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Iran- Israel JPR
74

Israel plans nuclear strike on
Iran

Our
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Politics Fiction Painting Poetry Press Critics T.Nazmi Elza

NUCLEAR
ALERT!

MER
- MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 6 January
2007:
At a critical time such as this we make use of MER's
capabilities even though we have had to suspend most
activities and end the weekly TV program.
Some will say it is bluff rather than real.  Others will
go so far as to justify the radical cabal of largely Jewish
Neocons and Christian Evangelicals who along with the
hard-line Zionists have been moving toward this possible
doomsday scenario for some time.

We have warned for years that the
Israelis were determined to bring down Iran one way or another
after having helped push the Americans into Iraq and attempted
to take over Lebanon; and that they have been working
hard on Washington to directly join them in the next
steps.  The Americans have already worked hard to weaken
Iran, to
sanction Iran, and to position vast
American forces to threaten Iran into not fully
counter-striking Israel lest the entire country
of Iran be
destroyed.
A few years ago MER was
practically alone in detailing as it happened the "stealth
assassination" of Yasser Arafat.   And indeed just
in recent weeks it has come out that a major Israeli
journalist, Uri Dan, a close confident of Ariel Sharon,
verified before his recent death all that MER reported.

Now we issue this NUCLEAR
ALERT!   The Israelis are playing an exceedingly
dangerous game that could engulf the world in nuclear conflict
and religious warfare for decades to come.
The world itself is at a tipping point with the future being
decided in these critical days of 2007.

Read this report appearing
tomorrow in the Times of London and stay tuned to
MiddleEast.org where we will do what we can in view of the
urgency of today's situation to seriously inform with expert
hard-headed analysis and the most truthful
insights.

Revealed:
Israel plans
nuclear

The Sunday Times of
London - January 07,
2007

Uzi
Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah
Baxter, Washington

ISRAEL
has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium
enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two
Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian
facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according
to several Israeli military sources.

The
attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945,
when the United
States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons
would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the
Hiroshima bomb.

Under
the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open
“tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then
immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep
underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

“As
soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one
strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,”
said one of the sources.

The
plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been
prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s
assessment that Iran is on the
verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear
weapons within two years.

Israeli
military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer
be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment
facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of
concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters
would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and
if the United States
declined to intervene, senior sources said.

Israeli
and American officials have met several times to consider
military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the
plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole
America into action
or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

Some
analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike
could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to
terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.

Israel
has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved
in Iran’s nuclear
programme:

·  Natanz, where
thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium
enrichment

·  A uranium conversion
facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an
Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the
enrichment process have been stored in tunnels

·  A
heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future
produce enough plutonium for a bomb

Israeli
officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay
Iran’s nuclear
programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in
fear of a “second Holocaust”.

The
Israeli government has warned repeatedly that it will never
allow nuclear weapons to be made in Iran, whose president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, has declared that “Israel must be
wiped off the map”.

Robert
Gates, the new US defence secretary, has
described military action against Iran as a “last
resort”, leading Israeli officials to conclude that it will be
left to them to strike.

Israeli
pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for
the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three
possible routes have been mapped out, including one over
Turkey.

Air
force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel
Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use
Israel’s tactical
nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been
overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the
Israeli air force.

Sources
close to the Pentagon said the United
States was highly unlikely to
give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One
source said Israel would have to seek
approval “after the event”, as it did when it crippled
Iraq’s nuclear
reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981.

Scientists
have calculated that although contamination from the
bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium
compounds would be released.

The
Israelis believe that Iran’s retaliation would be
constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch
its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel.

However,
American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread
protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world
friendly to the West.

Colonel
Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the
Strait of Hormuz, the route
for 20% of the world’s oil.

Some
sources in Washington said
they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to
attack Iran. However, Dr
Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last
month: “The time is approaching when Israel and the international
community will have to decide whether to take military action
against Iran.”

