JeFF
21/08/2004
Certes, la météo du moment incite à prendre les infos croustillantes sur nos camarades éléctoraux avec prudence.
Cela étant dit, si on nous dit que Georges fatigue ...
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4921.shtml
Bush Using Anti-Depressants
By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jul 28, 2004, 08:09
President George W. Bush is taking anti-depressant drugs to control his depression and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
The prescription drugs were ordered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White House physician. Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a Bush walked off stage on July 7, refusing to answer reporters’ questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.
Bushs emotional stability has become the topic of Washington whispers in recent months. Capitol Hill Blue first reported on June 4 about increasing concern among White House aides over the Presidents wide mood swings and obscene outbursts.
Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a paranoid meglomaniac and untreated alcoholic whose lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad.
Angry Bush walked away from reporter’s questions.
I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed, Dr. Frank said. He fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated.
Dr. Franks conclusions have been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.
President Bush is an untreated alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies, Dr. Frank adds.
The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment on this article.
The exact drugs Bush takes to control his depression and behavior are not known. While Col. Tubb regularly releases a synopsis of the Presidents annual physical, details of the Presidents health and any drugs or treatment he may receive are not public record and are guarded zealously by aides that surround the President.
Veteran White House watchers say the ability to control information about Bushs health, either physical or mental, is similar to Ronald Reagans second term when aides managed to conceal the Presidents increasing memory lapses that signaled the onslaught of Alzheimers Disease.
It also brings back memories of Richard Nixons final days when the soon-to-resign President wandered the halls and talked to portraits of former Presidents. The stories didnt emerge until after Nixon left office.
One long-time GOP political consultant who for obvious reasons asked not to be identified said he is advising his Republican Congressional candidates to keep their distance from Bush.
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Anamorphose
21/08/2004
“Whereas, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, has vigorously supported the United States in the disarmament of Iraq;
Whereas, the United Kingdom is a strong and loyal ally to the United States;
Whereas, Prime Minister Tony Blair has committed substantial military forces of the United Kingdom to the current action in Iraq;
The American people extend their heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Tony Blair for his courage and leadership; and
Extend their deep appreciation to the United Kingdom and the men and women of its armed forces.”
Si vous êtes américain (Dieu vous en préserve !) et si tenez vraiment à remercier personnellement Tony Blair pour sa politique aussi désastreuse que ridicule, vous pouvez le faire sur le site
http://www.thankyoutony.com/
Cela vous fera sûrement un bien fou !
al
20/08/2004
D’autres sources ont en effet mentionné cet exercice. Dans son édition de juillet, le Journal of Electronic Defense
revient sur cette defaite, dans l’article “Raptor: right or wrong” (cf. http://www.edefenseonline.com/default.asp?func=article&idarticle=654)
Il y est précisé que l’USAF alignait 4 F-15 contre 10 avions indiens (disparates, d’ailleurs : Mirage 2000H, MiG-21bis, MiG-27, MiG-29 et Su-30 MKI)
A noter qu’il s’agit de F-15C, version quelque peu dépassée (la Corée du Sud a acheté récemment des F-15K, dérivés du F-15E)
La raclee s’explique deja mieux, meme si la qualite des pilotes indiens n’est pas discutee (Commentaire d’un officiel Indien :“it was because of smart tactics, better anticipation, more skills,
and superiority of the Russian Su-30 over the American F-15C”)
On peut se demander pourquoi l’USAF envoie ainsi des F-15 obsoletes au casse-pipes.
Le même article explique -citant des officiels US- à propos du Raptor qu’il est necessaire parce que les F-15 et F-16 sont vraiment des excellents avions, mais qu’ils ne disposent et ne disposeront pas des indispensables de la superiorite aérienne du 21eme siecle : supersonique, furtivité et ‘network-centric warfare’.
Les F-15 (et F-16) sont constamment remis a niveau de façon à rester au niveau des adversaires potentiels,
mais l’USAF confesse “it is unrealistic to expect the F-15 and F-16 fleets to continue to dominate the skies in the new century”.
On peut pressentir à travers les contorsions du langage officiel que l’USAF est confrontée à plusieurs necessités :
1) promouvoir le Raptor toujours aussi contesté (”...the need for the aircraft, its cost and whether it will even work as advertised…”)
: laisser humilier des F-15 matraqués par les Indiens pour parvenir à démontrer par là la nécessité pour l’USAF de chasseurs de nouvelle génération,
2) ne pas compromettre le marché en jeu a Singapour, à qui on tente de vendre des F-15 ; il paraitrait que l’USAF a dépêché là-bas un officiel chargé d’expliquer l’excellence de l’avion malgré la raclée indienne (noter que l’adversaire potentiel malais dispose de Sukhoi) et sans doute malgré les défaillances apparues
sur les ailes du F-15 au cours des tests effectués à Singapour
3)peut-être également ne pas enterrer le F-15 qui assure à Boeing des revenus substantiels
(il a été fait allusion quelque part à des coûts de maintenance du F-15 excessivement élevés), bien
qu’on puisse penser que l’USAF n’est que peu intéressée à ce dernier aspect.
