The probe, headed by Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, then head of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, ruled that there had been a "serious intelligence failure" regarding the assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities, and that there was a need for a reorganization within the intelligence agencies.

A severe lack of hard intelligence from Iraq, the probe revealed, led them to base their assessments on "estimations" and "predictions" and not on concrete evidence.

Almost four years have passed since the damning probe, and intelligence estimates are still stringent, although this time in relation to Iran and its continued race towards nuclear power.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post this week, Steinitz, a member of the committee and head of its subcommittee on intelligence, said that intelligence on Iran is far better today than it was on Iraq four years ago.

"A1 intelligence gathering is difficult," Steinitz said. "Today we have solid, concrete and good intelligence."

His defense of intelligence capabilities came just a few days after the US National Intelligence Council released its National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) - a consensus view of all 16 American intelligence agencies - which claimed that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 and has yet to restart it.

The findings are a dramatic change from those of two years ago, when the intelligence agencies concluded that Iran was determined to develop a nuclear weapons capability and constituted a particular diversion from remarks made recently by President George W. Bush that World War III would break out if the ayatollahs got their hands on a bomb.

WHAT THE report makes even clearer are the major differences between the various intelligence agencies in Israel and the US. The Mossad claims that the Iranians will be able to develop a nuclear bomb by the end of 2009; Military Intelligence warns that Teheran will cross the technological threshold within six months; and now the Americans are putting the time line toward the middle of the next decade, or - at the earliest - in 2013.

The report, released on Monday, came as a blow to the Israeli defense establishment, and according to some officials was even a surprise to the Bush administration.

Three weeks ago, Steinitz led a delegation of Knesset members to Washington and met with Vice President Richard Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and senators, congressmen and administration officials. "No one mentioned a word about the new assessment," Steinitz said Thursday morning. "If you ask me, it came as a complete surprise to them."

The report was first made known to Israel several months ago during one of the regular meetings of the Israeli-US Strategic Dialogue led by Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz and Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. During one of the sessions, an Israeli official recalled, Burns spoke about the "traditional" and known assessments regarding Iran's nuclear program, and told Mofaz that they might be changing soon with the publication of the NIE report.

Last week, on the sidelines of the Annapolis peace summit, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates shared the findings with his counterpart, Ehud Barak. Bush did the same with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Since the report came out, both Olmert and Barak have been weighing their public remarks very carefully so as not to create a public disagreement with the US administration. Despite this effort, the sentiment in the defense establishment was one of disappointment over Israel's clear failure to prove its case to the US.

In addition to the Strategic Dialogue, Israel maintains a number of parallel lines of communication with the White House, Pentagon and the CIA which are used for sharing intelligence information on issues of mutual interest.

Head of the Research Department in Military Intelligence, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, as well as other senior intelligence and IDF officers, including Mossad chief Meir Dagan, have been in Washington over the past year to present Israel's assessments on Iran, including the possibility that it will have an operational nuclear device by the end of 2009.

SO WHAT were the US intelligence agencies thinking when composing the new NIE report? Were they not concerned that such a report might embolden Iran and its radical leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and serve as an obstacle on the way to imposing a new round of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council?

Israeli officials who read the report said they were taken aback by its careful and almost self-contradictory wording. MK Ephraim Sneh, a former deputy defense minister, claimed to have found numerous contradictions in the report.

"In one place the report says that Iran froze its weapons program," Sneh told the Post from Washington where he spoke at the Israeli Policy Forum. "And in another place, the report says that the Iranians are continuing to enrich uranium - something they admit to - and could have a bomb between 2010 and 2015."

While the fundamental disagreement between Israel and the US is over the question of whether Iran suspended its military program, both countries agree in their assessments that its civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing and could one day, fairly quickly, turn into a military program easily capable of producing a bomb.

Steinitz says that in many cases intelligence agencies suffer from what he calls the "pendulum syndrome."

