John Bolton slams New York Times story on North Korea compromise

(July 2)Yesterday John Bolton tweeted angrily condemning a New York Times report that claimed that the Trump administration might seek a compromise with North Korea that would involve a freeze on the countries nuclear arsenal instead of complete denuclearization.

The New York Times report

The Times article said that the plan was brewing weeks before Trump's recent meeting with Kim Jong Un: " But for weeks before the meeting, which started as a Twitter offer by the president for Mr. Kim to drop by at the Demilitarized Zone and “say hello,” a real idea has been taking shape inside the Trump administration that officials hope might create a foundation for a new round of negotiations.The concept would amount to a nuclear freeze, one that essentially enshrines the status quo, and tacitly accepts the North as a nuclear power, something administration officials have often said they would never stand for."

Bolton's response

Bolton claimed that neither he nor anyone else in the Trump administration had ever discussed such an idea. He said he had never even heard of such a deal being under consideration. He said that there should be consequences for the Times publishing such an article. Bolton said that the article represented a reprehensible attempt to box in the president. The Times responded on Twitter that they stood by the accuracy of their reporting.

Bolton's tweet read: “I read this NYT story with curiosity. Neither the NSC staff nor I have discussed or heard of any desire to ‘settle for a nuclear freeze by NK,’” Bolton tweeted, describing the report as "a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the President.”

Perhaps there are discussions within the Trump administration behind Bolton's back. If Bolton knew about them he would be acting immediately to try and squelch them. Bolton also would like to box in the president so that only his own hard line views are presented to Kim Jong Un. This would include complete denuclearization of North Korea before discussing removal of sanctions.

Bolton wants to retain hard line approach in negotiations

Bolton would be adamantly opposed to any move to make lesser demands on North Korea to encourage negotiations to go forward even though Bolton's hard line approach led to breakdown of talks in Hanoi with no agreement. There is every reason to believe this will happen again. Perhaps this is the result Bolton desires.

The Times article may represent a trial balloon launched by some in the administration to gauge reactions to such a new plan. Bolton's response is predictable.

Previously published in the Digital Journal

Trump angry at NY Times article on US cyber attacks on Russia

(June 17) Last weekend, the New York Times broke a story about US cyberattacks on Russia particularly against their electrical grid. The report suggests the US has placed massive malware across vital Russian systems.

US could devastate Russian infrastructure if necessary

The malware would allow the US to launch devastating infrastructure attacks on Russia at a moment's notice if the US administration should wish to do so. The report is quite credible as the US officials have been openly discussing the need to go on the offensive in cyberspace for ages. It also comes after reports of offensive US cyberattacks against Russia during the mid-term election. US counter action during the midterms is described in a NY Post article.

The New York Times article noted: "The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said. In interviews over the past three months, the officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s grid and other targets as a classified companion to more publicly discussed action directed at Moscow’s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 midterm elections. Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States."

Naturally advocates of the new policy include White House hawks such as John Bolton. The aggressive cyberattacks carry the risk of escalating the developing Cold War with Russia.

Trump's reaction to the New York Times report

Trump was outraged by the article even though the information it contains is actually available if not widely circulated. He goes beyond calling the New York Times, the "Enemy of the People" as he has done in the past. Now Trump claims that even publishing the story is "a virtual act of Treason". He accused the New York Times of being willing to publish any story "even if it is bad for our country".

Trump raged on over the weekend about the Times dishonesty. He then postulated within six years the Times and Trump's other media bête noire the Washington Post would both be gone forever at a time when he claims that his supporters will insist he remain in office beyond his two-term limit.

Trump often has flights of fancy in a series of tweets. However, the Times article which just makes clear what has been already revealed from other sources seems to have really set him going. The last thing that this supposedly transparent and populist president wants is to reveal obvious aggressive behavior on the part of the US. Of course the Russians already know what is happening. They are meant to so that they know if they attack the US then they will pay dearly.

Previously published in the Digital Journal

NY Times reports US officials claim Egypt and UAE behind Libya bombings

Four senior U.S. officials told the New York Times that the first two attacks targeting Islamist militia in Tripoli were a joint operation of Egypt and the UAE

The New York TImes has often been used as a mouthpiece for the US administration as discussed in a Guardian article back in June 2012 by Glenn Greenwald. According to the Times report: The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington or seeking its consent, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines. Egyptian officials explicitly denied the operation to American diplomats, the officials said. 