الجيش الإسرائيلي
اعد خطة لضرب النووي الإيراني وطهران تتوعد

وكالات
ذكرت
صحيفة "صنداي تايمز" البريطانية نقلا عن مصادر عسكرية في إسرائيل
أن الجيش الإسرائيلي اعد خطة لتدمير منشآت إيرانية لتخصيب
اليورانيوم، بشن ضربة جوية تستخدم فيها سلاحا نوويا تكتيكيا، إلا
أن الدولة العبرية نفت ذلك.
ونقلت الصحيفة أمس عن العديد من
المصادر العسكرية الإسرائيلية قولها أن سربين تابعين لسلاح الجو
يتدربان حاليا لتدمير هذه المنشآت بضربة واحدة.
إلا أن مارك
ريغيف المتحدث باسم الخارجية الإسرائيلية وصف النبأ بأنه "غير
صحيح".
وقال أن "إسرائيل تدعم تماما جهود المجتمع الدولي
لإنهاء البرنامج النووي الإيراني. كما أنها تدعم تماما القرار
1737، وعلى المجلس الدولي أن يكون مستعدا لاتخاذ إجراءات أقسى
بحق إيران".
وكانت صحيفة "صنداي تايمز" هي التي كشفت عام 1986
عن ترسانة إسرائيل النووية التي تمتنع الدولة العبرية عن تأكيد
أو نفي وجودها.
وأوضحت الصحيفة أن الخطة الإسرائيلية تقضي
باستخدام صواريخ تقليدية موجهة بالليزر لفتح "أنفاق" قبل استخدام
قنابل ذرية تكتيكية تتمتع بقوة تعادل واحد على 15 من قوة القنبلة
التي ألقيت على هيروشيما.
ونقلت الصحيفة عن احد هذه المصادر
العسكرية التي طلبت عدم كشف هويتها "ما أن يعطى الضوء الأخضر،
سيتم تنفيذ مهمة واحدة، وضربة واحدة لتدمير المشروع النووي
الإيراني".
ووصف مسؤول إسرائيلي كبير تقرير الصحيفة
ب"السخيف".
وذكر المسؤول الذي طلب عدم الكشف عن هويته "هذه
معلومات سخيفة تأتي من صحيفة عرفت في السابق بالعناوين المثيرة
التي أثبتت عدم صحتها في النهاية".
وأضاف أن "التفكير في أننا
ستشن هجوما على إيران بقنبلة ذرية ونقوم بكشف الهجوم مسبقا
للصحيفة، أمر يثير الضحك".
من جانبها حذرت إيران من العواقب
الوخيمة التي ستترتب عليها مثل هذه الضربة.
وقال محمد علي
حسيني المتحدث باسم الخارجية الإيرانية للصحافيين أن "أي عمل ضد
الجمهورية الإسلامية لن يمر بلا رد وسيندم المعتدي على أي عمل
مثل هذا بسرعة كبيرة".
ووصف تقرير الصحيفة بأنه "دليل على ضعف
العدو ولن يكون له أي تأثير على عزم الجمهورية الإسلامية على
مواصلة نشاطاتها النووية".
وتتهم إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة،
العدوان اللدودان للجمهورية الإسلامية، إيران بالسعي لامتلاك
أسلحة نووية وهو ما تنفيه طهران بقوة وترفض الخضوع لمطالب الأمم
المتحدة لوقف عمليات تخصيب اليورانيوم.
ورغم أن مجلس الأمن
الدولي وافق على فرض عقوبات على إيران في كانون الأول، إلا أن
إسرائيل تسعى إلى اتخاذ خطوات أقسى ضد الجمهورية الإسلامية.

وذكرت الصحيفة أن الخطة الإسرائيلية تستهدف ثلاثة مواقع جنوب
طهران هي منشأة تخصيب اليورانيوم في نطنز ومنشأة تحويل
اليورانيوم قرب أصفهان ومفاعل أراك الذي يعمل بالمياه
الثقيلة.
وكشفت "صنداي تايمز" أن هيئة الأركان الإسرائيلية
تخشى أن لا تكون القنابل التقليدية فعالة ضد هذه المنشآت
المحصنة، لذلك اختارت استخدام السلاح النووي التكتيكي الذي يسبب
انفجارا تحت الأرض، لتجنب الآثار الإشعاعية للتفجير.
والتقى
المسؤولون الأميركيون والإسرائيليون عدة مرات للتفكير في شن عمل
عسكري، حسب الصحيفة.
وأضافت أن محللين عسكريين رأوا أن الكشف
عن تلك الخطط يهدف للضغط على إيران لوقف أنشطتها الحساسة لتخصيب
اليورانيوم. وربما يهدف كذلك إلى إقناع الولايات المتحدة بالتحرك
و"إعداد" الرأي العام العالمي قبل أن تشن إسرائيل ضربتها ضد
الجمهورية الإسلامية.
وقالت المصادر نفسها أن الطيارين
الإسرائيليين قاموا في الأسابيع الأخيرة برحلات جوية وصلوا
خلالها إلى جبل طارق في إطار تدريبات على الرحلات الطويلة التي
تتجاوز مسافتها 3200 كيلومتر ذهابا وإيابا، من اجل بلوغ المواقع
الإيرانية.
وتابعت الصحيفة أن ثلاثة خطوط محتملة رسمت لتنفيذ
الضربة من بينها خط يمر فوق تركيا.

Botswana: The Great
Betrayal in Iraq

Mmegi/The
Reporter (Gaborone)

OPINION
January 7,
2007
Posted
to the web January 8, 2007

Tanonoka Joseph
Whande

I can only imagine
what happens to a child when he or she discovers that their
parents or role models are a sham. And what about those who
spend a lifetime believing in something not only to have their
acquired convictions shuttered but so shuttered in the
irrevocable international fora?

