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CURRENT UPDATES: Jan. 19, 2007 Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan Dear Friends, Below you will find our latest compendium of analysis and commentary on today's news and tomorrow's problems. In this edition of the ATRC E-Update we tackle Somalia, Iraq, the Taliban and an arms scandal. We mourn the passing of funnyman Art Buchwald. On November 6, 2003 he took on the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), writing that the Pentagon "says it needs many more billions of dollars than it thought, not only to fight a war but also to keep the peace…. The choices for the military are easy: an aircraft carrier or Mark Twain, a Black Hawk helicopter or Shakespeare… "The MIC has thousands of lobbyists in Washington to make sure America has all the guns it needs. This is not to say those in the Defense Department are against education -- it's just not something they do. A library doesn't kill anybody. School officials are not against producing cruise missiles -- it's just not something they do... "President Bush is not against butter, but with his tax cut he claims that whatever butter he gives us is enough. He hopes his tax cut will jump-start the economy. He says the only way to do it is to shortchange the states and cities that are now even running out of margarine." You can read the whole thing at: http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/14/2551 This week, we also we bemoan the tick-tock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist's "Doomsday Clock" two minutes closer to nuclear midnight. More insight and humor. Fewer nuclear nightmares. We hope you have a good weekend, Bill Hartung ATRC UPDATE TABLE
OF CONTENTS I. U.S. ALLIES ARM AND
TRAIN U.S. ADVERSARIES IN SOMALIA Last month's U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia has received a decent amount of coverage in the mainstream press. But one aspect of the conflict -- the role of U.S. allies in helping to arm and train the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the Islamist group that was overthrown by Ethiopia in favor of a pro-U.S. regime - has received little notice. The U.S. has been a central player in the Somali civil war, backing anti-ICU warlords, providing arms and intelligence to Ethiopian forces, and sending in U.S. Special Forces to assess the impact of bombing raids by U.S. AC-130 gunships aimed at killing ICU leaders with alleged links to Al Qaeda. The latter effort was described by the Washington Post as "the first known case of U.S. boots hitting Somali soil since a disastrous missions to stabilize the country ended in 1994 after Somali militiamen downed two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 U.S. soldiers in the capital, Mogadishu." The impact and extent of the U.S. bombing raids have been subject to dispute, with U.S. officials claiming that eight to ten individuals with suspected links to Al Qaeda were killed with no civilian casualties. The Washington Post has further noted that the raid failed to hit three top Al Qaeda operatives thought to have taken refuge in Somalia after masterminding the 1998 attack on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A U.S. diplomat also claimed that there was only one bombing raid. The human rights and global development group Oxfam has asserted that 70 civilian nomads were killed in multiple U.S. strikes, based on information from their affiliates inside the country. As U.S. intervention in Somalia deepens, a little-referenced United Nations report from last October documents the role of U.S. allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, and Uganda in supplying arms and training to the ICU in violation of the UN arms embargo on Somalia. Assistance provided has included training of ICU forces in Egypt, military uniforms from Djibouti, food and ammunition from Saudi Arabia, and air transport, ammunition and anti-aircraft gun components from Uganda. While the bulk of supplies to the ICU has come from Eritrea, the role of U.S. allies once again underscores the risks inherent in arming nations that cannot be trusted to use their military assets in accord with U.S. interests. SOURCES: Stephanie McCrummen, "U.S. Troops Went Into Somalia After Raid; No Top Targets Confirmed Dead," Washington Post, January 12, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011102329.html Ann Penketh and Steven Bloomfield, "U.S. Strikes on al-Qa'ida Chiefs Kill Nomads," The Independent (London), January 13, 2007. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2149716.ece United Nation Security Council, Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1676 (2006), November 2006. http://www.cfr.org/publication/12021/ II.
IRAQ: NEO-CON ESCALATION, REPUBLICAN SPLIT We have already sent out a short analysis of President Bush's speech on Iraq policy last week ("Bush's Rx for More War," Commondreams.org, January 11th), so we'll focus here on just a few points we didn't address (or dealt with in passing) in that piece. Not only did the President essentially trash the Baker-Hamilton commission's main recommendations - most notably with respect to negotiating with Iran and Syria - but it adopted an escalation plan straight out of the play book of the neo-conservatives who helped promote the Iraq fiasco in the first place. Frederick Kagan, a neo-con in good standing who hangs his hat at the American Enterprise Institute (former home to John Bolton and Dick Cheney), helped draft the plan, which conforms to proposals that prominent figures in that movement (such as Weekly Standard editor William Kristol). If you think the war has been a disaster thus far, just imagine what the latest neo-con initiative can do. While the neoconservatives are back in Bush's good graces for the moment, their position is not making much headway on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan resolution opposing the troop buildup in Iraq is in the works in the Senate, with co-sponsorship by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Although the resolution will be non-binding, it could represent a first step towards more focused Congressional opposition to the escalation in specific and the war in general. Still to be determined is whether the Democratic leadership will follow up on suggestions that they may be willing to go after funding for the troop increase. The main tactical advantage for team Bush is that they may be able to go ahead with the 21,000-plus troop increase -- which is not an increase per se, but an acceleration in redeploying existing units -- regardless of Congressional action on funding, and then argue yet again that cutting the funds could undermine "troops in the field." If things play out this way, Congress has several other levers it can use. One critical agenda item should be to separate out non-Iraq spending from other military items in the administration's upcoming spending request for Iraq and Afghanistan, which is likely to be in the range of $100 billion or more. All manner of funding for unneeded programs that have no relationship at all to the war in Iraq is likely to be included in the President's request. Stripping those funds out while putting the supplemental through more extensive scrutiny - including hearings in the budget and armed services committees - could help put the