20 August 2006

Three Iranian factories 'mass-produce bombs to kill British in Iraq'

Three factories in Iran are mass-producing the sophisticated roadside bombs used to kill British soldiers over the border in Iraq, it has been claimed.

The lethal bombs are being made by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at ordnance factory sites in Teheran, according to opponents of the country's theocratic regime.

Designed to penetrate heavy armour, the devices being manufactured in Iran involve the use of "explosively formed projectiles" or EFPs, also known as shaped charges, often triggered by infra-red beams.

The weapons can pierce the armour of British and American tanks and armoured personnel carriers and completely destroy armoured Land Rovers, which are used by the majority of British troops on operations in Iraq.

In April, The Sunday Telegraph revealed in April that Iranian-made devices employing several EFPs, directed at different angles, were being used in Iraq.

British Government scientists have already established that the mines are precision-made weapons thought to have been turned on a lathe by craftsmen trained in the manufacture of munitions.

Members of the Washington-based Iran Policy Committee have released the details about the three bomb factories gathered by the exile group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI).

Iranians working for the NCRI pinpointed the facilities at three industrial sections called Sattari, Sayad Shirazi and Shiroodi. The factories are in the Lavizan neighbourhood in northern Teheran which is controlled by the country's defence ministry. The Sattari Industry specialises in anti-tank mines and operates under the aegis of the IRGC's al-Quds or Jerusalem Force.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former spokesman for the NCRI who in 2002 revealed the existence of two Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak, said the devices were smuggled to Iraq via Iran's Shalamcheh border region.

"These sites are close to a military site, known as Lavizan 2, that is now being used for Iran's nuclear programme. It shows there is a high level of co-ordination by the Iranian regime, which wants to destabilise Iraq to make way for an Islamic Republic.

"This is not a ragtag workshop in some remote area. These sites are within an area that is one of the most sanitised parts of Teheran which is controlled by the Iranian Defence Ministry."

He added that NCRI sources reported the movement of EFP devices from Teheran into Iraq as recently as June and that supplies of the devices, which began last year, had been stepped up in recent months.

The infra-red triggering mechanism for roadside bombs was perfected by Hezbollah, under Iranian tutelage, against Israeli forces in the 1990s. Mr Jafarzadeh said that in recent weeks Iran had facilitated the movement of cash from Shia groups in Iraq to Hezbollah.

Brig James Dutton, then the commander of British forces in southern Iraq, revealed last November that EFPs had led to a marked increase in the lethality of attacks. He said the "technology certainly, and probably the equipment is coming through Iran". He added: "They come in various grades, these EFP improvised explosive devices, from those that could be made in a relatively simple workshop to those that would require a reasonably sophisticated factory."

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former IRGC commander and the man believed by Western intelligence agencies to be in charge of Iranian operations in Iraq, was asked in an interview with CBS television why Iran would furnish roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents.

13 August 2006

UNfit for purpose

Kofi Annan castigated Security Council diplomats for taking so long to reach a resolution on Lebanon, but the United Nations itself is not above criticism

By Toby Harnden in Washington

Beneath a garish Norwegian mural depicting a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, addressed the weary diplomats who had been smiling and congratulating each other. Their grins froze as the Ghanaian began not by hailing the Security Council's achievement in securing a resolution on the Middle East crisis, but by admonishing them about the "dangers of allowing problems to fester'' too long.

"I would be remiss if I did not tell you how profoundly disappointed I am that the council did not reach this point much, much earlier,'' Mr Annan said. "All members of this council must be aware that this inability to act sooner has badly shaken the world's faith in its authority and integrity.''

Mr Annan is right: if ever there was a time for a decisive UN role, it is now. Supporters claim that the organisation's peacekeeping duties - some 70,000 troops deployed in 17 missions at a cost of approximately $5 billion a year - have led to a decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuses over the past decade.

Its many critics, however, point to a long and growing list of failures, including not preventing the 1994 Rwandan genocide; not effectively intervening in the fighting in the Congo from 1998 to 2002, which left five million dead; not stopping the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, despite having designated the area a ''safe haven'' for refugees and assigning Dutch soldiers to protect it; and not successfully delivering food to the starving in Somalia in the early 1990s.

The UN's impotence was enhanced by its oil-for-food programme in Iraq, from which Saddam Hussein stole billions of dollars, and from which a Swiss company which had employed Kofi Annan's son profited. Its reputation has been further tarnished by UN peacekeepers sexually abusing and exploiting girls as young as eight in at least five countries, including Congo, Haiti and Liberia.