While it is possible that the two countries acted without US consent the only evidence for this given is from anonymous US officials who obviously leaked the information about who was responsible for the strikes to the Times. Surely, US intelligence has enough monitoring equipment to probably know where the first flight originated and certainly after the bombing would trace the flight of the aircraft back to its base. The first flight was a week ago. Why did not the US tell the Libyan government who have repeatedly claimed they do not know the identity of the aircraft? Why did they not offer to protect the government from the bombing as the government had asked for international help? Even after the second strike, there was nothing from the US. The US was cooperating in keeping things quiet about who was doing what.

 The article goes on to note quite correctly that both Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are trying to suppress Islamists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. On the other hand, Turkey and Qatar are friendly to them. The article claims that Qatar has already been arming Islamists in Libya. While no doubt the Times is correct about these matters, this does not mean that the US had no involvement.

 The Times story continues: Several officials said that United States diplomats were fuming about the airstrikes, believing they could further inflame the Libyan conflict at a time when the United Nations and Western powers are seeking a peaceful resolution. If the US is seeking a peaceful solution why did they not intervene after the first raid and warn Egypt and the UAE that they would not tolerate further attacks? Why not expose the culprits at least and publicly reprimand them? Even now there has been no official statement on the issue holding Egypt and the UAE to task, just this leak to the New York Times. According to the article, Egypt provided bases for launching the strikes and UAE the pilots, warplanes, and aerial refueling necessary for the flights. These are all provided thanks to US training and aid. Egypt has denied any direct role of its forces in the flights. The UAE has so far not commented directly. However, Anwar Gargash, minister of state for foreign affairs said that allegations about the role of the UAE role come from a group who "wanted to use the cloak of religion to achieve its political objectives" when "the people discovered its lies and failures". Perhaps he is referring to Libya Dawn who earlier accused Egypt and the UAE of being behind the bombings before it was confirmed by the US. He is also referring to the alleged defeat of Islamists in recent elections.

The Times provides a misleading account of what Haftar and his commanders said about the strikes: Anti-Islamist forces based in eastern Libya under the renegade former general Khalifa Hifter sought to claim responsibility, but their statements were inconsistent and the strikes were beyond their known capabilities. However, from the beginning Haftar has claimed that the bombing was a joint effort between his own forces and the "international community". No doubt he has given valuable targeting information to the bombers. Ironically, a report given to a New York Times reporter contradicts this article:".later in the day a senior Operation Dignity source claimed his forces had been responsible for the attack, which targeted Libya Dawn fighters who have been attempting to gain control of strategic sites like Tripoli International Airport. The source told New York Times journalist Osama al-Fitory that the bombs were dropped by a Sukhoi Su-24 plane, in a “joint operation” between Haftar’s forces and the international community." Haftar also made a similar claim saying that the operation was supported by the international community. 

What the article is attempting to do is create a narrative that makes this action part of the attempts of UAE and Egypt to attack the Muslim Brotherhood. The article also notes that Egypt and the UAE had mounted other strikes inside Libya recently: In recent months, a special forces team operating out of Egypt but possibly composed primarily of Emirates personnel had also successfully destroyed an Islamist camp in eastern Libya without detection. All this comes out now. The US saw no reason to reveal this or try to stop it earlier. After two bombings and now a third of Tripoli, even the dimmest-witted US officials began to realize that they had to create a narrative about what happened. They marketed the narrative through the New York Times. 

While General Khalifa Haftar is mentioned the background of events and Operation Dignity one of the main sources for the present clashes of militias is not discussed at all. Haftar started out in February to try and dissolve the elected parliament, and when that failed he later began Operation Dignity: On 14 February 2014, General Khalifa Haftar ordered the GNC to dissolve and called for the formation of a caretaker government committee to oversee new elections. The GNC ignored his demands.The conflict began two months later, on 16 May 2014, when forces loyal to General Haftar launched a large scale air and ground offensive codenamed Operation Dignity (Arabic: عملية الكرامة‎; 'Amaliya al-Karamah) against Islamist armed groups in Benghazi. Two days later, Haftar's forces tried to dissolve the General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli Actually the Zintan brigades attacked parliament ransacked it and set it on fire and kidnapped some Islamist legislators and officials.These are the same brigades that were charged with protecting the airport and later clashed with the Misrata militia who took the airport just the other day. Bombings completed the destruction of the airport hitting the main terminal. 