My respect for
America is
immense because for almost 12 years Boston and the Berkshires of western
Massachusetts were my home.
America
shielded me as a political refugee student when Ian Smith was
violently resisting the advent of Zimbabwe

What I was taught
about America is at loggerheads with
what America
does.

As Saddam Hussein
was being led to the gallows, George W. Bush was supposedly
asleep after earlier having been evacuated from his ranch in
Texas in fear of an
advancing tornado (no pun intended). However, Bush issued a
statement to the effect that Saddam Hussein's hanging was "an
important milestone". Couldn't he just have kept
quiet?

"Even though
Saddam Hussein was a dictator," wrote Zimbabwean Tawanda
Shoniwa on the BBC's 'Have Your Say', "he did not deserve to
be killed in the manner he was."

Bush was naive
enough to underestimate something called 'public opinion', a
dynamic conglomerate of individual opinions of millions of
like-minded people.

When Saddam was
toppled, the reaction in Iraq was one of
jubilation. There were few sympathizers. Then Bush
orchestrated a legal fiasco in a pitiful attempt to show the
world that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, there
was justice and democracy in Iraq because of
America's
intervention.

To the American
president, it was 'a stroke of genius' to go it alone. He
invaded Iraq, captured its leader then
paraded Saddam in front of live international television
cameras, humiliating him in an Iraq court. Months
after months, the world was subjected to the spectacle of
Saddam's trial. For months on end, the world saw and heard
Saddam defiantly answer back. Saddam became a frequent visitor
in our living rooms. He was sentenced to death in November
2006. The BBC conceded that the tide had slowly started
turning in his favour. Like mass hypnosis, the Stockholm
Syndrome was settling in. November became the bloodiest in
Iraq since his
capture.

The Stockholm
Syndrome is "a psychological response...in which the hostage
exhibits loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the danger
in which the hostage has been placed." The Oxford
dictionary describes it as "feelings of trust and affection
felt...by a victim towards a captor." This is why people root
for the underdog, whether fond of him or otherwise. This is
why people cheer for the 'bad guy' in those awful wrestling
matches.

"I lived through
the bloody war that Saddam started with Iran," wrote
Iranian Alireza Pahlavani. "Still, I am not happy with
Saddam's execution."

The Stockholm
Syndrome got its name from a 1973 bank robbery in
Norrmalmstorg, in Stockholm, Sweden, in which
bank employees who had been held hostage for six days became
emotionally attached to their captors.

And after only
eight weeks of capture, newspaper heiress, Patricia Hearst,
helped her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army, to rob a
bank.

However, the most
recent example of the syndrome is that of Austrian Natascha
Kampusch, who was abducted by Wolfgang Priklopil when she was
only 10. After eight years of capture and living in a basement
cell, she 'escaped' in August 2006 when she was 18. Upon
hearing that her captor had committed suicide by jumping onto
the path of an oncoming train on the day of her escape,
Kampusch broke down. She tearfully told her rescuers right
there that Priklopil was "part of my life".

And so here we are
with mixed reactions to Saddam's demise. Why? He was up
against the biggest odds and against the greediest and richest
country. The mere fact that America captured and then allowed
its proxies to put Saddam on trial and then hang him turned
this whole political episode into an unpalatable political
tragedy. Not that Saddam did not deserve to die for what he
did, but because the way in which "justice" was meted out was
totally askew.

"I feel saddened
by the death of Saddam," said Pakistani Nafeesa Zafar, "not
because he deserved to live but because it took place under
US
occupation of Iraq."

Iraq was an American
mistake right from the start, especially if we consider who
supported and armed Saddam against Iran in the early
80s. The people who did so are the same ones who just killed
him.

Sure, there are
people we do not like to have around. Leaders who murder
children while they supposedly clean up our cities. Tyrants
who rape and kill innocent citizens. Dictators like Mugabe,
Museveni and all the filthy dirty autocrats of their ilk
deserve maximum punishment for killing defenseless
citizens.

But I have never been able to dance and
cheer at the killing of a person, regardless of how loathsome
they may be. I do not think I ever will. I intensely disliked
Laurent Kabila, for both national and personal reasons, but I
was dismayed to witness my compatriots celebrating his death
in the streets of Harare before riot police
intervened to deny them their freedom of expression.

While we pray for natural
causes to please come to our rescue in Zimbabwe, I would
not cheer to see Mugabe, Museveni or Taylor dangling at the
end of a thick rope, deserving it as they may. Good riddance,
yes, but I'd not cheer.