Lebanon is the UN's latest chance to prove it is not entirely ineffective. The prospects for success, however, are not good. Running to six pages, UN Resolution 1701 outlines, in tortuous detail, a Heath Robinson apparatus for solving the conflict that erupted more than a month ago when Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others. "I can't pretend it is other than very complex,'' said Sir Emyr Jones Parry, the British ambassador to the UN. Boiled down, the resolution envisages 15,000 Lebanese Army troops, supplemented by 15,000 soldiers from a beefed-up and expanded UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), occupying a buffer zone in the south of the country. Simultaneously, Israeli troops would withdraw, a ceasefire would be declared and the Lebanese force, supported by Unifil, would oversee the disarmament of Hezbollah. Unfortunately, Hezbollah has given no indication that it intends to disarm, and neither the ineffectual Lebanese Army - poorly trained and equipped - or the Beirut government has shown that it has the will to compel it to.

In the meantime, the resolution forbids Israel only from mounting "offensive'' military operations - leaving room for interpretation if it views Hezbollah, sponsored by Iran and Syria, preparing for further violence. A central Israeli calculation in backing the resolution is that Hezbollah will not abide by it.

History may support that view. Security Council resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, also called on Lebanon to establish its sovereignty over all of its land and to disarm Hezbollah, overseen by a Unifil force of nearly 2,000. If the UN had ensured compliance in the past two years, Hezbollah attacks on Israel would have ended and the slaughter of the past month avoided. Instead, the non-compliance was ignored, and the UN's soldiers stood by as Hezbollah guerrillas set up and fired rockets into Israel from next to UN posts.

It is little wonder that many observers of Mr Annan's Friday night lecture to the Security Council about its credibility considered it to be belated and somewhat ironic. Secretary General since 1996, he is associated with some of the most ignominious episodes in the organisation's 61-year history. Paul Volcker, investigating the oil-for-food scandal after Saddam's fall, said Mr Annan had "not been exonerated by any stretch of the imagination''. And, on the eve of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when Hutus hacked to death 800,000 Tutsis, it was Mr Annan, then head of UN peacekeeping, who pulled out half of the UN's forces.

Mr Annan also stood by as the UN Human Rights Commission was headed by countries such as Libya, where torture was pervasive and its notorious People's Courts dispatched political opponents to death. The commission was last year turned into a council and Libya, along with Sudan and Zimbabwe, were removed. But China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia were allowed on the council - which was promptly boycotted by America. The US has also balked at a $1.6 billion plan to upgrade the UN's New York headquarters. America, which provides 22 per cent of the UN's annual budget of $1.3 billion, remains deeply suspicious of the organisation. Pedro Sanjuan, who worked as a US official there for a decade, said a strong UN would be in American interests, but that moves towards reform were always "tons of verbiage amounting to nothing''. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, once remarked that the UN secretariat could lose 10 of its 39 storeys and no one would notice any difference.

Without reform, some believe alternatives should be looked at. Kim Holmes, a US assistant secretary of state until last year, is in favour of promoting the Council of Democracies, launched in 2000 with a membership of 106 democratic governments. "It would be good if the UN had some competition,'' he said.

Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, is resigned to it remaining, but contemptuous of its role. "I don't see its building being turned into condominiums. I don't believe in reforming the UN. I believe in going around it.''

Joshua Muravchik, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, which is close to the Bush Administration, views Mr Annan as a "strident partisan'' and the UN as a "tawdry organisation'', but said that it could still be a useful forum for diplomacy. As it stands, the UN was, he said, constantly undermined by endemic "anti-Israel agitation'' in the 192-member General Assembly because of the influence that the Arab-Muslim bloc wields. "As a player in its own right, the UN is weak and discredited,'' he said.

Resolution 1701 may provide further ammunition for this view. The expanded Unifil force, likely to be French-led, falls short of the US and Israeli proposal for up to 20,000 troops with powers to enforce the disarmament of Hezbollah. The expansion of Unifil from its current 1,991 men could take weeks and it may well turn out to be unable to provide the backbone that the Lebanese Army, whose ranks contain many Hezbollah supporters, needs.

There is also the danger of a direct conflict with Hezbollah, which may subvert the resolution. Memories still linger of the 1983 suicide bombings, when Hezbollah killed 241 US servicemen and 58 French paratroopers stationed in Beirut to maintain security. Since Unifil first deployed in Lebanon in 1978, 250 of its troops have been killed.

Under the new resolution, Mr Annan must negotiate the timing of a ceasefire, broker a deal over the disputed Shebaa Farms sliver of land, and oversee a "long-term solution'' agreed by Lebanon and Israel. It is a tall order, although Mr Annan perhaps hopes that the mission will crown his long UN career as it edges towards a close at the end of this year.