As I thought, this type of background essential for understanding what is going on will be almost completely omitted in mainstream press accounts of what is happening. There will also be nothing about Haftar's earlier CIA connections. Haftar is also a US citizen and lived in the US for almost two decades. An excellent and detailed account of Haftar's career can be found here and is well worth reading in its entirety. Near the end the author Barak Barfi of the New American Foundation had some suggestions as to what role Haftar could play in the future of Libya: "Washington and its partners should persuade the new Libyan government to appoint Haftar as chief of staff. Respected by his troops, he has the military skills and combat experience necessary to create a modern army. But most important, he is the sole Libyan willing to take on the Islamist militias that are preventing the establishment of a modern state" This would complete the coup that Haftar was accused of mounting when he started Operation Dignity. Perhaps, the US really does think that the Egypt and UAE acts are counter productive but it is also possible that the US supports their intervention and will use them as proxies to help push the balance of power towards Haftar's forces.

Iran agrees to one-on-one talks with U.S. according to report

According to U.S. officials, Iran and the U.S. have agreed to one-on-one negotiations. The talks on Iran's nuclear program will take place immediately after the U.S. election the officials told the New York Times.

The Iranian officials claim that the talks should take place only after the elections since they want to know which president they will be dealing with.

Just a few hours after the article appeared on the New York Times website, the Obama administration denied the report. Many regard the Times as at times acting as a conduit for information the White House wants released to the public. However, on this report, National Security Council Spokesperson said: ”It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections."

If the Times report is true, the agreement must have been reached after secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials. Ahmadinejad has been pressing for a negotiated solution to the crisis, as indicated in the interview in the appended video. Romney has taken an even more hard line stance on Iran than Obama. If Romney wins, it is not at all clear there would be any talks.

Earlier talks have failed. I think that the U.S. would prefer regime change in Iran rather than a negotiated solution with the present government. At one time, Iran finally agreed to halt 20 per cent enrichment in return for foreign-made fuel rods, after Brazil and Turkey entered talks, but then the Obama administration rejected the proposal and moved on to use sanctions against Iran.

The Iranian side has been subject to constant threats of attack, crippling sanctions, sabotage, and assassinations of scientists. As Harvard professor Stephen Walt notes, the Iranian leadership “has good grounds for viewing Obama as inherently untrustworthy.” Former CIA analyst, Paul Pillar, puts the matter more bluntly. He maintains that the main Western interest is regime change in Iran.

The Times article may be designed to picture Obama as nearing a deal with Iran. He simply needs another term to complete the task. However, Republicans could jump on the announcement and picture Iran as pulling the wool over Obama's eyes to buy time so that it can further advance towards being able to produce nuclear weapons.

Iran wants to tie the nuclear talks with other issues according to the Times article. However the administration wants the talks to be on the nuclear issue alone. The prospects of talks are a problem for Romney as well. If he opposes talks, he could be accused of taking the U.S. towards another war at a time when probably most Americans consider that problems on the domestic front should be of first concern, not costly foreign wars.

Iran is probably anxious for a negotiated solution to the nuclear issue and the easing of sanctions, The Iranian economy is suffering as a result of sanctions and the currency is reaching new lows. The situation is bad enough to cause public protests against the regime.

End times for New York Times.

It seems that many print media are on the verge of failure. At least their failure will save a lot of trees for posterity! Advertising seems to be migrating to other media and advertising is the life blood of for profit media. As this article points out the decline of newspapers could be precipitous during the present downturn rather than gradual as many others predict.