The US, Steinitz says, is influenced by a political agenda and is still traumatized by the blatant intelligence failure vis-à-vis Iraq's alleged WMD, and therefore does not want to be caught crying wolf again. Israel, on the other hand, is traumatized by its failure to learn of Libya's nuclear program before it was abandoned in a deal Col. Muammar Gaddafi struck with the US and the UK.

As a result of these traumas, each country interprets the situation a little differently. Israel takes the more stringent track, since it is better to be safe than sorry. America takes the more lax approach, so as not to find itself in the midst of an unjustifiable war.


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greets his supporters in Ilam province in western Iran.
Photo: AP
"In Iraq they made a mistake by overestimating," Steinitz said. "Now they are making a mistake by underestimating with Iran."

THE CLEAR consequence of the report is that Bush's hands will be tied when it comes to the possibility of using military force to stop Iran. Some officials in Tel Aviv raised the possibility that after deterring the US from military action, the report might indirectly do the same for Israel, which would need American approval, and possibly even assistance, if it decided to go after Iran on its own.

One official raised the possibility that the release of the report on Monday was actually timed with America's announcement on Sunday that it had succeeded in getting the Chinese to agree to a new round of sanctions. By taking the military option off the table, the official suggested, the US might succeed in getting China and Russia on board for sanctions.

Whatever the case, the report is, as Sneh said, proof that "at the end of the day, we can only count on ourselves."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gates Urges Gulf Region to Counter Iran

By LOLITA C. BALDOR ; 08-12-2007 ; Associated Press

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates planned to tell Gulf countries Saturday they must work together to help the U.S. counter Iranian threats, including Tehran's ballistic missiles and meddling in Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States still wants new sanctions.

Gates, ending a weeklong trip to the region, intended in his keynote speech at an international security conference in Manama to urge Gulf allies to cooperate more as part of a broader strategy for containing Iranian influence, according to U.S. officials traveling with Gates on Friday.

Gates' speech was to follow Rice's assertions Friday in Brussels, Belgium, that Washington would continue along a two-track strategy, pressing for new sanctions against Iran while holding talks to persuade Tehran to come clean about its nuclear program.

But Russia ignored her calls to punish Iran.

Despite continued strong support from NATO allies in the wake of a new U.S. intelligence report that concludes Iran actually stopped developing atomic weapons in 2003, Rice could not convince Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of the urgency of fresh sanctions.

Rice said her talks with Lavrov were "an extension of other conversations we have had," suggesting the two didn't see eye to eye.

White House officials maintained an optimistic tone. Based on contacts with Russia, China and other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council since the release Monday of the new intelligence estimate on Iran, "we are still committed to Iran stopping its enrichment," said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "And we will eventually get a third U.N. Security Council resolution."

Bush spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday.

Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking in Kansas City to members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said, "In the case of Iran, we're dealing with a country that is still enriching uranium and remains a leading state sponsor of terrorism, and that is a cause of great concern to the United States."

Cheney said others in the international community, including Russia, share that concern.

At the Pentagon, senior military officers told reporters the U.S. intelligence revelation that it believes Iran scrapped its nuclear weapons design effort in 2003 has not triggered new instructions by the Bush administration to speed up or slow down any Iran crisis planning.

"There has been no course correction — slowdown, speedup — given to us inside the Joint Staff" for military crisis planning, said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Attending the Bahrain security conference with Gates were Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations throughout the Middle East. Fallon spoke to reporters about Iran.

"Their behavior has really been a problem, and to the extent that it destabilizes the region, which it does, then it becomes a problem for us," Fallon said.

Defense officials have said Iran's delivery of weapons and other support into Iraq and Afghanistan and the detention of British sailors earlier this year are key activities that threaten security in the region.

And Gulf country leaders, Fallon said, have told him that their concern "is more the pressure that they feel from Iran as they want to dominate this area."

