Summary: U.S. An assessment of terrorism trends by US intelligence agencies found the invasion & occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism. The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than presented in White House documents or a report Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee.
Democratic lawmakers, responding to the report, said the assessment demonstrated that the Bush administration needed to devise a new strategy for its handling of the war. Representative Harman said, "Every intelligence analyst I speak to confirms that"the Iraq war had contributed to the increased terrorist threat."
When the US sent Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured for months, the deportation order stated unequivocally that Arar was a member of Al Qaeda. But Canadian investigators had told the FBI they had not been able to link him to the group. Cases like Arar's would not be affected by the legislation on detainee treatment worked out between the White House and Republican senators last week.
Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, attacked President Bush's proposal to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions and the Senate "compromise" in an op-ed in the New York Times.
The US army should scrap its "Warrior Ethos" because its emphasis on annihilating the enemy is inimical to the patient, confidence-building warfare America is engaged in the Middle East, according to Lieutenant-General Gregory Newbold, former director of operations to the joint chiefs of staff, the London Sunday Times reports.
Human rights groups have denounced the compromise deal on the application of the Geneva Conventions to detainees, Inter Press Service reports.
The CIA's former top expert on radical Islamists denounced the conduct of Bush's "war on terrorism" and the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, which he said is "contributing to the violence," in an interview with Harper's Ken Silverstein.
On ''Fox News Sunday,'' former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden.' Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a ''conservative hit job'' and asked: ''I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?...Why did you fire Dick Clarke?'''
Iraq Iraq's political parties reached a deal Sunday to prevent the country from splintering into a federation of three autonomous zones until at least 2008. The deal appears to have forestalled a crisis over federalism, but lawmakers emphasized the issue remains unresolved. "We still need a miracle to save the country," said a spokesman for the Iraqi Accordance Front. "The process of sectarian cleansing is still going on, and the violence is not waning, and this may serve those proponents of federalism who want to make the people believe that living together in a unified country is not possible."
Israel Israeli Prime Minister Olmert recently held talks with a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family on Middle East peace & Iran's nuclear program, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
With Iran seen gaining the ability to produce nuclear weapons within a few years, and preventive military options limited, some experts now anticipate another "lifting of the veil" on the Israeli atomic arsenal, Reuters reports. The objective would be to establish a more open military deterrence vis-a-vis Iran and perhaps win Israel's nuclear option formal legitimacy abroad.
Palestine The movement to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank is experiencing a revival after a summer of war caused many Israelis to question abandoning more territory, the Washington Post reports. The government has stepped up construction in large settlement blocs, including areas the Bush administration warned Israel against developing, & the West Bank settlement population of a quarter-million people is growing.
Syria Syrian President Assad said his nation wants ''peace with Israel'' and welcomed U.S. intervention in the region. But he also said Washington must listen to what people in the Middle East think. ''Terrorism is growing instead of declining,'' he said. ''We both suffer from it, but the US doesn't want to cooperate with us."
Argentina Many Argentine officials & social activists want to confiscate property Douglas Tompkins, the American founder of the North Face & Esprit clothing lines, says he bought to create an ecological preserve, the Washington Post reports. They think he & other foreigners who have bought enormous swaths of the Argentine & Chilean countryside are trying to wrest control under the guise of environmental preservation.
Sudan The African Union is completing plans to send an additional 1,200 peacekeeping troops to join its 7,200-member force in Darfur. AU officials said their peacekeepers intended to broaden the rules of engagement to protect civilians more efficiently.
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-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
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