The
World Uncovered

The
World Uncovered is a powerful international current affairs
strand which confronts strong, hard-hitting stories that
affect people’s lives around the world, including exclusive
investigations into the most contentious global issues. In
recent months The World Uncovered has reported from Pakistan,
North America, Ethiopia, India, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi
Arabia, Thailand, Israel, and Iraq.

Saddam's
Road To Hell

Saturday 13th January at 1210
GMT
Repeated: Saturday 13th at 2010 and Sunday 14th at
0210, 0810 and 1710 GMT

Kurdish investigator, Dr Mohammed
Ihsan, set off on a dangerous journey down through Iraq to
find out what exactly happened to 8,000 Kurdish men and boys
who went missing in the early years of Saddam's rule.

Accompanied by film-makers Gwynne
Roberts and John Williams, he travels through the Sunni
badlands into Baghdad, and then cross the triangle of death on
their way to the southern Iraqi desert near the Saudi-Kuwaiti
borders. Along the way, the group faces the very real fear of
being blown up by roadside bombs, or beheaded by Al Zarqawi
terrorists. En route, his team collects documents, video,
testimony and finally forensic evidence, namely the remains of
hundreds of bodies, proving Saddam’s direct involvement in
mass murder.

The case of the missing Barzanis
anticipates his murderous campaign against the Kurds known as
the Anfal which led to the execution of more than 100,00 men,
women and children in the late 1980s.

This film represents one of the rare
occasions in recent times when western film-makers have dared
leave Baghdad’s Green Zone to record the bigger picture in
Iraq. Like no other documentary before it, Saddam’s Road To
Hell exposes the fault lines of this fractured society,
revealing how the country’s dark past impacts on the present
and future.

The crime uncovered in the film
represented a crucial moment in Saddam’s dictatorship. It was
committed four years after he became President of Iraq, a
tipping point, when his already brutal regime became ready to
commit mass murder. By then, he had developed a well-honed
killing machine run by thousands of state employees, and
supported by many more with a deep hatred for the Kurds and
the Shia.

The abduction itself marked the
beginning of one of the darkest periods in Iraqi history. As
the Kurds march on towards independence, the film explains
graphically why they feel they have no future in a unified
Iraq.

Gwynne Roberts has reported from Iraqi
Kurdistan for over 30years. In the early 1980s, he
clandestinely crossed northern Iraq on foot with Kurdish Pesh
Merga on two occasions. His films have depicted seminal
moments in Kurdish history – showing the Kurds’ desperate
battle for survival over past decades, forensically proving
the regime’s use of poison gas in Kurdistan in 1988, and
filming Desert Storm in 1991 and the 2003 Iraq War from the
north of the country.

In recent years, he teamed up with
co-director John Williams to make several films on Iraq, the
most famous an investigation into the long-term effects of
poison gas on the town of Halabja in 1998.They undertook this
latest assignment because they shared the belief that the
reporting of the Iraq situation in the western media has often
been one-sided and ignored the Iraqi perspective.

Tragically, in the final phase of
filming, John Williams died in northern Iraq of a heart attack
aged 60.

U.S.
Urges China
To Reconsider Oil Deal With Iran

January
10, 2007 -- The United
States has urged China to reconsider a $16
billion deal with Iran on the
development of oil and gas fields.

A
spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the United States had raised its
concerns with the Chinese government over the memorandum of
understanding signed last month between Iran and the China
National Offshore Oil Corp.

The
deal was signed shortly before the UN Security Council,
including permanent member China, voted last month to
impose limited economic sanctions on Iran over its
nuclear program.

Aide: PM
asks China's President to keep up
pressure on Iran

By Aluf Benn, Haaretz
Correspondent, and Reuters

Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert on Thursday met with Chinese President Hu in Beijing to argue Iran's nuclear plans could
destabilize the Middle East and urge China to continue pressuring
Iran.

China closed ranks with
Western powers last month in a United Nations Security Council
resolution imposing sanctions on Tehran that could be stepped up if
Iran ignores a
60-day deadline to stop enriching uranium, a process that
could be used to make nuclear warheads.

The prime minister's
aides said that in Olmert's meeting with Hu he hoped to hear a
Chinese pledge to keep up pressure on Iran, which insists its atomic
ambitions are peaceful but whose virulent rhetoric against
Israel has raised
war fears abroad.

On Wednesday,
China's
Prime Minister told Olmert during their meeting in Beijing Wen
Jiabao that China is opposed to
Iran
becoming a military nuclear power, but Tehran
has the right to develop nuclear energy for civilian
purposes.

The Chinese premier
was quoted as saying that China understands
Israel's
existential concerns stemming from the Iranian program, and
stressed that Beijing is opposed to
anti-Semitism in all its forms as well as to calls to
disregard the past suffering of the Jewish people.

However, Wen said
that there is a "correct" way of dealing with this, and
pointed to the UN Security Council and to independent
decisions of individual countries to apply pressure on
Iran.