administration on the defensive, while heading off unnecessary expenditures that could balloon into tens of billions in new Pentagon spending in years to come. Likewise, opposition to the administration's proposed increase in the size of the Army - pegged in one news account to be as high as 90,000 new troops -- could be couched in terms of what the troops are for, as suggested by analyst Gordon Adams of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. Are the troops, which couldn't possibly come on line for two years or more, for long-term occupation of Iraq? For a strike on Iran? If so, they should be opposed as such. If not, what on earth are they for? Where are these new troops going to come from? Meanwhile, back to the Republicans. Among the fiercest opponents of current U.S. policy have been would-be presidential contenders like Chuck Hagel and senators up for re-election in 2008 like Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). But even right-wing Republican presidential wannabes like Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas have come out against the troop escalation, suggesting that they see no strong push back on this issue from the party's conservative base. Cutting funding or otherwise impeding the Bush administration's policy on Iraq will require some Republican support, both to avoid filibusters and to provide "cover" for Democrats who are still wary of being tagged as "soft on defense." Therefore, the continuing split over the war in the Republican camp should be watched closely, and encouraged! We'll have more to say about the administration's increasingly aggressive policy towards Iran after next week's State of the Union address. RESOURCES: Jonathan Weisman, "Bipartisan Senate Measure Confronts Bush Over Iraq," Washington Post, January 18, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011702328.html Cindy Williams, "Surge Could Push Troops to the Breaking Point," Boston Globe, January 10, 2007. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/01/10/surge_could_push_troops_to_the_breaking_point/ Gordon Adams and John
Diamond, "Don't Grow the Army; Expansion Ducks the Real Question
of Defining the Force's Mission," Washington Post, December 31,
2006. ACTION: In the Senate, demand support for Kennedy's legislation, S.233, which would require the President to get Congressional approval before sending more troops to Iraq - or threaten a funding cut off. In the House, build support for Markey's legislation, HR.353, the House companion to Sen. Kennedy's bill, which would also require the President to get Congressional approval before escalating the war in Iraq. For more information: http://www.peace-action.org/PeaceBlog/wordpress/?p=311 III.
PAKISTAN: Taliban and Al Qaeda Presence Grows, Government Indifference
Continues Martin Smith of PBS Frontline has produced an excellent documentary on Pakistan's continuing unwillingness/inability to control Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives in its tribal areas, which are composed of seven districts that run for a 500-mile stretch along the Afghan/Pakistan border. He offers incontrovertible evidence of collaboration and support for these forces by Pakistan's intelligence service (ISI), not to mention at least on Pakistani general. Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has resisted taking military action against Taliban and Al Qaeda elements for fear of alienating religious parties in Pakistan that support these fundamentalist extremists. Not only has this mix of indifference to and outright collaboration with the Taliban been met with little more than rhetoric by the Bush administration, but Pakistan has received over $5 billion in U.S. assistance since 9/11. Major arms deals like a $5 billion sale of F-16 combat aircraft and advanced AMRAAM air-to-air missiles are in the works as well. A transcript and tape of the documentary, "Return of the Taliban," are available at www.pbs.org, along with a variety of supplementary resource materials. IV.
BLAIR 86s ARMS SCANDAL PROBE It sounded like a great scandal. The UK's largest weapons manufacturer pursues a multi-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia known by the Arabic word for Dove-- Al Yamamaha. The wooing of Princes seems to include James-Bond-worthy elements like bribes, inflated prices, offshore bank accounts, and millions for a slush fund to pay for prostitutes, high stakes gambling junkets, fast yachts and hot sports cars. All the dots were being doggedly connected by the UK's Serious Fraud Office. A new breakthrough in the form of a box of documents from the Swiss officials, including print outs of BAE's off shore banking transactions with Saudi middlemen just materialized. And then…. a brick wall. Prime Minister Tony Blair announces that there will be no more investigating. He asserted that the investigation was creating "ill feeling" with critical allies, and noted that "our relationship is vitally important for our country in terms of the broader Middle East and in terms of helping in respect to Israel/ Palestine and strategic interest comes first." There was also the matter that the Saudis were frustrated enough with the investigation to intimate that they would seek advanced fighter planes elsewhere. BAE is close to sealing a $11.6 billion deal to sell up to 72 Eurofighter planes to the Saudi Kingdom. For its part, BAE cooperated with the investigation, maintained its innocence, and flogged the idea that if they lost the Saudi deal it would cost 100,000 British jobs. The implications of the thwarted investigation are far reaching… Siemens AG-a major German based energy and engineering company with extensive military contracts-is under investigation by German, Italian and Swiss prosecutors for its elaborate web of offshore bank accounts and possible bribes to potential customers. Here is in the United States members of Congress, the Pentagon's Inspector General and other government agencies have been hot on the trail of fraud, waste and mismanagement in Iraq reconstruction contracts. Could these investigations be vulnerable to the same calculations that seem to have been made by UK leaders-- the dangers of lost jobs, lost revenue and embarrassment (and potential alienation) of key political allies in the war on terrorism (however overstated) are more important than the law. BAE is not just a British company. It is (and becoming even more so) a major player in weapons manufacturing in the United States. About one-third of its $30.2 billion in 2005 sales came from United States, and the company bought U.S. defense company United Defense Industries-which makes the Bradley fighting vehicle among other key systems-- in June 2005. And Saudi Arabia doesn't just deal with the UK. According to a recent New York Times article, the kingdom has placed $14 billion worth of arms orders in the past five years, including major deals with the United States, and last summer the Pentagon announced the possible the sale of $5.8 billion dollars worth of major defense equipment (to support the "modernization of the Saudi Arabian National Guard," including 724 light armored vehicles, 4,504 long- range and handheld radio systems, 2,132 night vision goggles, 630 thermal weapon sight, 162 recoilless rifles, and other military equipment.
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