a more stable Iraq, but it is a necessary condition for any alternative plan that does not simply abandon the Iraqis to their fate. Israel 11) Phosphorus Shells Used By Israel in Lebanon War Washington Post, from news services, Monday, October 23, 2006; A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201080.html Israel confirmed Sunday it had used phosphorus shells, controversial munitions condemned by many human rights groups, during its war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. The International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups have urged a world ban on the munitions, saying they cause undue suffering through severe burns. An Israeli military spokesman confirmed a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that it had used phosphorus munitions in the 33-day offensive against Hezbollah, which ended in a U.N.-brokered cease-fire Aug. 14. The US has acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 assault against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. It says using them against enemy fighters is legal and not banned by any convention. 12) Ehud von Olmert Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom, 19-10-2006 http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1161514052 Many times, this or that Israeli politician has been accused of being a fascist. But to be a fascist, it is not enough to espouse extreme nationalist views or to carry out racist policies. The only leader in the history of Israel who can accurately be defined as a fascist was Meir Kahane. Now Israeli democracy is threatened by a much more dangerous individual. When Avigdor Liberman came to Israel from the Soviet Union, he already brought with him a racist outlook. He wants a purely Jewish state, with no Arabs. He proposes to get these citizens out of Israel, together with the land they are living on. Not a second Naqba, God forbid: the Arabs will not be driven from their lands, as then, but will be expelled together with their land. In return, Israel will annex the territories on which the settlers, one of whom is Liberman himself, are living. What's wrong with that? The basic idea is wrong: the turning of Israel into a state "cleansed" of Arabs. That is clearly a racist slogan, which appeals to the most primitive instincts of the masses. The chances of this actually happening are, of course, nil. But the very voicing of this idea prepares the way for something even worse: the simple expulsion of the masses of Arabs from Israel proper and the occupied territories. Palestine 13) Stricter Policy Splits West Bank Families Americans Who Live There Denied Visas Scott Wilson, Washington Post, Monday, October 23, 2006; A16 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102200853.html The last time Adel Samara saw his wife Enayeh was the morning in May when she pulled away from their home in a taxi bound for the border. Her trips to Jordan had become routine, never lasting more than a few days. To renew her tourist visa, Enayeh, a U.S. citizen, had left the West Bank every three months during their three-decade marriage. For years, Israeli officials had denied her residency applications, so shuttling across the border to get a fresh visa in her U.S. passport was the only way Enayeh could live legally in the place she was born. This time, they refused to give her the tourist visa. Since then she has moved in with a sister in Chicago, leaving Adel to shutter her beauty salon on a hectic street here. Their case highlights a change in Israeli policy that has left thousands of U.S. citizens of Palestinian descent locked out of the occupied territories where they work, invest and have families. "At first she thought it was just a mistake," said Adel Samara, a former U.N. official and political activist who holds a doctorate in economics. "Then we realized it was not and that it was actually a very large problem. I never knew it before." For decades, Palestinian foreign nationals have entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip on three-month tourist visas, renewing them regularly, because residency cards were difficult to obtain. But in recent months Israel's Interior Ministry has refused in many cases to grant new visas, separating thousands of family members from their relatives inside lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. The tightening has coincided with the rise of Hamas to head the Palestinian government, which most foreign donors have cut off from economic aid. Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights groups contend the shift will undermine private investment in the territories - investment the Bush administration is seeking to encourage - while potentially driving out the professional class most likely to have relatives abroad. "It is a policy that can only be seen in the context of population control," said Nabeel Kassis, president of Bir Zeit University, who along with 10 other Palestinian university presidents warned in an open letter that the policy is depleting faculties, student bodies and exchange programs. "They are taking away a segment of the population that could help most with state-building." Secretary of State Rice, in a recent speech to the American Task Force on Palestine, pledged to guarantee that all "American travelers receive fair and equal treatment." The State Department raised the issue with Israel's government earlier this month, and a campaign by Palestinian Americans to reverse the policy has emerged here. Israeli human rights groups say an estimated 70,000 foreign nationals are awaiting visitor permits, which the military rarely issues. 14) Tensions Rise Between Palestinian Factions Dina Kraft, New York Times, October 23, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/middleeast/23mideast.html Tensions between rival Fatah and Hamas loyalists continued to smolder Sunday in the form of a deadly shooting, a kidnapping and tire-burning protests as an informal cease-fire quickly disintegrated. In Jerusalem, some Israeli cabinet members, citing concerns about weapons smuggling, called for retaking control of Gaza's southern border with Egypt. The government is expected to meet midweek to discuss the possibility of expanding the military campaign in Gaza. In Gaza City, stalls that would normally be crowded with shoppers buying sweets for Id al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, were shuttered. Outside, thick smoke rose in the air from tires set ablaze by Palestinian policemen aligned with the Fatah faction in protest of going unpaid by the Hamas-led government, which has been denied aid from the West and tax revenue and customs duties collected by Israel. A meeting on Friday between Hamas and Fatah officials led to an agreement to stop the violence between the sides. On Sunday, Mohammed Shahadeh, 27, who is a member of a Fatah-aligned militant group, was found shot to death in the Bureij refugee camp, and another Fatah member was kidnapped