While Mr Annan's reputation might be on the line, for UN troops on the ground the stakes are much higher. Their plight was illustrated two weeks ago, when four Unifil soldiers were killed by an Israeli air strike at their isolated Patrol Base Khiam. Unarmed and hiding in their bunkers, the "observers'' had been unable to observe anything or take any action to defend themselves or civilians.

Overlooking the Blue Line border between Lebanon and Israel, the two lieutenant colonels from China and Finland and two majors from Canada and Austria had become increasingly frantic as Israeli bombs landed closer and closer. They logged 21 explosions nearby, 12 of them within 100 yards and five actually hitting the base area, and radioed an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) liaison officer south of the border, urging a ceasefire. Then came the direct hit.

Mr Annan said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces''. Israel protested that the four deaths were "accidental'', but was globally condemned.

Then new information emerged. A week before his death, Major Hess von Krudener, 44, the Canadian, had sent a group email back home describing exactly what had been happening at Khiam. Situated on a ridge with commanding views, he could see IDF positions on the Golan Heights, he said, as well as "most of the Hezbollah static positions in and around our patrol base''. The "lion's share of fighting'' had taken place in the vicinity and it was so dangerous that UN patrolling had ceased.

He reported that "the closest artillery has landed within two metres of our position'', but he did not blame the Israelis. "This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity. Please understand the nature of my job here is to be impartial and to report violations from both sides without bias. As an Unarmed Military Observer, this is my raison d'être.''

Major Gen Lewis MacKenzie, a distinguished Canadian soldier and one of the email recipients, said that Major von Krudener was using veiled language: "What he is saying translates roughly as: 'We have Hezbollah fighters all over our position engaging the IDF and using us as shields.' ''

Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, demanded to know why the post was attacked but also, pointedly, "why it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war''. Despite ordnance having landed around the position for more than a week, it took a catastrophe to prompt the UN to withdraw its forces from the area.

This sorry episode encapsulates the almost impossible position in which the United Nations finds itself in the Lebanon conflict, caught between all sides - and falling tragically short of the noble expectations of its founders in 1945, who set it up to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war''.

6 August 2006

ANALYSIS: UN draft gladdens Israelis but sinks Beirut in gloom

By Toby Harnden in Washington

THE DRAFT United Nations Security Council resolution hammered out by American, French and British officials yesterday ingeniously papered over diplomatic fissures but did little to bridge the chasm between the warring parties in Lebanon.

Despite the clamour in Europe and most of the Middle East for an immediate end to the violence, and the rapid deployment of an international force, what John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, described as a "fusion text'' guaranteed neither.

All the difficult questions - or decisions on "principles'' - were postponed until a second resolution following agreement "in principle to the principles'' by Lebanon and Israel. A Western diplomat involved in the negotiations conceded that this could take weeks.

Only after a second resolution is adopted will an international force be sent to Lebanon. In the meantime, although the resolution called for a "full cessation of hostilities'' it binds Israel only to refrain from "offensive military operations''. This phrase is open to wide interpretation, and Israeli officials were already arguing yesterday that it permitted its forces to bomb Hezbollah rocket sites or supply lines if surveillance indicated preparations for attack.

Isaac Herzog, the Israeli tourism minister, welcomed the agreement as an "important development'' that had a "lot in there'', but he added: "We still have the coming days for many military missions.''

After the deaths of dozens of civilians, mainly children, at Qana last weekend, the Israelis agreed to a 48-hour cessation of its air campaign. It seemed a turning point, but the bombing continued almost unabated.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, is due to report back to the world body a week after the resolution is adopted, which could be as early as tomorrow, with an assessment of whether Hezbollah and Israel are complying with its terms.

In Beirut yesterday, there was near dejection at the draft. Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister, described it as "an inadequate text'' that did not address "fundamental issues'' such as the presence of Israeli troops in the south of his country. Hezbollah all but rejected the document out of hand solely on that issue, vowing to continue the fighting until Israel's forces left. "If they stay, we will not abide by it [the resolution],'' said Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese cabinet.

The problem underlying the resolution is that the main international players as well as both parties to the conflict want something different from it. In Washington, American officials have been frank about their desire to limit the influence of Iran in Lebanon and prevent Teheran's support of Hezbollah enhancing its prestige across the region.

The US shares with Israel a desire to see the destruction of Hezbollah and regards this long-term goal as a higher priority than a short-term end to the killing in Lebanon.

France is likely to be the lead element in any international force and is, therefore, reluctant to send in its troops where dangers are unknown and duties ill-defined. In particular, it does not want to have to disarm Hezbollah. Lebanon's weak and divided government wants a timetable for a rapid end to the humiliating presence of Israeli troops on its soil. Iran and Syria, waiting in the wings, are determined to keep their influence through Hezbollah which, for its part, wants to maintain the impression that it is the David who stood up to the Israeli Goliath - and lived to fight another day.

