Middle East News: Nov. 21, ‘06
21st November 2006
by gordo
Ahmadinejad: Wrongfully accused of developing nuclear weapons?
‘No proof’ of Iran nuclear arms
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not found conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a US magazine has reported. Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, cites a secret CIA report based on intelligence such as satellite images.
Correspondents say the alleged document appears to challenge Washington’s views regarding Iranian nuclear intentions. The article says the White House was dismissive about the CIA report.
Iraq
Flaws Cited in Effort To Train Iraqi Forces
The U.S. military’s effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents.
The shortcomings have plagued a program that is central to the U.S. strategy in Iraq and is growing in importance. A Pentagon effort to rethink policies in Iraq is likely to suggest placing less emphasis on combat and more on training and advising, sources say.
Iraq to Restore Long-Severed Relations With Neighbor Syria
Iraq said Monday that it would restore diplomatic ties with neighboring Syria after a break of nearly a quarter-century in an effort to solidify links with a neighbor seen as a conduit for insurgents fueling the violence in Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the announcement after a historic meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who pledged his country’s help in quelling the sectarian violence that threatens to propel Iraq into civil war. Maliki, for his part, pressed Syria to step up efforts to keep Sunni Arab fighters from crossing into Iraq to join the insurgency.
Spoofer of Iraq’s Chaos Becomes Another Victim
For the last three years, Walid Hassan made war-weary Iraqis laugh. Week after week, the comedian and broadcaster found inspiration in the turmoil and bloodletting. On his weekend television show, “Caricature,” he poked fun at the poor security, the long gas lines, the electricity blackouts and the ineffective politicians.
In Hassan’s world, nothing was sacred. And many Iraqis adored him. In a nation bottled up with frustration, he was their release.
On Monday, Hassan, 47, a father of five children, became a victim of the war and chaos from which he drew his inspiration. A Shiite Muslim, he was found in the majority-Sunni neighborhood of Yarmouk in west Baghdad with multiple bullet wounds to his back and head.
Israel
Report: Jewish Settlements Built on Palestinian Property
An Israeli advocacy group has found that 39 percent of the land used by Jewish settlements in the West Bank is private Palestinian property, and contends that construction there violates international and Israeli law guaranteeing the protection of property rights in the occupied territories.
In a critical report released here Tuesday, the Settlement Watch project of Peace Now also disclosed that much of the land that Israeli officials have said would remain part of the Jewish state under any final peace agreement is private Palestinian property.
(The Settlement Watch report is here. –g)
Israel’s top soldier yesterday ordered an investigation to determine whether lower-ranking field commanders defied his orders restricting the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon over the summer.
Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, buffeted by public criticism over the army’s performance during its month-long war with Hezbollah guerrillas, told reporters the probe is intended to get to the bottom of a cluster munitions campaign that United Nations officials estimate may have left as many as one million unexploded bomblets scattered across southern Lebanon.
Lebanon
Minister Is Assassinated in Lebanon
Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party radio station and Lebanon’s official news agency reported.
The slaying will certainly heighten political tensions in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah has threatened to topple the government if it does not get a bigger say in Cabinet decision-making.
Pessimism Deepens In Postwar Lebanon
Lebanon has emerged from the 33-day war with Israel only to find itself lately in one of the most pronounced political crises it has experienced in a generation. At first glance, the issues dividing it are somewhat arcane: the legitimacy of an international tribunal to try those suspected of killing former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, and the representation in the cabinet for the opposition, which comprises Hezbollah, another Shiite Muslim faction and a Christian ally.
But the stakes are far higher, in effect the future of the country: What groups and their patrons– the United States, France, Syria or Iran– will guide Lebanese politics?
November 21st, 2006 at 11:59 am
Re Iran nuclear weapons
The operative word in this CIA report is “conclusive.” The only evidence that Mr. Hersh would find conclusive is an Iranian above ground nuclear test.
Re Israel settlements.
Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon.
November 21st, 2006 at 2:18 pm
From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates and the Tigris!
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 am
SLC–
It’s the CIA saying that there is no conclusive evidence of a weapons program, not Hersh. He’s just reporting on their assessment.
I found Dana Perino’s (a White House spokeswoman) attack on Hersh interesting: she said that he “consistently” relies on “outright falsehoods.” Of course, that’s what the White House was saying about Hersh when he was reporting on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Since then, Hersh’s assessment of the situation there has been proved correct, and the Bush administration has been shown to be reliant on outright falsehoods.
November 22nd, 2006 at 5:34 am
Re Mr. Levy
No. From the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Re Mr. Packard
Again, the operative word is the interpretation of the word conclusive. Most of America thought that it was conclusively proved that O. J. Simpson was a double murderer; the jury thought otherwise (by the way, I am one of those who thought the verdict was defensible, based on the incompetence of the prosecutation).
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
This Government-backed militias killed comedian Azzaman, November 22, 2006 article in al-Zamman is important Gordo (A far lenghtier version of it is front paging the Arabic version of the paper. They’re very much the “Times” of Iraq. For them to openly come out and say that is a major news event in its own right.
November 23rd, 2006 at 3:20 am
Mark–
I noticed that one on your site and I was going to include it in today’s links. I was shocked to hear that he’d been killed, since the Washington Post had profiled him only a couple of weeks before.