http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times
January/February 2009 The Atlantic
Can America's paper of record survive the death of newsprint? Can journalism? End Times
by Michael Hirschorn
Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print--the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. The thinking goes that the existing brands--The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal--will be the ones making that transition, challenged but still dominant as sources of original reporting. But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business--like, this May? It's certainly plausible. Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company's debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper's future doesn't look good. "As part of our analysis of our uses of cash, we are evaluating future financing arrangements," the Times Company announced blandly in October, referring to the crunch it will face in May. "Based on the conversations we have had with lenders, we expect that we will be able to manage our debt and credit obligations as they mature." This prompted Henry Blodget, whose Web site, Silicon Alley Insider, has offered the smartest ongoing analysis of the company's travails, to write: "`We expect that we will be able to manage'? Translation: There's a possibility that we won't be able to manage." The paper's credit crisis comes against a backdrop of ongoing and accelerating drops in circulation, massive cutbacks in advertising revenue, and the worst economic climate in almost 80 years. As of December, its stock had fallen so far that the entire company could theoretically be had for about $1 billion. The former Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal often said he couldn't imagine a world without The Times. Perhaps we should start. Granted, the odds that The Times will cease to exist entirely come May are relatively slim. Many steps could be taken to prolong its existence. The Times Company has already slashed its dividend, a major source of income for the paper's owners, the Sulzberger family, but one that starved the company at precisely the moment it needed significant investments in new media. The company could sell its share of the brilliant Renzo Piano-designed headquarters--which cost the company about $600million to build and was completed in 2007, years after the digital threat to The Times' core business had become clear. (It's already borrowing money against the building's value.) It could sell The Boston Globe--or shutter it entirely, given what the company itself has acknowledged is a challenging time for the sale of media properties. It could sell its share in the Boston Red Sox, close or sell various smaller properties, or off-load About.com, the resolutely unglamorous Web purchase that has been virtually the only source of earnings growth in the Times Company's portfolio. With these steps, or after them, would come mass staffing cuts, no matter that the executive editor, Bill Keller, promised otherwise. It's possible that a David Geffen, Michael Bloomberg, or Carlos Slim would purchase The Times as a trophy property and spare the company some of this pain. Even Rupert Murdoch, after overpaying wildly for The Wall Street Journal, seems to be tempted by the prospect of adding The Times to his portfolio. But the experiences of Sam Zell, who must be ruing the day he waded into the waking nightmare that is the now-bankrupt Tribune Company, would surely temper the enthusiasm of all but the most arrogant of plutocrats. (And as global economies tumble around them, the plutocrats aren't as plutocratic as they used to be.) Alternatively, Google or Microsoft or even CBS could purchase The Times on the cheap, strip it for parts, and turn it into a content mill to goose its own page views. Regardless of what happens over the next few months, The Times is destined for significant and traumatic change. At some point soon--sooner than most of us think--the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist. And it will likely have plenty of company. In December, the Fitch Ratings service, which monitors the health of media companies, predicted a widespread newspaper die-off: "Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010."

The New York Times: A good example of bad journalism

This is an astounding example of how misleading an article can be. It is actually even worse. In terms of percentage of GDP spent on arms Iran is just over two percent far below that of Israel or even Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Israel is around 8 per cent. The New York Times is supposed to be an excellent paper according to some. Quite the opposite. It is often just a conduit for articles that support the US administration's line.



NYT Hypes Venezuelan Threat
Comparison of 'arms spending' doesn't include all arms spending

3/2/07

A February 25 report in the New York Times on Venezuela's international arms purchases ("Venezuela Spending on Arms Soars to World's Top Ranks") used selective information and an alarmist tone to suggest that Venezuela's military spending was a potential threat to regional stability.

Reporter Simon Romero's alarming lead read, "Venezuela's arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America's largest weapons buyer and placing it ahead of other major purchasers in international arms markets like Pakistan and Iran." By putting Venezuela in the company of Pakistan and Iran—whose military programs have attracted global suspicion—the report was clearly intended to stir alarm and frighten readers about Venezuela's military designs.

But there are several problems with this piece. First of all, as the article reveals further down, it was based on information provided by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon has a well-earned credibility problem when it comes to making intelligence claims about the threats posed by official enemies, and the fact that it was the source of the article's assertions should have been mentioned in the lead.

The article also used a confusing and highly misleading measure of arms expenditures. When it uses the phrase "Venezuela's arms spending," it does not mean the amount Venezuela spends on arms, but the amount that it spends buying arms from other countries. If one is interested in the military threat posed by a particular country, its total spending on its military is a more relevant statistic; indeed, all other things being equal, a country that has to buy most of its weapons from overseas might be seen as less of a threat than a country with a large domestic arms industry.

But it's clear why the Defense Intelligence Agency would stress overseas arms purchases as a gauge of Venezuela's military potential: When one looks at the more comprehensive figure of total military spending, Venezuela does not seem to constitute much of a threat at all. In Latin America, according to figures compiled by the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Argentina spends almost twice as much on its military as Venezuela, Colombia spends more than three times as much, and Brazil spends about 12 times as much.

Iran and Pakistan, whose overseas arms purchases the Times compares to Venezuela's, spend much more on their military overall than Venezuela does as well. The United States, as the world's biggest miltary power, has a military budget roughly 500 times the size of Venezuela. None of this crucial context made it into Romero's piece, though the article does note, in the 19th of 26 paragraphs, that Brazil's army is far larger than Venezuela's.