At the start of their
meeting, the Chinese premier asked Olmert to deliver a
positive message to Israel: that
Israel was
a very close friend of China.

"I look forward to
exchanging views with you, Mr. Prime Minister, on how to
further promote China-Israel relations and our friendship and
cooperation, as well as on the Middle
East issue," he said.

Most of the meeting was
dedicated to the development of economic ties between the two
countries and blocking the Iranian nuclear threat.

Prior to Olmert's
visit to Beijing,
China
invited Iran's chief
nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, for talks.

Wen said
China told
Larijani that it is inconceivable for Iran to ignore the rules and
decisions of the international community, and stressed that
Beijing would not accept such
behavior.

"I heard many
surprising and positive things regarding the Iranian issue,"
Olmert later told the press.

"China made it
absolutely clear that it opposed an Iran with a nuclear bomb,"
he added.

Olmert was received
with full military honors at the Great Hall of the People, the
Chinese Parliament, facing Tiananmen
Square.

The military band
played the national anthems. During a dinner in the prime
minister's honor, the Chinese orchestra played four Israeli
songs, including Jerusalem of Gold.

"Every song had
meaning and the Chinese thought and prepared the program," one
of Olmert's aides said.

"They always tell us
that we should not mention Jerusalem in diplomatic talks,
because of the sensitivity of the subject, and here we are
listening to Jerusalem of Gold in Beijing. This was very
exciting," he added.

China's Minister of
Commerce, Bo Xilai, and Prime Minister Wen, expressed great
interest in Israeli Research and Development, and in water
desalination and purification technology.

Wen recalled a visit
he had made to a desalination plant in Ashkelon. Xilai told Olmert that for
China, "water is as
important as oil."

Olmert and his hosts agreed
to raise the value of bilateral trade between the two
countries from the current level of approximately $4 billion
per year to $10 billion by 2010.

Bush says
mistakes made, will send 21,500 more troops to
Iraq

By The Associated
Press

President George W.
Bush acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that he erred
by not ordering a military buildup in Iraq last year and said he was
increasing United
States presence in Iraq by 21,500
troops to quell insurgency.

"Where mistakes have been
made, the responsibility rests with me," Bush said.

The buildup puts Bush
on a collision course with the new Democratic U.S. Congress
and pushes the American troop presence in Iraq toward its
highest level. It also runs counter to widespread anti-war
passions among Americans and the advice of some top
generals.

"If we increase our
support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the
current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops
begin coming home," Bush said. But he braced Americans to
expect more U.S. casualties for
now and did not specify how long the additional troops would
stay.

In addition to extra
U.S.
forces, the plan envisions Iraq's committing 10,000 to
12,000 more troops to secure Baghdad's neighborhoods - and
taking the lead in military operations.

Even before Bush's
address, the new Democratic leaders of Congress emphasized
their opposition to a buildup. "This is the third time we are
going down this path. Two times this has not worked," Nancy
Pelosi, the leader of the House of Representatives, said after
meeting with the president. "Why are they doing this now? That
question remains."

There was criticism
from Republicans, as well. "This is a dangerously wrongheaded
strategy that will drive America deeper into an
unwinnable swamp at a great cost," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a
Vietnam veteran and
potential Republican presidential candidate.

Senate and House
Democrats are arranging votes urging the president not to send
more troops. While lacking the force of law, the measures
would compel Republicans to go on record as either opposing
the president or supporting an escalation.

Usually reluctant to
admit error, Bush said it was also a mistake to have allowed
American forces to be restricted by the Iraqi government,
which tried to prevent U.S. military
operations against fighters controlled by the radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful political ally of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The president said al-Maliki had
assured him that from now on, "political or sectarian
interference will not be tolerated."

The president's address is
the centerpiece of an aggressive public relations campaign
that also includes detailed briefings for lawmakers and a
series of appearances by Bush, starting with a trip Thursday
to Fort Benning. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice heads to the Middle East a day after
appearing Thursday with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at
hearings on Iraq convened by
the Democrats.

As Bush spoke for 20
minutes from the unusual setting of the White House library,
the sounds of protesters amassed outside the compound's gates
occasionally filtered through.

Bush's approach
amounts to a huge gamble on al-Maliki's willingness - and
ability - to deliver on promises he has consistently failed to
keep: to disband Shi'ite militias, pursue national
reconciliation and make good on commitments for Iraqi forces
to handle security operations in Baghdad.

"Our past efforts to
secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were
not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods
that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents," Bush
said. "And there were too many restrictions on the troops we
did have."

He said American
commanders have reviewed the Iraqi plan "to ensure that it
addressed these mistakes."

With Americans
overwhelmingly unhappy with his Iraq strategy, Bush said it was
a legitimate question to ask why this strategy to secure
Baghdad will succeed where
other operations failed. "This time we will have the force
levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared," the
president said.

