[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, September 26, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
September 26, 2006
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/index.html

Summary:
U.S.
An EU panel has serious doubts about the legality of a Bush
administration program that monitors international financial
transactions, the group's leader said Monday, and plans to recommend
tighter controls to prevent privacy abuses.

The Bush administration successfully pressed for a less restrictive
description of how it could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy
combatants." Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies
said by including those who "supported hostilities" - rather than
those who "engage in acts" against the US - the government intends the
legislation to sanction seizure and indefinite detention of people far
from the battlefield.

The conduct of the Iraq war fueled Islamic fundamentalism and created
more enemies for the US, a retired U.S. Army general who served in the
conflict said Monday.

The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from
Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of
activity in Iraq plus other global commitments without billions in
additional funding, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

55 per cent of US respondents believe the situation in Iraq was not
worth going to war over, according to a poll by Bloomberg and the Los
Angeles Times. 63 per cent of respondents believe neither side is
winning the war.

Iran
U.S. Secretary of State Rice said she did not support a gasoline
embargo on Iran as a way of punishing Tehran for refusing to give up
its uranium enrichment program. "I'm not sure that it would have the
desired effect,'' she said. "You want to stay away from things that
have a bad effect on the Iranian people to the degree that you can,''
she said. The comments appear to represent a more enlightened position
on the question of the impact of sanctions on civilians than the views
expressed by US officials during the Clinton Administration regarding
sanctions on Iraq.

Iran is close to a deal that would include a temporary suspension of
uranium enrichment and clear the way for nuclear talks but Tehran
wants to keep the agreement secret, the Washington Times reported
Tuesday. The leaking of the information by a Bush Administration
official raises questions about the motivations of the official and
whether European officials should be more circumspect in sharing
information with their US counterparts.

Russia will ship fuel to a controversial atomic power plant it is
building in Iran by March under a deal signed Tuesday, news agencies
reported.

Lebanon
Up to a million unexploded cluster bomblets are now the biggest threat
to civilians in south Lebanon, U.N. agencies said Tuesday. Fourteen
people have been killed and 90 wounded by unexploded ordnance since
the end of the war, with all the fatalities and most of the injuries
caused by cluster munitions. The U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center
said Israel had yet to provide detailed information on the amounts of
cluster bombs fired or the coordinates of the strikes.

Israel and an international peacekeeping force have yet to agree on
rules of engagement in south Lebanon that would enable Israeli troops
to complete a planned pullout, Israeli Defense Minister Peretz said
Tuesday. Peretz's comments seemed to suggest a full withdrawal would
take place by the start of the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, at
sundown Sunday.

Pakistan
The CIA paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than
350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the US, Pakistani President
Musharraf has reportedly said. The assertions come in the military
ruler's upcoming memoir "In the Line of Fire." Such payments are
banned by the US government. A Department of Justice official said:
"We didn't know about this. It should not happen. These bounty
payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on
the FBI's most wanted list, not foreign governments."

Thailand
Last week was not the first time Thailand's monarch had given his
blessing to a military takeover. A new history of the modern Thai
monarchy argues that in his 60-year reign King Bhumibol Adulyadej has
put the preservation of the monarchy ahead of a democratic Thailand.
The book, "The King Never Smiles," challenges years of royal
image-making that projects a king beyond politics, a man of peace,
good works and Buddhist humility.

Bolivia
Many Bolivians had hoped the election of Morales as president would
end the instability marked by seven presidents in six years, the New
York Times reports.  But nine months into his term, Morales seems
beset on all sides. The president is now being portrayed by some
former supporters as a lackey of foreign interests and the country's
light-skinned elite. Meanwhile, the president faces unrest in eastern
provinces, where the elite of mostly European descent are pushing for
more autonomy.