A senior defense official traveling with Gates said the secretary planned to tell the Bahrain conference that Gulf countries have shared commercial and security interests, and the more they cooperate the more the world will benefit. One key area would be shared efforts in an early warning system because of the ballistic missile threats from Iran.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues.

A U.S. Navy commander, meanwhile, said Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital commercial waterway at the tip of the Gulf, are the greatest concern for maritime security in the region.

Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said that while the likelihood of that happening is low, concerns about Iran consume the region — and his day.

"I wake up thinking about Iran, I go to bed thinking about Iran," Cosgriff told reporters.

He added, "I know of no threat that would cause them to want to close ... the Strait of Hormuz. To me it's coercive, it's intended to intimidate not only the regional nations — 'look at us, we can damage your prosperity' — but it's intended to intimidate the global market. I just don't think that's responsible behavior."

His comments came as Iranian officials decided at the last minute not to attend the Bahrain conference.

Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee in Brussels, Belgium, and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UK accused of 'prisoner swap' with Pakistan

By Isambard Wilkinson, Pakistan Correspondent; telegraph.co.uk; 07/12/2007

Britain has been accused of taking the first step towards a "prisoner swap" by arresting two nationalist separatists after coming under intense pressure from Pakistan.

The Metropolitan Police said two men, aged 25 and 39, were held under the Terrorism Act following raids in London on Tuesday morning.

The men were named as Faiz Mohammed Baluch and Nawabzada Hyrbiyar Marri, according to Lakhumal Luhana, a Baloch human rights campaigner living in London.

Britain has been engaged in secret negotiations with Pakistan to hand over a terrorist suspect who is wanted for questioning over the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airlines last summer.

Britain had demanded the return of Rashid Rauf, 26, who was arrested in Pakistan.

The arrests come less than one month after Pakistan began proceedings for the extradition to Britain of Rauf.

His extradition is expected in the next few weeks.

In return Pakistan demanded the extradition of up to eight people living in the UK who they claim are involved in a low-intensity insurgency in the western oil-rich province of Balochistan.

Several months ago a Pakistani foreign official had named both arrested men to The Daily Telegraph as they were on a wish-list of people which Pakistan wanted Britain to arrest.

The official demanded that Britain show some "reciprocity".

British officials have become intensely frustrated over Pakistan’s insistence on arresting Baloch nationalists.

Pakistan has held back intelligence vital to Britain’s counter-terrorism effort and co-operation with the campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan on the grounds that Britain must arrest Baloch suspected of being involved in the insurgency.

The two men were detained on suspicion of the "commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," according to a police spokesman.

"The arrests were made under the Terrorism Act 2000 and strictly in accordance with UK law," he added.

Mr Luhana said: "This is a prisoner swap. We have asked the British not to succumb to pressure and to support the Baloch, a secular force in Pakistan."

Asthma Jehangir, a prominent Pakistani human rights campaigner, said: "I hope that this has been done according to the law and not at the behest of Pakistan".

British officials in Islamabad admitted that Pakistani demands to extradite Baloch nationalists who Pakistan claims are suspected members of the Baluchistan Liberation Army.

In what one senior Western diplomat in Islamabad described as an act of "realpolitik" the organisation was added to the British government’s proscribed list of terrorist organisations in July 2006.

The British government denied the arrests were in any way connected to a reciprocal deal with Pakistan.

"There is an extradition request [for the two arrested men] but it is coincidental. This has nothing to do with Pakistan," said a spokesman for the High Commission in Islamabad.

It will be difficult to extradite Baloch nationalists as Pakistan regularly imposes the death penalty.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/06/wpakistan106.xml

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Foreign Office accused of swap deal over terror suspects

Sandra Laville
Tuesday December 11, 2007
The Guardian

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wave of violence Balochistan in the throes of a virtual insurgency.. .