While Bush put the
onus on the Iraqis to meet their responsibilities and commit
more troops, he did not threaten specific consequences if they
do not. Iraq has missed
previous self-imposed timetables for taking over security
responsibilities.

Bush, however, cited
the government's latest optimistic estimate. "To establish its
authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility
for security in all of Iraq's provinces by
November," the president said.

Still, Bush said that
"America's
commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not
follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of
the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi
people. Now is the time to act."

Resisting calls for troop
reductions, Bush said that "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for
the United
States. ... A democratic
Iraq will not be
perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists
instead of harboring the."

But Bush warned that
the strategy would, in a short term he did not define, bring
more violence rather than less.

"Even if our new
strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence
will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American
casualties," he said. "The question is whether our new
strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it
will."

Bush's warning was
echoed by Senator John McCain, a Republican and a leading
proponent of a troop increase. "Is it going to be a strain on
the military? Absolutely. Casualties are going to go up," the
senator said.

Bush said he
considered calls from Democrats and some Republicans to pull
back American forces. He concluded it would devastate
Iraq and "result in
our troops being forced to stay even longer."

But he offered a
concession to Congress - the establishment of a bipartisan
working group to formalize regular consultations on Iraq. He said he
was open to future exchanges and better ideas.

The latest increase
calls for sending 17,500 U.S. combat troops to
Baghdad. The first of five
brigades will arrive by next Monday. The next would arrive by
February 15 and the reminder would come in 30-day
increments.

Bush also committed 4,000
more Marines to Anbar Province, a base of the
Sunni insurgency and foreign al-Qaida fighters.

U.S.
and Iraqis Hit Insurgents in All-Day Fight

BAGHDAD, Jan. 9
— More than 1,000 American and Iraqi troops, backed by Apache
attack helicopters and fighter jets, battled insurgents all
day Tuesday and late into the night in downtown Baghdad, in
one of the most dramatic operations in the capital since the
invasion nearly four years ago.

The fighting
raged less than 1,000 yards from the heavily fortified Green
Zone, which houses both the American command and the Iraqi
government. It was the latest episode for the troubled
neighborhood around Haifa Street, where major
campaigns have repeatedly been initiated to rid the area of
insurgents, only to have them re-infiltrate.

Iraqi officials
said that at least 50 militants were killed Tuesday, but the
Americans said they could not provide a
count.

Problems in
other contested areas across Baghdad came to a crisis
point in the fall, causing American commanders to abandon a
major push to regain control of the city, and setting off a
policy review that led to the changes President Bush will
announce in a speech to the nation on Wednesday
night.

The president is
widely expected to call for 20,000 to 30,000 more soldiers in
Iraq, with many coming to
Baghdad to help quell the
sectarian fighting.

American
commanders have said the strategy will emphasize an evenhanded
approach in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, something that
they acknowledge has evaded them as they have worked with
Iraq’s Shiite-led
government in recent months.

The fighting on
Haifa Street, a broad two-mile boulevard that cuts through the
heart of the capital, began nearly a week ago as an attempt to
secure the safety of citizens caught in the middle of the
fighting and ended with pitched battles in the street. It is a
reminder of how difficult the Baghdad mission will be.

The American
crackdown on Tuesday came on the fourth day of intense
fighting in the neighborhood of tightly packed, high-rise
apartment buildings that was the home of many top-ranking
government officials and Baath Party loyalists while Saddam Hussein was in power.
American soldiers continued to patrol the area through the
night, and an American military spokesman said they would stay
there until the situation was firmly under control. Gunfire
and explosions could be heard in the neighborhood well after
sunset.

An American
military officer familiar with the operation said that it was
part of an effort to stabilize Baghdad, but was not directly
linked to the president’s new security plan.

However, the
location of the fight has particular
significance.

Nearly two years
ago, after much bloodshed and toil, the American military
wrested control of the area from insurgents.

Haifa
Street, the
neighborhood’s main thoroughfare, used to be called
Purple Heart
Boulevard by American soldiers.
More than 160 soldiers from the First Battalion of the Ninth
Cavalry were wounded trying to secure the area. By the spring
of 2005, they had largely done so, and it was trumpeted as a
signal success.

Tuesday’s
operation, directed by elements of the Stryker Brigade of the
First Cavalry Division and Iraqi Sixth Army Division, occurred
after a series of events that, taken together, demonstrated
the complexity of the fight for American forces and the maze
of competing interests they are trying to
navigate.

It also suggests
that even if the Americans try to deal evenhandedly with
Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents, which is expected to be
a central theme of President Bush’s plan, their efforts could
end up inadvertently benefiting one party or the
other.