Contents:
U.S.
1) Europe Panel Faults Sifting of Bank Data
Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, September 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/us/26swift.html
An EU panel has serious doubts about the legality of a Bush
administration program that monitors international financial
transactions, the group's leader said Monday, and plans to recommend
tighter controls to prevent privacy abuses. "We don't see the legal
basis under the European law, and we see the need for some changes,"
said Peter Schaar, a German official who leads the panel. The group is
to deliver a report this week, and Schaar said he expected it to
conclude that the program might violate European law restricting
government access to confidential banking records.

The program allows analysts from the CIA and other American
intelligence agencies to search for possible terrorist financing
activity among millions of largely international financial
transactions that are processed by a banking cooperative known as
Swift. The EU panel will not call for the program to be stopped,
officials said. But it is expected to recommend that additional
safeguards be put in place to check how financial records are shared
with American intelligence officials.

2) Detainee Measure to Have Fewer Restrictions
White House Reaches Accord With Lawmakers
R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, Tuesday, September 26, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501514.html
Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed over the weekend to
alter new legislation on military commissions to allow the US to
detain and try a wider range of foreign nationals than an earlier
version of the bill permitted. Lawmakers and administration officials
announced last week that they had reached accord on the plan for the
detention and military trials of suspected terrorists; it is scheduled
for a vote this week. But in recent days the Bush administration and
its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive
description of how the government could designate civilians as
"unlawful enemy combatants," sources said.

The government has maintained that anyone it labels an unlawful enemy
combatant can be held indefinitely at military or CIA prisons. But
Congress has not yet expressed its view on who is an unlawful
combatant, and the Supreme Court has not ruled directly on the matter.
Human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in
the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional
endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill
states, "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and
materially supported hostilities against the US" or its military
allies.

The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the US
and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as
an unlawful combatant. It is broader than that in last week's version
of the bill, which resulted from lengthy negotiations between senior
administration officials and dissident Republican senators. That
version incorporated a definition backed by Senate dissidents: those
"engaged in hostilities against the US." The new provision, which
would cover captives held by the CIA, is more expansive than the one
incorporated by the Defense Department on Sept. 5 in new rules that
govern the treatment of detainees in military custody. The military's
definition of unlawful combatants covers only "those who engage in
acts against the US or its coalition partners in violation of the laws
of war and customs of war during an armed conflict."

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies,
said that by including those who "supported hostilities" - rather than
those who "engage in acts" against the US - the government intends the
legislation to sanction its seizure and indefinite detention of people
far from the battlefield.

3) Iraq war fuels Islamic radicals: retired U.S. general
Susan Cornwell, Reuters, Monday, September 25, 2006; 11:29 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500584.html
The conduct of the Iraq war fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the
globe and created more enemies for the US, a retired U.S. Army general
who served in the conflict said on Monday. The views of retired Army
Maj. Gen. John Batiste buttressed an assessment by U.S. intelligence
agencies, which intelligence officials said concluded the war had
inspired Islamist extremists and made the militant movement more
dangerous.

The Iraq conflict made "America arguably less safe now than it was on
September 11, 2001," Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division
in Iraq in 2004-2005, told a hearing on the war called by Senate
Democrats. "If we had seriously laid out and considered the full range
of requirements for the war in Iraq, we would likely have taken a
different course of action that would have maintained a clear focus on
our main effort in Afghanistan, not fueled Islamic fundamentalism
across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were
insurgents," Batiste said.

4) Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short
Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2006
An extraordinary action by the chief of staff sends a message: The
Pentagon must increase the budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and
elsewhere.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-military25sep25,1,7451974.story
The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from
Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of
activity in Iraq plus other global commitments without billions in
additional funding. The decision by Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief
of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread
belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop
withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely
reworked. "This is unusual, but hell, we're in unusual times," said a
senior Pentagon official.

Schoomaker failed to submit the budget plan by an Aug. 15 deadline.
The protest followed a series of cuts in the service's funding
requests by both the White House and Congress over the last four
months. According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks,
Schoomaker is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion
above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army's budget this
year is $98.2 billion, making Schoomaker's request a 41% increase over
current levels. "It's incredibly huge," said the Army official.