The draft resolution called for the "unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers'' while only being "mindful of the sensitivity'' - diplomat-speak for absolutely nothing - of the issue of Lebanese prisoners in Israel.

Even if the terms for sending an international force into Lebanon are agreed, the history of such ventures is not auspicious. In 1978, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) arrived for what was intended to be a short mission to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli troops after cross-border raids by Palestinian fighters.

Unifil is still in the country, a beleaguered band of 2,000 soldiers with observer status. In the intervening 28 years, 249 Unifil peacekeepers have died and the dispute they were sent to help resolve rages on.

Since the latest conflict began three weeks ago, Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to Washington, has been in constant communication with the White House, Pentagon and State Department. In contrast, Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador and someone the Clinton administration might have viewed as a key figure, has had no contact at all with US officials. Indeed, one former military officer who advises the Bush administration described Mr Moustapha as a "s***head; a son of a bitch'' to The Sunday Telegraph.

Yesterday's draft resolution was couched in altogether more emollient language, but that did not alter the fact that President Bush - and by extension Tony Blair - views Hezbollah and its state sponsors as, to use the Texan parlance, the "evildoers'' and Israel the "good guys''.

The reaction in Beirut, not just from Hezbollah but also from the moderate Mr Siniora, indicated that such a black-and-white approach might make agreement on the ground all the more elusive.

6 August 2006

Iran admits it gave Hezbollah missiles to strike all Israel

By TOBY HARNDEN in Washington

AN IRANIAN MP who helped found the Hezbollah terrorist group has confirmed for the first time that Teheran has equipped it with long-range missiles capable of hitting "any target in Israel''.

In a potentially ominous development that could lead to a further escalation of the conflict, the theocratic regime also gave implicit authorisation for the Lebanese guerilla group to strike Tel Aviv with the Zelzal-2 missiles, manufactured in Teheran.

"There are countries that have weapons but don't have the courage to use them,'' said Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran's former ambassador to Damascus, who holds a government-appointed post as secretary-general to the Palestinian uprising (intifada) conference.

"Hezbollah's arsenal not only includes Katyusha missiles, but also Zelzal-2 missiles, which could hit targets as far as 160 miles (250 km), leaving no spot in Israel unreachable.''

Residents of Tel Aviv have begun preparing bomb shelters for use after last week's threat by Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to target Israel's largest city.

Mohtashemi-Pur, who made his comments in an interview with the Iranian newspaper Sharq (East), helped launch Hezbollah while he was based in Syria in the 1980s.

US intelligence officials suspect he helped plan the bombing by Hezbollah of the US Marines barracks in Beirut on October 23, 1983, in which 241 servicemen died.

Israeli forces have been desperately attempting to destroy Hezbollah's longer-range arsenal, including the Zelzal missiles and launchers, before the weapons are deployed.

Intelligence officials believe one reason why Hezbollah has not yet fired a Zelzal missile into Israel is that it needs a green light from Iran and Syria before any action that could turn the conflict into full-scale regional war.

According to Western and Israeli intelligence agencies, Zelzals and Fajr-3s - with a range of 25 miles - are manufactured by Iran's Aerospace Industries Organisation at its Shahid Bagheri Industries facility in Teheran. Hezbollah also has a small number of Fajr-5s, with a range of 45 miles.

Nasrallah said the group had about 12,000 rockets and missiles when hostilities began on July 12. "We can take him at his word,'' said David Schenker, a former Pentagon official now at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy.

More than 10,000 are believed to be Katyusha rockets with a range of just 12 miles, whose use against Israeli civilians would be prevented if Israel can carve a deep enough buffer zone in southern Lebanon. About 120 Fajr-3s and Fajr-5s are also thought to have been supplied, mostly by air to Damascus, from where they were taken overland to southern Lebanon.

A senior Israeli security source said most of the weapons were funnelled through Camp Zabadani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base in Syria located close to the Lebanese border.

" Israel has known about these shipments for years but decided not to intervene because it didn't want to open another front. We were also preoccupied with the Palestinian intifada and people believed that if there was a political solution the Katyushas would just rust.''

Israel believes that the IRGC, formed to safeguard the 1979 Islamic revolution and counterbalance the regular Iranian army, has dispatched troops to Lebanon to assist Hezbollah. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has promised unstinting support for Hezbollah. "The main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime,'' he said last week.

6 August 2006

Lebanese forces accused of assisting in guerrilla rocket attack on Israeli ship

By Toby Harnden in Washington

THE LEBANESE Armed Forces, due to be trained and equipped by the United States to help enforce stability in the country, have assisted Hizbollah in an attack on Israeli forces, according to Israeli officials.