But the article may be inaccurate as well as misleading. Though the article claimed that Venezuela's $4 billion in arms purchases over the last two years eclipsed Pakistan's weapons spending, the Times reported just a few months ago (11/11/06) that Pakistan had "placed a $5 billion order for advanced F-16 jets made by the Lockheed Martin Corporation." Pakistan would seem to have outspent Venezuela on the international arms market in a single deal with the American company. In the February 25 piece, Romero cited an estimate from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency that claimed Pakistan had spent just $3 billion over the past two years, which is obviously at odds with the Times' report from November, which was also based on Pentagon data.

The Times' numbers on Venezuelan military spending don't seem to add up, either. The article reported that Venezuela's total military budget was $1.3 billion in 2004, "the last year for which comparative data were immediately available." (This is slightly more than the figure given by the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.) It also said that Venezuela's overseas arms spending was $4.3 billion over the past two years, and that it was up 12.5 percent in 2006. That would mean the country bought slightly more than $2 billion in weapons abroad in 2005.

Given that Venezuela spends at least some portion of its military budget domestically, this would imply a huge increase in military spending between 2004 and 2005--at least 50 percent, and perhaps more than doubling. Such a remarkable jump is hard to believe, particularly without Romero and his DIA sources calling attention to it, and raises doubts about the credibility of the article's entire premise.

NY TImes reporter who wrote about Hussein WMD now writes about Iran's meddling.

Here we go again! I wonder if some New York TIme's reporters get two paychecks! At least writing misleading or plain wrong articles doesn't seem to result in any sort of penalties. It means that next time the people are to be misled you get the job again.


'NYT' Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims

By Greg Mitchell

Published: February 10, 2007 10:30 PM ET Friday updated Saturday

NEW YORK Saturday's New York Times features an article, posted at the
top of its Web site late Friday, that suggests very strongly that Iran
is supplying the "deadliest weapon aimed at American troops" in Iraq.
The author notes, "Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks
on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile."

What is the source of this volatile information? Nothing less than
"civilian and military officials from a broad range of government
agencies."

Sound pretty convincing? Well, almost all the sources in the story are
unnamed. It also may be worth noting that the author is Michael R.
Gordon, the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith
Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright
inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003
invasion.

Gordon wrote with Miller the paper's most widely criticized -- even by
the Times itself -- WMD story of all, the Sept. 8, 2002, "aluminum
tubes" story that proved so influential, especially since the
administration trumpeted it on TV talk shows.

When the Times eventually carried an editors' note that admitted some
of its Iraq coverage was wrong and/or overblown, it criticized two
Miller-Gordon stories, and noted that the Sept. 8, 2002, article on
page one of the newspaper "gave the first detailed account of the
aluminum tubes. The article cited unidentified senior administration
officials who insisted that the dimensions, specifications and numbers
of tubes sought showed that they were intended for a nuclear weapons
program."

This, of course, proved bogus.

The Times "mea-culpa" story dryly observed: "The article gave no hint
of a debate over the tubes," adding, "The White House did much to
increase the impact of The Times article." This was the famous
"mushroom cloud" over America article.

Gordon also wrote, following Secretary of State Colin Powell's
crucial, and appallingly wrong, speech to the United Nations in 2003
that helped sell the war, that "it will be difficult for skeptics to
argue that Washington's case against Iraq is based on groundless
suspicions and not intelligence information."

Now, more than four years later, Gordon reveals: "The Bush
administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what
intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence
pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from
Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian
office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad." Gordon's unnamed sources
throughout the story are variously described as "Administration
officials," "intelligence experts" and "American intelligence."

Today, in contrast to the Times' report, Dafna Linzer in The
Washington Post simply notes, "Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates said serial numbers and markings on some explosives used in Iraq
indicate that the material came from Iran, but he offered no
evidence."

For some perspective, here is how that "mushroom cloud" Gordon-Miller
story of Sept. 8, 2002, opened:

"More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of
mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons
and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic
bomb, Bush administration officials said today.

"In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially
designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were
intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. American
officials said several efforts to arrange the shipment of the aluminum
tubes were blocked or intercepted but declined to say, citing the
sensitivity of the intelligence, where they came from or how they were
stopped.

"The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the
aluminum tubes had persuaded American intelligence experts that they
were meant for Iraq's nuclear program, officials said, and that the
latest attempt to ship the material had taken place in recent months.

"The attempted purchases are not the only signs of a renewed Iraqi
interest in acquiring nuclear arms. President Hussein has met
repeatedly in recent months with Iraq's top nuclear scientists and,
according to American intelligence, praised their efforts as part of
his campaign against the West.