Shiites are
clearly ascendant throughout Baghdad, systematically
taking over Sunni neighborhoods, often using the intimidation
of death squads to achieve their goals. But the area around
Haifa
Street has remained a Sunni
bastion.

For the past two
years, it has been relatively quiet, but in recent months, as
the sectarian fighting has intensified, Iraqi and American
military officials suspected it was being used as a base of
operations for insurgents concentrating on the Shiite civilian
population and American forces.

The violence in
the area started to increase markedly after the recent arrest
of a senior member of the leading Shiite militia group, the
Mahdi Army, who had been operating near the area, according to
an American military official.

The arrest, the
official said, created an opening for Sunni insurgents, and
they began aggressively singling out Shiites who had relocated
south from the neighborhood of Kadhimiya, the official
said.

On Saturday, 27
bodies were dumped in the Sheik Marouf neighborhood on
Haifa
Street. They were Shiites, four
with their throats slit and the rest shot in the head,
according to an Iraqi government official.

Skip
to next paragraph

When the Iraqi
police went to investigate and collect the bodies, they were
attacked, according to witnesses and government officials. The
Iraqi Army was called in and was also attacked, so finally the
Americans were called in.

For residents,
the situation was already bleak and getting worse, with no
electricity for days and armed men taking control of lawless
streets.

But the Sunnis
in the area were still hostile to the Iraqi security forces,
largely viewed as agents of the Shiite-led
government.

“People were
disgusted and were enraged by the activity of the security
forces,” one resident said.

Late Saturday
night, Iraqi government officials and witnesses said that
Sunni insurgents had set up a fake checkpoint and were pulling
Shiites from their cars and executing them, even, some
claimed, stringing three bodies from
lampposts.

“Some of my
friends told me they saw some of the bodies hanging from
lampposts,” said Jabbar Obeid, 39, who lives in the
area.

American
officials said Tuesday that while many people were being
executed in the area, they found no evidence of people being
hanged on lampposts. Many Sunni residents said the claims were
nonsense, and had been aimed at inciting more sectarian
violence.

On Sunday, Sunni
organizations and politicians began condemning the
government’s security clampdown.

“Day after day,
the sectarian crimes against the Sunnis in their neighborhoods
in Baghdad are continuing,” said
Adnan Dulaimi, a member of the largest Sunni bloc in
Parliament. The government’s actions over the weekend were a
“barbarian attack” aimed at clearing the neighborhood of
Sunnis, he said in a statement.

In fighting in
the neighborhood on Sunday, eleven Iraqi Army soldiers were
killed when they ran out of ammunition, Iraqi officials
said.

American
military officials said that by then they already had solid
evidence to suggest that Sunni insurgent leaders were using
the neighborhood as a base of operations. They said that the
fighters were organized and sophisticated, and included
trained snipers and insurgents from foreign
countries.

One Sunni
resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisals, confirmed as much, saying that insurgents had taken
over to such a degree that a top-ranking official of Al Qaeda had even seized
control of the Rafadin bank, set up an Islamic court and began
handing out death sentences.

The American and
Iraqi forces completed their assault plans at 4 a.m. Tuesday,
and before dawn began approaching Haifa
Street from different locations
around the city, swiftly closing in on Talaa
Square in the center of the
neighborhood.

About 6:30 a.m.
they had reached the square and began arresting suspects. In
all, American and Iraqi officials said, they would take some
15 people into custody, including 7 Syrians. Nearly as soon as
they began making arrests, they came under heavy bombardment
from small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and indirect
fire, probably mortars, according to an American military
official. As the fighting intensified, insurgents began moving
to the rooftops in order to shoot at the armored American
attack vehicles on the roads below.

To deal with the
gunmen on the rooftops, rather than fighting for control of
entire buildings, the Americans called in Apache helicopters
and fighter jets, the official said.

The neighborhood
is densely packed, making it difficult to strike targets from
the air, and the fighter jets were used to “make a show of
force,” according to the military official, in an attempt to
frighten the gunmen from the rooftops.

For more than an
hour on Tuesday morning, the fighter jets could be seen
sharply dropping below the cloud cover, swooping low over the
neighborhood’s roofline, engines roaring, and then pulling up
steeply and zooming out of sight, high into the sky.

Meanwhile, the
Apaches attacked the insurgents’ positions, unleashing a
barrage of fire that rocked the neighborhood for
hours.

Ali Housin, 56,
a resident, said he saw the helicopters direct fire at a
cemetery where insurgents were hiding, the resulting
explosions blowing out the windows of his
home.

Shortly after
noon, the aerial assault had largely ended, but scattered
clashes continued and could be heard late into the night.
Residents reported American armored vehicles patrolling the
streets after dark and Iraqi Army soldiers moving to secure
control of the rooftops.

The Americans
reported no casualties, and early reports indicated that two
soldiers in the Iraqi Army had been wounded.