By Muhammad Ejaz Khan ; jang.com.pk ; 09-12-2007

Mystery shrouds the killing of Nawabzada Balach Marri, the top leader of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) on November 21. Some media reports suggest he was killed in Afghanistan while others claimed it to have occurred in Pakistan. The scale of target killings and terrorist attacks on state-owned installations in Balochistan became more intense soon after the news of his death came by. As many as eighteen people, including a dozen policemen and security personnel, were killed in the over two dozen bomb blasts and rocket attacks that followed.

A BLA spokesman told TNS that Balach Marri was killed by security forces but refused to disclose the location where the killing had taken place. "Balach Marri was killed inside Afghanistan and there is no involvement of the Pakistani security forces in his killing," said Balochistan Governor, Owais Ahmed while talking to TNS. He said that Balach Marri had been buried in Afghanistan and asked, "Had he lost his life in Pakistani territory, why he would have been buried in Afghanistan?" Nevertheless, a fresh wave of violence erupted in Quetta and some other Baloch dominated areas of Balochistan following the killing of Balach Marri. Railway tracks were blown up at various places, including tracks in main Sibi and Quetta. At least four electricity pylons of 132 KV were blown up in Kohlu alone and the Election Commission offices were set ablaze in Nushki.

The police authorities in Quetta compared these clashes with the violence of August 2006 when an angry mob torched dozens of shops in and around Quetta in protest against the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in a military operation in the Tartani area of Kohlu. In the latest row of violence, bomb blasts and incidents of public property losses have become the order of the day despite claims by the police that the security was tightened all over the province, especially in the capital which was on high alert. Baloch nationalists feel that the insecurity stems out of the neglect the people of the region have faced since partition. Baloch nationalists argue that while Islamabad exploits their rich resources, it gives little in return. Instead its resources are utilised in Punjab. They say they have been demanding provincial autonomy envisaged in the 1973 constitution.
Balochistan which was given the status of a province only in 1970 has experienced four military operations. The fifth one is on.

"If the government wants to remove the sense of deprivation in the province and wipe out hatred, it should take immediate steps by making Pakistan a true federation," said ex-senator and leader of National party (NP) Mir Tahir Bizenjo. He said all provincial and national rights of Balochistan should be recognised, including rights on the resources generated in Balochistan.

Those who believe that the rights of Baloch can only be secured by a resistance movement think that parliamentary politics would take centuries or more to achieve them. Balach Marri, an electronics engineer from Moscow, who won the provincial assembly seat from Kohlu with record votes of over 18,000 in 2002 elections -- the highest ever cast in the constituency -- claimed that the Baloch resistance movement has never harmed the masses and resistance movement fighters are on a direct war path with the state. He had criticised the mega projects in the province and held the rulers responsible for maintaining the colonial policies in Balochistan.
It was in this backdrop, analysts say, that the strategic importance of Balochistan kept growing as China started building Gwadar as a port it could use. The US is looking at this with suspicion because they do not want China in the region or close to Pakistan. As long as Balochistan remains unstable and the law and order situation remains uncertain, Gwadar's true potential cannot be realised. The bomb blasts and rocket firing incidents and killing of Chinese engineers in Balochistan during the last couple of years affected the credibility of the provincial government. In the present scenario, the Chinese will certainly be compelled to take a second look at their growing economic commitment in Pakistan, especially Balochistan. They were moving in a big way into the Pakistani market, especially in terms of investment in the industrial sector.
One recalls the statement of Balochistan' s Chief Minister Jam Muhammad Yousuf on August 13, 2004 that RAW was running at least 40 camps in his province. Later, the government claimed to have removed all the camps.
On Tuesday last,the people of Sariab road Quetta witnessed a group of Baloch students set ablaze their books in the premises of Government Degree College and demanded release of all those Baloch youth, who had been rounded up by police on the charges of recent wave of terrorism in Quetta.
"We are burning our books because we are fed up by the police actions. The government is pressing the Baloch students to take guns in their hands instead of pens," said Wahid Baloch, a student, while talking to TNS in the premises of the college.