A senior Israeli security source told The Sunday Telegraph that an Iranian-made C-802 missile, based on the Chinese Silkworm, which hit an Israeli vessel on July 12 th was guided by a shore-based Lebanese Navy radar.

American officials believe the LAF has been complicit in allowing arms shipments from Iran into Lebanon and that the large number of Shia among its ranks has led to it being infiltrated by Hezbollah.

“The officer corps of the LAF is representative of the Lebanese population,” said David Schenker, the Pentagon official responsible for the Levant region until March.

“But the enlisted guys are largely Shia and many of them are highly sympathetic with what Hezbollah is doing.”

He said that the alleged use of an LAF radar to attack an Israeli ship was a disturbing development. “The question is whether this was a decision from the top or whether it was some sort of rogue elements, which is possible.

“If it was the result of orders from Gen Michael Suleiman [head of the LAF] then that means the whole military is sympathetic to Hezbollah. If it was a rogue couple of people manning the radar then that would mean a lack of discipline. Either way, it’s a problem.”

The alleged involvement of the LAF in an attack against Israeli forces complicates the proposed US mission, announced on Thursday, to train and equip the organisation.

Gen John Abizaid, a senior US Army commander, told senators the same day that the LAF needed a “significant upgrade” because “i t will never work for Lebanon if, over time, Hezbollah has a greater military capacity than the Lebanese armed forces”.

Four crew members from the corvette Hanit were killed when the sea-skimming C-802 evaded its Barak and Harpoon defensive systems and struck its helicopter deck and ignited fuel tanks.

“A Lebanese naval radar guided the missile in its initial phase,” said the Israeli source, who has served in key defence positions. “The missile’s own radar was only turned on when it was very close to the ship. If the missile’s radar had been used earlier, it might have been detected.”

The attack was sophisticated and would have required considerable pre-planning, he said, adding that the degree of expertise in carrying out a successful firing also indicated the involvement of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members.

“‘We suspect there were Iranians also helping fire this missile.” A second C-802 hit an Egyptian-registered merchant vessel with a Cambodian crew

After the attack, the Israel Defence Forces bombed several radar sites. “ Israel took out al the radars of the Lebanese army to prevent a recurrence of these attacks,” the Israel source said.

Mr Schenker, who spent four years at the Pentagon before joining the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, said that in February a convoy of a dozen lorries transporting Iranian weaponry from Syria was stopped by the LAF.

“They were allowed to pass on. When I asked Gen Suleiman about it, he told me he would have done whatever the Lebanese government wanted him to do about it and at the time Hezbollah was seen as a legitimate resistance organisation.”

Gen Suleiman has made no secret of his antipathy towards Israel. Last week, he commended his troops for protecting national unity in the face of the "barbaric military war machine of the Israeli enemy" which had conducted "an unprecedented attack in modern history".

6 August 2006

US sends 'cowboy' general back to Iraq

By Toby Harnden in Washington

AN AMERICAN general blamed for aggressive and brutal tactics in Iraq that helped fuel the insurgency is to return to the country as second in command of coalition forces there.

Maj Gen Raymond Odierno, led the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division for a year from mid-2003. Based in Saddam Hussein’s former home town of Tikrit, he was responsible for much of the Sunni triangle, now the heartland of Iraq’s entrenched insurgency.

Senior American officials now concede that the Iraq project could be doomed and that the war may have been was lost in the crucial initial post-invasion phase when Gen Odierno is accused of adopting a flawed approach to counter-insurgency operations.

Since promoted to three-star rank, Lt Gen Odierno will return to Iraq later this year as the day-to-day commander of all coalition forces, including British troops in the south.  The appointment came as America’s top generals said the situation in Iraq was worse than ever before.

Gen John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East, said that " Iraq could move toward civil war" if sectarian violence in Baghdad is not contained. "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it.”

According to “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq” by Thomas Ricks, published this month to acclaim as a definitive account of military operations, Gen Odierno had a disastrous operational philosophy that valued short-term subjugation of the population more than the long-term goal of winning hearts and minds.

“These guys were looking for a fight,” one US Army intelligence officer told Ricks. “I saw so many instances of abuses of civilians, intimidating civilians, our jaws dropped. They were cowboys.”

Two colonels who served in Iraq at the time, one attached to the 4 th Infantry Division, accused Gen Odierno of ordering his men to arrest and detain all military-age males without discrimination. “And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency,” said Col Alan King.

An investigation by the US Army inspector general's office concluded that the 4 th Infantry Division was reduced to “grabbing whole villages, because combat soldiers [were] unable to figure out who was of value and who was not”.

Ricks quoted from an official US Marine Corps report that stated that 4 th Infantry Division officers who took over from the 1 st Marine Division refused to meet tribal leaders, used their weapons indiscriminately and took a “very aggressive posture” despite the relative peace at the time.