American
officials insisted that the information they had on the
insurgents in the area was very detailed, and that they had
been careful to try to ensure that they were not being used as
pawns by the Shiite-dominated government, emphasizing that in
recent days they had conducted similarly aggressive raids in
Shiite neighborhoods.

"الوطن" حصلت على كامل
التفاصيل من شهود عيان وذوي
الإرهابيين

قتل ارهابي والقبض على آخر
إثر معركة استمرت أكثر من4 ساعات شمال
الأردن

ـ الأجهزة الأمنية اوقفت
الصحفيين ومنعتهم من العمل ووقعتهم على تعهدات مالية بعدم تكرار
فعلتهم!

9/1/2007

96 بالمئة من الأردنيين يريدون اجراء
الإنتخابات في موعدها دون تأجيل

9/1/2007

عباس يرفض تورط زكي
بعلاقات شخصية مع آل
الحريري

شوكت لأبي
موسى:"فتح/الإنتفاضة" تشكل ثغرة في جدار سوريا
الأمني

ـ حسن نصر الله أكد لأبي
موسى تلقي العملة والعبسي اموالا من بهية الحريري واسامة بن
لادن

ـ دمشق طلبت التحقيق مع
العبسي لتهريبه عناصر في القاعدة عبر اراضيها فأعلن "فتح
الإسلام"

6/1/2007

منصور يحاول احتواء الخلاف مع طهران
داعيا لحوار متكافئ معها

نواب اردنيون يطالبون بقطع العلاقات
الدبلوماسية مع ايران

ـ انتقدوا موقف الحكومة التي لم تحاول
انقاذ صدام حسين ولم تدن اعدامه

8/1/2007

52 رصاصة أصابت مدعي
عام  قضية الدجيل يوم اعدام
صدام

9/1/2007

رامسفيلد ورايس بحثاها مع
شخصيات مقربة من المقاومة
العراقية

واشنطن تبحث تشكيل حكومة
تكنوقراط عسكرية في العراق أو حكومة
برلمانية برئاسة اياد علاوي

9/1/2007

في حوار تناول جميع قضايا
الساعة مع نائب رئيس المكتب السياسي لحركة
"حماس"1/2

أبو مورزوق: هنية أصبح
مرشحنا الوحيد لرئاسة الوزراء ونرفض حكومة
مستقلين

ـ حوار عمان لن يبدأ من حيث
انتهينا وبعث العلاقات مع الأردن أولا ضروري لنجاح
وساطته

ـ نتوقع فتح الأبواب
العربية أمام العلاقات مع "حماس" بعد فشل المراهنة على انهيار
شعبيتها عبر الحصار

ـ ادانتنا للغرائزية في
اعدام صدام حسين لا تعني اقرارنا لأفعاله..موقفنا قد لا يعجب
ايران والكويت

ـ اميركا فشلت في إعادة رسم
الخارطة السياسية للمنطقة وفقا لمصالحها وإخراج حزب الله من
المعادلة

ـ ايران تبحث عن مصالحها في
العراق..الظروف التاريخية والمذهبية تحكم الكثير من
تصرفاتها

ـ حزب الله مع المقاومة في
العراق لكن تأثيره هناك أقل مما يعتقده الناس..اجتهادات المراجع
غير متطابقة

6/1/2007

في حوار تناول جميع قضايا
الساعة مع نائب رئيس المكتب السياسي لحركة
"حماس"2/2

أبو مرزوق: لا مشروع ولا
قيادة وطنية واحدة للشعب
الفلسطيني

ـ الفلتان الأمني والحصار
هدفهما ازاحة "حماس" أو تغيرها لصالح المشروع الذي هزم في
الإنتخابات

ـ الأميركان احيانا يشجعون
واحيانا يعترضون على الإتصالات الأوروبية مع "حماس".. لم تنقطع
في أي يوم

ـ الإتحاد مع الأردن تقرره
عمان ومن يكون  في
موقع المسؤولية في الدولة الفلسطينية حين
قيامها

ـ هدنة 15 عاما تشكل اساسا
لقيام دولة فلسطينية لا تعترف بإسرائيل.. القرار الدولي رقم 181
يتيح ذلك

ـ هنية لم يطلع الدول
العربية على الورقة السويسرية.. لم نرد عليها ومحمود عباس أخذ
نسخة منها

6/1/2007

في كلمة القيت
باسمها بمهرجان استنكاري لإعدام الرئيس العراقي

المقاومة العراقية تبشر
بتحرير العراق في غضون شهرين

ـ صدام رفض مساومة
الأميركان..ابقاء قواعدهم وإنهاء المقاومة مقابل اعادته رئيسا

ـ ممثل "فتح" في الأردن
للعراقيين: فلسطين معكم على قاعدة الأولوية لتحرير العراق

1/1/2007

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