Most funding for fighting in Iraq has come from annual emergency
spending bills, with the regular defense budget going to normal
personnel, procurement and operational expenses, such as salaries and
new weapons systems. About $400 billion has been appropriated for the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars through emergency funding measures. But in
recent budget negotiations, Army officials argued that the service's
expanding global role in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism as well as
fast-growing personnel and equipment costs tied to the Iraq war, have
put intense pressure on its normal budget.


The Army, with an active-duty force of 504,000, has been stretched by
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. About 400,000 have done at least one
tour of combat duty, and more than a third of those have been deployed
twice. Commanders have increasingly complained of the strain, saying
last week that sustaining current levels will require more help from
the National Guard and Reserve or an increase in the active-duty
force.

5) Americans Remain Upset with Iraq War
Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
September 25, 2006
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13276
Many adults in the US believe their government was wrong in launching
the coalition effort, according to a poll by Bloomberg and the Los
Angeles Times. 55 per cent of respondents believe the situation in
Iraq was not worth going to war over. At least 2,695 American soldiers
have died during the military operation, and more than 20,300 troops
have been wounded in action. 63 per cent of respondents believe
neither side is winning the war in Iraq.

Iran
6) Rice Says She Would Not Back Gas Embargo on Iran
Reuters, Filed at 1:44 a.m. ET, September 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-nuclear-iran-rice.html
U.S. Secretary of State Rice said she did not support a gasoline
embargo on Iran as a way of punishing Tehran for refusing to give up
its uranium enrichment program. In an interview for publication in the
Wall Street Journal Tuesday, Rice said there were "limitations on the
oil card'' against Iran. "I don't think that it was anything that you
have to look at it in the near term and I'm not sure that it would
have the desired effect,'' she said. Such a move would serve merely to
reinforce the Iranian leadership's desire to make the local population
feel that America was against the Iranian people, she said. "You want
to stay away from things that have a bad effect on the Iranian people
to the degree that you can,'' she said. ''That's something we really
do have to fight against and some believe a gasoline embargo might
play into that.'' [If Rice's comments are sincere, rather than, say,
merely a cover for the fact that US allies are extremely unlikely to
agree to a gas embargo anyway, they represent a far more enlightened
view on this question than that expressed by Secretary Albright during
the Clinton Administration concerning the crippling sanctions on Iraq,
widely credited with the deaths of many thousands of Iraqi children
from malnutrition and disease. Credit where credit is due -JFP.]

7) EU, Iran Close to Deal for Nuclear Talks: Report
Reuters, September 26, 2006, Filed at 8:56 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-iran-talks.html
Iran is close to a deal that would include a temporary suspension of
uranium enrichment and clear the way for nuclear talks but Tehran
wants to keep the agreement secret, the Washington Times reported
Tuesday. The deal could be completed Tuesday or Wednesday when EU
foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani
meet in Europe, the report said, citing Bush administration officials.
The report said Iran had agreed to suspend uranium enrichment for 90
days so additional talks could be held with European states. But an
Iranian nuclear official was quoted by an Iranian news agency denying
such suspension plans. A spokeswoman for Solana said he had no plans
to meet Larijani on Tuesday. [If the report is true, one wonders at
the motivation of the Bush Administration official who leaked the
report, since the leak might scuttle the deal. This raises a question
of whether it is wise for European officials to share too much
information with their US counterparts, since there is clearly a
faction in the Bush Administration that wants to sabotage a negotiated
settlement - JFP.]


8) Report: Russian Fuel Going to Iran Plant
Mike Eckel, Associated Press, Tuesday, September 26, 2006; 9:46 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092600501.html
Russia will ship fuel to a controversial atomic power plant it is
building in Iran by March under a deal signed Tuesday, news agencies
reported. The agreement should allay Iran's complaints that Moscow is
dragging its feet on supplying fuel for the Bushehr plant. It will
also renew concerns by the West, which accuses Tehran of seeking to
enrich uranium in order to build nuclear weapons.