“A budding cooperative environment between the citizens and American forces was quickly snuffed out,” the report stated. “The new adversarial relationship would become a major source of trouble in the coming months.”

Gen Odierno has strenuously defended his division’s performance in Iraq, telling Ricks, the Washington Post’s defence correspondent, that the implication that "all we did was kill people wantonly and abuse prisoners -- in my opinion, that's totally false".

In an army meeting two years ago, Gen Odierno argued that being too gentle created risks and while his division had “probably made some mistakes” his men “adapted quickly” and its tough tactics were adopted from bitter experience.

“We’d go in, do a raid on a house, and we wouldn’t search any of the families, and as we were leaving, they would hand weapons from under their dresses to their men, who would shoot at us.”

Keith Kellogg, a retired Lt Gen who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad when Gen Odierno was in Iraq, backed up ed the former 4 th Infantry Division commander. “Ray Odierno was very firm, very forceful and he had a good tactical grasp of the situation,” he said. “He is very well qualified for his third star.

    “I thought he did it the smart way. When the insurgents rose, he hammered them hard. “They didn’t create the problem at all. The problem was there. His soldiers did a pretty good job in a damn tough area. Every time you went out, you walked into a gunfight.”

30 July 2006

Death and despair amid US pursuit of 'new Middle East'

DRESSED in a red batik dress, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, sat down at a grand piano in Kuala Lumpur and began to play what she described as "something in accordance with my mood''.

Her choice for delegates at the ASEAN Regional Conference was a duet with a Malaysian violinist of Brahms's Intermezzo, Opus 118, Number 2 and the second movement of Brahms's Sonata Number 3 in D minor, Opus 108. She called it: "A Prayer for Peace.''

In southern Lebanon, the sound effects were altogether more resounding as Israel's air and artillery assault on the towns and villages where Hezbollah guerillas were operating continued relentlessly for a 13th day.

Less than 20 miles south of the Lebanese border, Israelis cowered as the latest of more than 2,700 Hezbollah rockets headed towards them. Nearly a quarter of Lebanon's population of four million had been displaced and up to 400 killed. In Israel, 18 civilians had died.

The after-dinner show in which foreign ministers perform for each other is a traditional feature of the conference and if any delegates made quips about fiddling while Lebanon burned they did so privately. But in European and Arab capitals the sight of Miss Rice playing the piano while the Middle East was engulfed in crisis struck a discordant note.

Although no one disagreed with Israel's contention that Hezbollah had sparked the crisis by kidnapping two and killing eight Israeli soldiers on July 12, accusations that its response was disproportionate had been building. Frustration with American policy, four-square behind Israel, had also risen steadily. Just the previous day, the 15-nation Rome summit called to formulate a plan to end the bloodshed had finished without agreement on any significant measures.

The United States and Britain had resisted pressure from other countries to call for all armed actions to stop and the summit ended with 90 minutes of haggling over the word "immediate''.

All the countries except for the US and UK wanted to state they would "work to bring an immediate ceasefire'' but Miss Rice held out successfully for "work immediately to bring a ceasefire''.

A call for a ceasefire, she said afterwards, was meaningless. "It doesn't do anyone any good to raise false hopes about something that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. I did say to the group, 'When will we learn?' The fields of the Middle East are littered with broken ceasefires.''

More broadly, she emphasised that President George W. Bush saw the Lebanon situation not just as a crisis but also as an opportunity to build a "new Middle East'' by rooting out Hezbollah and extending the writ of Fouad Siniora's coalition government.

In Miss Rice's words, the bloodshed represented the "birth pangs of a new Middle East'' - the latest event in what the neo-conservative US thinkers term the "creative chaos'' ushered in by the Iraq invasion of 2003.

But Mr Siniora himself was refusing to accept this script - not surprisingly for a man whose country was at that very moment being pounded by the bombs supplied to Israel by its American ally. "The more we delay the ceasefire, the more we are going to witness more being killed, more destruction and more aggression against the civilians in Lebanon,'' he implored. "The country is being cut to pieces.''

He added: "Is the value of human life less in Lebanon than that of citizens elsewhere? Are we children of a lesser god? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?''

Israel 's conclusion - angrily disputed by the EU - was that, with America's help, it had been given a green light to press on against Hezbollah.

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world to continue this operation, this war, until Hezbollah won't be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed,'' said Haim Ramon, Israel's justice minister, on Thursday.

In Washington, after setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, neo-conservatives are suddenly back in the ascendant within the Bush administration. "It's almost as if what happened in Lebanon has given them a shot of testosterone,'' said James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute. " Israel is doing what they feel America should have done - deal a decisive blow with no compromise.''