Threat to non-locals

The sporadic incidents of violence since the killing of Balach Marri have increased the sense of insecurity among the people of the province-particular ly non-local, whose houses and lives are persistently attacked by unidentified armed men. On November 23, a thirty-five year old traffic police constable Manzoor Ahmed, who belonged to Azad Kashmir, was performing his duty at the busy Jinnah Road Quetta. As he was ready to leave his duty place after serving the whole day in the chilly weather, he was targeted and killed by unidentified gunman. The deceased left behind two children aging five and six years and a wife.
Over ten policemen and personnel of the security forces of low rank were targeted in the fresh wave of violence in Balochistan. In another incident fifty years old Bashir Ahmed, head constable in police, was killed by unknown gunman in Killi Ismail Quetta when he was on his way to home on his bicycle after performing his day long duty.

The attacks on non-local continue unabated despite the claims of the police authorities to have maintained law and order. After sunset all barber shops in Quetta are forced to close business in view of the possible attacks on their lives and property. "We have no idea what to do as we are forced to close our business by 6pm," said Zafar Hussain who runs a barber shop.
"Where is law in Balochistan? " asked Mistri Muhammad Alam, a non-local carpenter who hails from Sialkot district of Punjab. "We feel very insecure. Even our family members are not sure whether we will come back home in the evening."
Majority of the non-local labour has either shifted to Punjab or Quetta from the Baloch-dominated areas of the province. Defunct BLA claimed responsibility for most of the incidents and its spokesman Berburg Baloch in telephone calls said they would continue to target the non-locals who earn their livelihood from Balochistan but work against the province.
It is generally believed that violence strengthened its roots in Balochistan during the five years of Jam Yousuf-led government, as the PML-Q did nothing in the province. Baloch nationalists hold Punjab solely responsible for usurping the rights and backwardness of Balochistan.
When asked this question a Baloch nationalist, on the condition of anonymity, told TNS that the exploiting class who is looting the wealth of Balochistan belongs to Punjab; moreover, majority of the decision makers of the country also belong to Punjab. "That is why, the Punjabi people are being targeted in Balochistan, " he added.
Meanwhile the people of Quetta strongly condemn the poor law and order situation despite the two dozen pickets of the para military force i.e. Frontier Corps (FC) at every nook and corner of the city.
-- M. Ejaz Khan
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2007-weekly/nos-09-12- 2007/dia.htm#5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If The “Failed State” Fails?

By B.R. Gowani
12 December, 2007 ;Countercurrents.org

For some years now we have been hearing declarations such as “Pakistan is a failed state” or is a country that is on the path to failure. A possibility cannot be ruled out that few pundits in the US may predict such an outcome and then those in power may work toward that goal and thus the prediction may come true. However, in Pakistan’s case, it is not in the US interest to do that, and so it would refrain from any such foolishness. Like that saying: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” the Bush government can’t afford to use up all its foolishness in the same region—there is another region, the Latin America, where Venezuela and Bolivia may expect such foolishness. (The word foolishness is used because the height of warmongering criminality can’t be addressed in any other manner.)

But the present state of affairs in Pakistan has brought that country to such a critical phase of its young but sickly deformed life that it can undo itself without any further interference from the United States.

The former prime minister who had tried to remove his chief of army General Pervez Musharraf back in 1999 but was instead himself overthrown and sent into exile to Saudi Arabia by the General is back in Pakistan because the Saudis didn’t want to hold him anymore. Another reason was that the secular and pro-US Benazir Bhutto had returned back to Pakistan from an exile. Sharif has accused Musharraf of carrying out orders from the United States and thus portraying himself as a man who won’t lend his ears to Washington.