Lebanon
9) Unexploded Bomblets Hinder S. Lebanon Recovery: U.N.
Reuters, September 26, 2006, Filed at 8:04 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-lebanon-bombs.html
Up to a million unexploded cluster bomblets are now the biggest threat
to civilians in south Lebanon, where they litter streets, homes and
orchards, U.N. agencies said Tuesday. Fourteen people have been killed
and 90 wounded by unexploded ordnance since the end of the war, with
all the fatalities and most of the injuries caused by cluster
munitions, the U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center said.

The Lebanese Army, UN peacekeepers, and the U.N. Mine Action
Coordination Center have cleared almost 40,000 unexploded cluster
bomblets, but up to a million more remain. With an estimated 12-15
months needed to clear the south of cluster bomblets, they pose mortal
danger to displaced civilians returning to their villages after the
34-day war, the U.N. said. Chris Clark of the U.N. Mine Action
Coordination Center said Israel had also yet to provide detailed
information on the amounts of cluster bombs fired or the coordinates
of the strikes, which would help munitions clearance teams identify
the main areas on which to focus their efforts.

UNHCR said some 200,000 Lebanese remained displaced, their return home
slowed by the destruction of their houses and by unexploded bomblets.
With winter coming up and most people in the south relying on
agriculture for their main source of income, UNHCR is concerned that
farmers will be unable to return to their fields, robbing them of
their livelihood, or will face a deadly threat if they do as rain
sinks the bomblets into the soil.

10) Israel Seeks Rules of Engagement Before Lebanon Exit
Reuters, September 26, 2006, Filed at 6:37 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-peretz.html
Israel and an international peacekeeping force have yet to agree on
rules of engagement in south Lebanon that would enable Israeli troops
to complete a planned pullout, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said
Tuesday.  "There are arrangements, negotiations (and) deliberations
which we intend to complete in order to set the rules - what is
permitted and what is forbidden - from the moment we're sitting on the
blue line (the international border),'' he said. Israeli military
affairs commentators interpreted his comments as referring to rules
governing when force could be used against Lebanese Hizbollah
guerrillas after Israeli soldiers return to Israeli soil. Peretz's
comments seemed to suggest a full withdrawal would take place by the
start of the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, at sundown on
Sunday.

Pakistan
11) CIA Paid Pakistan for al-Qaeda Suspects: Musharraf
David Espo, Agence France Presse, Monday, September 25, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0925-03.htm
The CIA paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than
350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the US, Pakistani President
Musharraf has reportedly said. The assertions come in the military
ruler's upcoming memoir "In the Line of Fire," serialized in The Times
newspaper. Musharraf does not reveal how much Pakistan was paid for
the 369 Al-Qaeda suspects he ordered should be handed over to the US,
the newspaper said, noting, however, that such payments are banned by
the US government. In response a US Department of Justice official was
quoted as saying: "We didn't know about this. It should not happen.
These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace
terrorists on the FBI's most wanted list, not foreign governments."

Thailand
12) A Banned Book Challenges Saintly Image of Thai King
Jane Perlez, New York Times, September 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/world/asia/25thailand.html
When soldiers and tanks rolled onto the streets of Bangkok last week
and the king appeared on television with the generals, it was not the
first time Thailand's monarch had given his blessing to a military
takeover. A new history of the modern Thai monarchy, banned in
Thailand, by journalist Paul Handley, argues that in his 60-year reign
King Bhumibol Adulyadej has generally exercised a preference for order
over democracy. Handley said the king has put the preservation of the
institution of the monarchy ahead of a democratic Thailand. The book,
"The King Never Smiles," presents a direct counterpoint to years of
royal image-making that projects a king beyond politics, a man of
peace, good works and Buddhist humility. The book's publisher, Yale
University Press, said it came under heavy pressure from the Thai
government not to publish it.