But there has been broad and deep bipartisan support for Israel's actions. The Bush administration views Lebanon as just one battle in a war for the future of the Middle East and Iran, and to a lesser extent Syria, as the hidden hand behind Hezbollah.

The capture of an Israeli soldier by Hamas in Gaza, and a marked spike in violence in Iraq, are seen as part of a sophisticated Iranian strategy to extend Shia Islamism.

"There can be little doubt that Iran is deeply involved in fomenting this killing,'' said Clare Lopez, a former CIA operative who is executive director of the Iran Policy Committee.

"Iran seeks to instigate chaos simultaneously on multiple fronts in order to flex its muscles, intimidate Arab neighbours and challenge the ability of the US and its regional allies to respond.'' Fear of a democracy emerging in Iraq was a central consideration for Tehran, she added.

Mr Bush’s response to this has been to encourage Israel to finish Hezbollah off, speeding up deliveries of GBU-28 laser-guided bombs while simultaneously promising aid to Lebanon.

“How many millions of dollars is the American taxpayer going to pay for these bombs and what they destroy?” asked Ibrahim Hooper of the Council for American-Islamic Relations.

“All for a campaign that is ultimately self-defeating for Israel and America until every Hezbollah fighter in Lebanon is dead - because with guerilla movements, if they survive in effect they win.”

The continued rocket attacks and the killing on Wednesday of nine elite Israeli soldiers in the Hizbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail showed that the Jewish state had a tough fight on its hands.

Miss Rice's hopes of building an "Arab umbrella'' of Sunni governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states, united against Shia Hezbollah, appeared to ebb away as the week progressed. "What is happening in the region is destructive chaos, not creative chaos,'' said President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

But British and American officials said that Sunni governments in the region remained privately eager to see Hezbollah humiliated because this would help prevent the spread of Iranian-backed Shia Islamism.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the killing of nine elite Israeli soldiers in the Hizbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail on Wednesday showed that the Jewish state had a tough fight on its hands. The atmosphere is akin to that in America after 9/11, with overwhelming public support for the assault against Hezbollah.

Some in the country's intelligence community fear, however, that Israel is doing America's bidding rather than vice versa. "The United States must not turn its trusty ally in the Middle East into its proxy vis-à-vis Iran,'' said Brig Gen Yossi Ben-Ari, a former military intelligence officer.

Other Israelis, however, believe the Jewish state has reshaped US policy. "Just as we introduced the idea that the Iranian nuclear threat was not just an Israeli problem, so is the Hezbollah-Iranian terrorist axis not just an Israeli problem,'' said Ranaan Gissin, an official spokesman.

In Washington, the legacy of 9/11 remains. During his press conference with Tony Blair on Friday, Mr Bush dismissed America's previous foreign policy of containment, shuttle diplomacy and keeping a lid on the Middle East.

"For a while, American foreign policy was just, 'Let's hope everything is calm', kind of managed calm,'' said Mr Bush. "But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September 11.''

Mr Blair echoed Mr Bush's view that defeating militant Islam was "the calling of the 21st Century'', saying "it would be a big mistake not to solve the underlying problems'' in Lebanon. Notably absent in the comments of either man was a call for restraint from Israel.

With each passing day of conflict, the way ahead over Lebanon seems more complicated and deadly, while the situation in the Middle East appears to represent as much a trap as an opportunity. As Miss Rice arrived back in Israel last night, she was preparing to bang the drum for the "stabilisation force'' for southern Lebanon which Mr Bush endorsed in Washington on Friday.

American and British officials believe that France will agree to lead the force, which may also comprise troops from Turkey, Spain, Italy, India and Indonesia.

Aides who travelled with Mr Blair to San Francisco on Friday insisted they would "bust a gut'' to get a fresh UN resolution early this week, and if they failed it would "not be through lack of trying''.

But they were unable to say how a ceasefire would be enforceable on Hezbollah. A source close to Mr Blair admitted: "The hard reality is that, if the rocket attacks on Israel continue, it is difficult to see how it would be possible to persuade Israel to stop retaliating.''

Neither Israel - which yesterday rejected a UN-proposed 72-hour truce - nor Hezbollah appeared any closer to agreeing a ceasefire than they did a fortnight ago.

At one point last week, Miss Rice was scornful of those who demanded immediate results. "I am a student of history, so perhaps I have a little bit more patience with the enormous changes in the international system and the complete shifting of tectonic plates,'' she told reporters.

But with both sides digging in for a war of attrition that could last weeks, Miss Rice's patience - as well as the composure she learned while training as a concert pianist - is likely to be severely tested. So, too, will that of the rest of the world with American policy.