"Iraq's nuclear program is not Washington's only concern. An Iraqi
defector said Mr. Hussein had also heightened his efforts to develop
new types of chemical weapons. An Iraqi opposition leader also gave
American officials a paper from Iranian intelligence indicating that
Mr. Hussein has authorized regional commanders to use chemical and
biological weapons to put down any Shiite Muslim resistance that might
occur if the United States attacks….

"'The jewel in the crown is nuclear,'' a senior administration
official said. 'The closer he gets to a nuclear capability, the more
credible is his threat to use chemical or biological weapons. Nuclear
weapons are his hole card. The question is not, why now?' the official
added, referring to a potential military campaign to oust Mr. Hussein.
'The question is why waiting is better. The closer Saddam Hussein gets
to a nuclear weapon, the harder he will be to deal with.'

"Hard-liners are alarmed that American intelligence underestimated the
pace and scale of Iraq's nuclear program before Baghdad's defeat in
the gulf war. Conscious of this lapse in the past, they argue that
Washington dare not wait until analysts have found hard evidence that
Mr. Hussein has acquired a nuclear weapon. The first sign of a
'smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud."

Last month, Byron Calame, public editor at The New York Times, and the
paper's Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, agreed that Gordon had
stepped over the journalistic line in a recent TV appearance by
starkly backing the "surge" in Iraq. Gordon had said, "So I think, you
know, as a purely personal view, I think it's worth one last effort
for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we've
never really tried to win. We've simply been managing our way to
defeat."

***

The Washington Post joined in on Sunday in trumpeting the Iran weapons
charge.

Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com

A New York Times report on Arar settlement

You would think that the NEw York Times would at least not get basic details wrong. It sounds as if Arar was just sent from the New YOrk airport to Syria. He was held for days interrogated many times and then tried in an immigration court who found him to be a member of Al Qaeda and then he was flown by the CIA to Jordan and then transported and routinely roughed up on the way to Syria. Syria is mentioned as a place where the rules on torture are more relaxed! That is a nice way of putting it. As Senator Leahy put it the US knew that Arar would be tortured in SYria. By the way Arar was supposed to have legal counsel at the immigration hearing but conveniently the lawyer learned of the hearing only after it was held just as Canadian intelligence authorities found out that Arar was going to Syria only when he was on the plane to Jordan.


Canada apologizes, pays millions to U.S. terror suspect


By IAN AUSTEN
New York Times

OTTAWA — Maher Arar, the Canadian software engineer who was detained by U.S. officials in 2002 and deported to Syria, where he was jailed and regularly tortured, will receive $9.75 million in compensation from the Canadian government, under a settlement announced Friday.

The compensation ends a lawsuit brought by Arar and follows a recommendation from a judicial inquiry that the expulsion to Syria was caused by false assertions by the Canadian police to U.S. officials that Arar was an Islamic extremist linked to al-Qaida.

Arar, traveling on a Canadian passport, was pulled aside by U.S. immigration agents in New York as he changed planes on his way to Ottawa from Tunisia. He was instead flown by private jet to Syria, his birthplace.

The Canadian judicial inquiry cleared Arar of any terrorism connections in 2006, and concluded that anonymous Canadian officials had orchestrated a defamation campaign against him following his return from Syria in October 2003.

As he announced the settlement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a formal apology to Arar, his wife and two children.

"On behalf of the government of Canada, I want to extend a full apology to you and Monia as well as your family for the role played by Canadian officials in the terrible ordeal that you experienced in 2002 and 2003," Harper said in Ottawa.

Arar, whose career was destroyed by the episode and who has suffered emotional problems since returning to Canada, said the government's apology was more important for him than the settlement.

"The government of Canada and the prime minister have acknowledged my innocence," Arar told a separate news conference. "This means the world to me."

"The struggle to clear my name has been long and hard," he said. It has "taught me how important it is to stand up for human rights," he added.

After apologizing, Harper renewed calls for the United States to remove Arar from its terrorist watch list.

"Canada fully understands and appreciates and shares the United States' concerns with regard to security," he said. "However, the Canadian government has every right to go to bat when it believes one of its citizens has been treated unfairly by another government."

Arar's case is an example of "extraordinary rendition," a covert U.S. practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation. Often those countries have more relaxed rules regarding torture.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff have told Canadian officials that Arar is still on the watch list because of information about him obtained independently by U.S. authorities.

After reviewing a confidential file on Arar, Stockwell Day, Canada's public safety minister, said that it contains "nothing new" that justifies blocking Arar from entering the U.S.

This week, David Wilkins, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, publicly rebuked Day. "It's a little presumptuous for him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins said at a news conference in Edmonton, Alberta.