in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Hamas denied any role in either episode. Panama 15) Panamanians Vote Overwhelmingly to Expand Canal Marc Lacey, New York Times, October 23, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/americas/23panama.html Panamanians Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the country's aging canal, won over by government arguments that the $5.25 billion project would generate jobs and keep the canal relevant for future generations. The overhaul will double the canal's capacity by adding a third set of locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than the current ones. Constructed by the US in 1914, the canal these days is congested and too small to handle the world's largest container vessels and tankers. Opposition to the project was vigorous as skeptics questioned the government's cost estimates and raised fears that corruption would doom the project. But the government's campaign for the expansion was even more intense. Officials portrayed a "sí" vote as a vote for the children of Panama. Without an expanded canal, officials predicted, shipping traffic would find other routes and Panama's growing economy would dry up. The canal employs 8,000 Panamanians and is a source of national pride, as well as foreign currency. But even as skyscrapers go up at a furious pace in downtown Panama City, 40 percent of the country's three million residents live in poverty. All the same, preliminary results gave the expansion plan just shy of 80 percent support. A referendum is required for major changes to the canal, a provision of the law meant to give the people ownership of a resource that had long been in the hands of foreigners. Still, most voters stayed away from the polls Sunday, with turnout estimated at about 40 percent. The approval is a victory for the Torrijos administration, which staked its reputation on the project. The current president's father, Gen. Omar Torrijos, negotiated in the 1970's for the US to hand over the canal to the Panamanians. The canal changed hands in 1999. The government backed off an earlier overhaul plan that would have displaced thousands of Panamanians. No residents will be displaced under the current proposal, officials said. Bolivia, Ecuador, Trade Preferences 16) Scrambling to Save Trade Perks The economies of four Latin American countries could wilt if U.S. preferences aren't extended beyond the end of the year. Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-andean21oct21,1,662204.story The Bush administration has a prescription for fighting coca growing, sidelining Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and saving thousands of jobs in Latin America: extending free trade for Andean nations. A senior Bush administration official said this week that the White House would push Congress to pass a bill continuing trade benefits for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia under a little-known law. It wants the bill passed during the "lame-duck session" after the November elections and before the new Congress is sworn in in January - while free-trade-friendly Republicans are still in control. The administration has acknowledged that an extension of trade preferences would improve frayed diplomatic relations in Latin America while countering Chavez's influence, analysts said. The White House has mounted an 11th-hour campaign to preserve the trade perks, which have generated thousands of jobs, given birth to entire export industries and provided alternatives to drug trafficking. The benefits are set to expire Dec. 31. The Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act was initiated in 1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush. U.S.-Colombia trade alone has tripled to $15 billion since 1990, thanks partly to the boom in the flower, apparel, liquor and fresh-produce industries. Industries such as pouched tuna in Ecuador and asparagus in Peru have sprung up to take advantage of special rules that allow products to enter the U.S. market duty-free. Colombian flower exports have grown 10% annually since 2002 to $758 million in 2005. Flower-related jobs now total 190,000, according to the nation's largest flower growers association. Expiration of the trade preferences could deliver a death blow to industries that overnight will lose exemptions on duties of 6% to 20%. That margin is crucial to flower growers here and in Ecuador, which face rising competition from countries including China. This month, Miami-based Dole Fresh Flowers, a major exporter of roses and other flowers to the U.S., announced that it was cutting 3,500 jobs at greenhouses in Colombia and Ecuador, partly because of the uncertainty surrounding free trade. For a variety of reasons, none of the four countries will have individual free-trade agreements in place by year's end. Peru and Colombia are the furthest along, as both have completed free-trade negotiations with the U.S. By December, both will have signed formal agreements that could take months, perhaps a year, to take effect. Negotiations on a free-trade agreement for Ecuador have stalled for political reasons, and a prospective effective date is even farther out. Bolivia is not ready for a formal free-trade agreement but wants an extension of the one-way preferences. In Ecuador, a presidential runoff election set for Nov. 26 will pit pro-free-trade candidate Alvaro Noboa against Chavez friend and free-trade opponent Rafael Correa. The White House said it would push Congress for an extension of trade preferences for all four countries even though relations with Ecuador and Bolivia have been strained. In May, Ecuador's state oil company seized an oil field operated by Westwood-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. A month later, U.S. embassy officials there said chances of a new free-trade deal were slim in light of the seizure. But this week, the senior administration official said the U.S. now believed it was best to "engage" both Ecuador and Bolivia with trade preferences. "We would support an extension for all four countries for a year or two perhaps," he said. For Ecuador, the extension might hinge on whether its president, whoever he is, agrees to abide by impending international arbitration of the oil field seizure, which could end in a judgment requiring Ecuador to reimburse Occidental hundreds of millions of dollars. Bruce Bagley, a political science professor at the University of Miami, said the new U.S. posture was a clear effort to send a message to Ecuadorean voters to support candidate Noboa, because Correa has said during the campaign that he will not take part in the Occidental arbitration process. "The U.S. government is showing political acumen for once in trying to tip the balance away from Correa, the pro- Chavez candidate, and toward Noboa, whom they see as an entrepreneur, free trader and capitalist," Bagley said. -------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy so that it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.