The Sunday Telegraph, 2 July 2006

Ex-student hailed as Iran's hope

By Toby Harnden in Washington

AN IRANIAN student leader who was imprisoned and tortured before fleeing to the United States in May is to meet Vice President Dick Cheney and deliver his message about the need for “regime change” in Iran.

Amir Abbas Fakhravar, 30, has become the poster child of the some (PSE KEEP SOME th)  of the leading neo-conservatives in Washington who once hailed Ahmad Chalabi, then leader of the Iraqi National Congress, as the rightful successor to Saddam Hussein.

Less than two months after he left Iran, Mr Fakhravar, a former medical student who spent five years in jail and still bears the scars on his youthful face, is being championed as the person who can bring together the fractious Iranian opposition.

He is adamantly opposed to nuclear negotiations with Tehran, which were offered by President George W. Bush in a policy u-turn last month after Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, prevailed over Mr Cheney.

“The world has to do something – whatever it takes – so that [President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad] does not become another Hitler,” Mr Fakhravar told The Sunday Telegraph in his office at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.

When asked whether military action would be desirable, he replied: “Whatever the world does against the Iranian regime, the Iranian people will be supportive,” he said

As with Mr Chalabi, an exile who fell out with the Bush administration after war began amid allegations of links to Iranian intelligence and manufactured accounts of weapons of mass destruction, Mr Fakhravar’s most prominent sponsor is Richard Perle.

Mr Perle, a former Reagan administration official who subsequently served as chairman of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board, first made contact with Mr Fakhravar more than three years ago.

The two met in Dubai in May after Mr Fakhravar had left Iran fearing, he said, he was about to be murdered. The Iranian, leader of the Confederation of Independent Iranian Students, was guest of honour at a recent American Enterprise Institute (AEI) lunch attended by key Pentagon and State Department officials.

AEI, a leading conservative think tank, has helped develop many of the foreign policy positions adopted by the Bush administration and was a major voice calling for Saddam to be toppled.

Michael Ledeen, a AEI scholar and Iran expert who co-hosted the lunch with Mr Perle, said: “He’s a unifying figure. He’s strong physically and psychologically.

“I think he’s extraordinarily smart. He formulates his positions very well. He’s one of the few Iranian opposition figures I’ve met who can think through the way Westerners look at Iran and help them understand.”

Sources said that Mr Fakhravar has spoken to Mr Cheney’s daughter Liz, a State Department official responsible for Near East issues who is currently on maternity leave, and met Robert Zoellick, until recently deputy to Miss Rice.

Others who are said to have been impressed by his credentials are Professor Bernard Lewis, the Middle East historian, and James Woolsey, a former CIA director.

Prof Lewis, whose arguments helped underpin the neo-conservative philosophy of spreading democracy, supporting Israel and projecting American power in the Middle East, is understood to have encouraged Mr Cheney to meet Mr Fakhravar.

The former medical student walks with a slight limp. This was the result, he said, of being viciously kicked in the left knee by the judge who in 2002 had just sentenced him to eight years in prison for criticising Iran’s supreme leader in his novella “This Place is Not a Ditch”.

“My knee is still a mess,” he said. “I can’t do anything other than walk and I can’t climb stairs that well.”

He described how he began to believe he was insane after weeks of solitary confinement. “It got to the point where I begged for a beating to relieve the monotony. I couldn’t remember my parents’ faces. I returned to my childhood. I was like a six-year-old.”

Mr Fakhravar’s has ambitious plans to bring the larger Tahkim Vahdat student organisation, which favours reform rather than regime change, under his group’s wing and also find common cause with the broader opposition movement.

“There is a stubbornness among the older generation that are here [in the US] but hopefully they’ll be put to shame by us youngsters,” he said.

But some Iran hardliners in Washington have distanced themselves from Mr Fakhravar. “This is no Ahmad Chalabi,” said one. “I know that my well-intentioned friends are desperate to find a single figure to rally around but it’s not the same as Iraq. It won’t work.”

Mr Fakhrahar said ordinary Iranians had become increasingly pro-American and even pro-Israel because of Mr Ahmedinejad’s bloodthirsty rhetoric about both countries. “They are growing to

like Israel now. It’s natural to feel the opposite of what he [Ahmedinejad] says.”

He brushes aside comparisons with Mr Chalabi. “My enemies say I am like Ahmad Chalabi, my friends that I am like Natan Sharanski [the Soviet dissident who later became an Israeli minister].

“The difference between me and Mr Chalabi – not that I’m saying he was a bad person -  is that I’ve spent most of my adulthood in jail and on the run in Iran. I didn’t see Mr Chalabi doing the same thing.”

He has no aspirations to be Iran’s leader. “I am a freedom fighter. I will return to Iran and continue my fight like Robin Hood. But I will not be a politician after victory. I am an author and I want to write stories for children.”