Bolivia
13) Bolivian Leaders Find Their Promises Are Hard to Keep
Simon Romero, New York Times, September 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/world/americas/26bolivia.html
Vice President Álvaro García Linera could not have been more explicit
in a fiery speech last week calling on Bolivia's indigenous groups to
defend the government "with your chest, with your hand, with your
Mauser." García Linera, an urbane sociologist normally known for his
moderating influence, promptly apologized and said his comments had
been misinterpreted. But his remarks underlined the tension that is
once again threatening to tip this nation into turmoil.

Many Bolivians had hoped that the election of Morales as president
would put an end to the instability marked by seven presidents in six
years and angry protests by the country's indigenous majority, who had
been sidelined from power since Spanish rule. The country's first
indigenous president, Morales promised to end what he had called the
looting of the country's natural resources by foreign companies.

But nine months into his term, Morales seems beset on all sides as the
realities of governing have pulled him closer to the center. The
president is now being portrayed by some former supporters as a lackey
of foreign interests and the country's light-skinned elite. His
popularity rating, though still high, has taken a hit, dropping to 61
percent from 81 percent in recent months. A line scribbled on a
building near the headquarters of the national energy company captured
the disillusionment. "Evo, traitor," it reads, "don't give away
Bolivia's gas."

Meanwhile, the president faces fresh unrest in the eastern provinces,
where the elite of mostly European descent have been unnerved by his
election and are pushing for more autonomy. Groups in Santa Cruz and
neighboring provinces have been chafing at efforts to rewrite
Bolivia's Constitution in an assembly that would give Morales's
supporters more decision-making power. They have also been wary of
plans to build two new military bases, with financing from Venezuela,
a move seen as a way to increase the government's authority in the
region.

Morales's supporters want the president to stick to the promises that
got him elected, among them liberalizing laws on coca cultivation and
spreading wealth toward the poor. Yet, despite militant talk,
officials in the government seem to have arrived at a recognition that
Bolivia must cooperate with the very investors and lending
organizations that are despised symbols of foreign influence among
many of Morales's supporters.

Nowhere is this contradiction more vivid than in Morales's most
ambitious project, the nationalization of Bolivia's energy resources.
The government has recently backtracked on several key measures,
ceding ground to Brazilian and European energy companies. Morales's
negotiators have temporarily reversed a move to take control of
Bolivia's two main oil refineries from Brazil's state-run energy
company, Petrobras, and have failed to provide regulations so the
nationalization can move forward. The government has about a month
left to act on the nationalization decree issued in May before it
expires.

The government also overrode a move this month by its energy minister
to exert almost total control over extraction of oil and natural gas
reserves. Adding to the disarray, the minister, Andrés Soliz, angrily
resigned and was replaced by the more moderate Carlos Villegas.
Morales, an Aymara Indian and former coca farmer, has largely left
carrying out the nationalization and other economic projects to
subordinates as he seeks to maintain a revolutionary image.

García Linera, the vice president, has emerged as a key intermediary
between the government and investors. García Linera reached out to the
US in a trip to Washington in July, attempting to win support for
renewing trade preferences from the Bush administration. To soothe
tension between the government and business interests in Santa Cruz,
capital of the eastern province, García Linera brokered an agreement
last week with regional political leaders to avert a full blockade of
roads into the city.

One graphic symbol of the dislike many Cruceños, as the people of
Santa Cruz are called, harbor for Morales is in the form of a
photomontage some people there have downloaded to their cellphones. It
shows the words "Viva Santa Cruz" written above an image of the
president with a gunshot wound. Such examples of polarization have
arisen in response to radical proposals discussed in the constituent
assembly, like changing the country's name to Qollasuyo, an indigenous
word invoking the Inca empire. These ideas contrast with quiet efforts
by Morales' government to lure foreign investment and improve ties to
lending institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.

Meanwhile, recognition that Bolivia is dependent on Brazil, the
largest buyer of its natural gas, is encouraging a much softer
nationalization stance. Villegas, the new energy minister, said in an
interview, "We want a rational redistribution of petroleum income in
the country, while also telling foreign companies that we want them to
profit."

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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy so that it reflects the values and interests of
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