Is it a sheer bravado to distinguish himself from Musharraf (and Bhutto) or is he in fact showing an independent stance? Only time will tell. It can happen that before long (if the elections are held and turns in his favor), he’ll change his tune—either on his own when he meets the US Ambassador to Pakistan or on the prodding of Saudi Arabia, who will, of course, be carrying out an order from the Bush administration. (Sharif already had a meeting with Ambassador Anne W. Patterson on December 3, 2007. She has been calling on many political leaders to make sure that whoever comes to power is well aware of the United States’ “interests” and its “war on terror.”)

How much difference the coming election will make is not an easy task to predict. The nature of things to come is difficult to foresee with any accuracy. Chances are slim that any leader will be able to control the Islamic militants; and rare are chances that she/he will be able to manage the country with their support because that would mean pushing Pakistan further down the religious drain.

Compare to Pakistan the United States is a piece of cake to predict things. You always know that every four years a corporate lackey belonging either to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party would be the next president without any ifs or buts.

Still, one has not much to lose in foreseeing few things that Pakistan could probably witness in the coming months, and they are:

Election, if held, ends without any clear winner and thus a weak coalition government gets formed. If that happens the chances are it could create Bangladesh style politics where the opposition boycotts the parliamentary proceedings as a regular ritual and eventually the army, Pakistan’s custodian, once again strikes back.

Another situation could be where Benazir Bhutto is the clear winner. However, she’ll have to fight on two fronts: the Muslim militants and the Sharif supporters. It would be hell of a job for her. The army would watch expectantly.

On the other hand if Sharif gets enough seats to implement his agenda, whatever it may be, for Pakistan he’ll prove to be a ghost of Zia. It would be a mixture of the seventh and the twenty-first centuries.

Sharif has in the past talked about introducing Islamic laws and so it wouldn’t be surprising if he goes ahead and brings back some of the seventh century into the twenty first century and keep content the traditional mullahs. Those mullahs will then try to convince the militant Muslims that the future of Islam is safe in Sharif’s hands. At the same time Sharif can’t ignore the US—who can sent Pakistan back “to the stone age”—and so he’ll go along with the army leadership in its US “war on terror.”

Of course, it could prove disastrous for Sharif. The army can always use Sharif’s coziness with the mullahs as an excuse to dump Sharif once again with, of course, the United States connivance.

It can happen that irrespective of the outcome, Pakistan slides further into chaos and stays in that condition for a long period with more areas gradually falling into the hands of militant groups and ultimately becoming an Islamistan—worse than the Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

Or it can disintegrate—which would be the most tragic scenario with serious regional and international repercussions. The “failed state” would really fail and disappear from the globe.

In that case, the province of Sindh with its many grievances against the Center will try to become a “Sindhu Desh,” an independent country, which has been the dream of many Sindhis for so long. They can convince the Urdu speaking people (the ethnic group known as Muhajirs) to join them by offering that relations with India would be the first priority and thus they’ll have easy access to their relatives across the border. (Also, the Hindu Sindhis in India and Diasporas who feel special affinity with the land of Sindh will be frequent visitors.)

One imperialist power had divided the Pashtun people through the Durand Line; however, the present imperialist power through its “war on terror” is helping help them to become one. And if Pakistan fails, it will speed up the process.

Baluchistan, which wanted to be an independent entity, was forced to join the newly created nation of Pakistan in 1947. Since then its aspirations for more autonomy has been crushed by military many a times. So without doubt, it will try to carve out its own place on the world map.

(US Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peter’s 2006 map which he designed to solve the problems plaguing the Middle East shows “Free Baluchistan,” made up of Pakistani Baluchistan and Irani Baluchestan.)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/images/harita_b.jpeg

Azad Kashmir, the Pakistani portion of the disputed territory of Kashmir can join the Indian held Kashmir to either become an autonomous region of India, or go for another prolonged war of independence from India.

Poor Punjab will then be left with no one to exploit but itself.

Turmoil will be an instant fate of Iran and Afghanistan (enhancing its present crisis). Many in India will be thanking all the gods and goddesses for Pakistan’s disappearance till the time the reality hits them—and it won’t be too long.