Stassen
20/08/2004
Rice admits U.S. fails to influence Muslims
Brian Knowlton/IHT IHT, NYT
Friday, August 20, 2004
‘Public diplomacy’ falls short, aide says
WASHINGTON Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said in unusually candid terms Thursday that administration efforts to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world had fallen well short of their targets.
Speaking at a time when the U.S. fight against terror is associated more often with military intervention than diplomacy and image-building, Rice said, “Our strategy must be comprehensive, because the challenge we face is greater and more complex than the threat.”
She accepted that more money needed to be spent on Arabic-language broadcasts and other means of reaching Muslim opinion. Nor did she defend U.S. public diplomacy in the Islamic world, which has been harshly criticized by many in Congress and recently by the national commission on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“We are obviously not very well organized for the side of public diplomacy,” Rice told an audience at the U.S. Institute for Peace. “Yes, there is more that the government should do.”
Her comments came a day after she faced blunt criticism from a former administration weapons inspector for Iraq, David Kay, who said that the National Security Council, which Rice heads, had botched the handling of prewar intelligence and was “the dog that did not bark” over alleged Iraqi weapons.
On Thursday, Rice made no mention of Kay’s comments.
The Bush administration has accepted several of the recommendations of the Sept. 11 panel, most notably for the creation of a national intelligence director, and Rice’s comments Thursday amounted to an agreement with the panel that U.S. public diplomacy was in serious need of reworking.
The panel, in its final report, quoted polls showing that “the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world,” and said that “if the United States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly do the job for us.”
Rice also appeared to be responding to criticism from Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential candidate. Kerry has said sharply that the administration has done far too little to understand and address the beliefs and resentments among some Muslims that might feed terrorism.
In response, President George W. Bush has sought to portray Kerry as soft on terrorism, and Vice President Dick Cheney mocked the senator’s call for a more “sensitive” foreign policy in the war on terror. “A ‘sensitive’ war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans,” Cheney said.
Administration officials have angrily denounced any suggestions that U.S. policies might have given impetus to terrorists, blaming some Muslims’ low esteem for the United States on a failure to better explain American values.
Calls for more vigorous public diplomacy have found considerable support in Congress. The Sept. 11 panel report urged that the government provide “much larger resources” to support broadcasts to Muslim audiences; rebuild scholarship and exchange programs; help fight high illiteracy in the Middle East; and do more to encourage economic development and free trade.
Rice supported such steps, and said that private American schools, universities and institutes needed to play a larger role as well.
Asked pointedly about what a reporter termed an “absurdly inadequate amount of funds” spent on public diplomacy and cultural exchanges, and challenged to say why she or other senior U.S. officials had not given a speech like Rice’s in a Muslim capital, Rice replied: “That’s a very good question. Maybe we should.”
She then noted Bush’s efforts, in conjunction with the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries, to promote democratization and economic development in the Arab world.
International Herald Tribune
“Where was the NSC?”
In uncharacteristically caustic remarks, the former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said the National Security Council had failed to protect the president from faulty prewar intelligence and had left Secretary of State Colin Powell “hanging out in the wind” when he tried to gather intelligence before the war about Iraqi weapons programs.
“Where was the NSC?” Kay asked, suggesting that the president had come to depend too heavily on information supplied by Rice.
“Every president who has been successful, at least that I know of, in the history of this republic, has developed both informal and formal means of getting checks on whether people who tell him things are in fact telling him the whole truth,” Kay told the Senate intelligence committee.
“The recent history has been a reliance on the NSC system to do it” on intelligence matters, he said. “I quite frankly think that has not served this president very well.”
Kay added: “The dog that did not bark in the case of Iraq’s WMD weapons program, quite frankly, in my view, is the National Security Council.”
Kay, who was appointed by the Bush administration last year to hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, resigned early this year after concluding that there were no stockpiles of such weapons.
fidelix
19/08/2004
Plutot tard que jamais, B.Clinton passe définitivement dans le camps des anti-guerre et laisse entendre que T.Blair risque de ne plus etre en odeur de sainteté à Washington si les démocrates l’emportent.
Mirror.co.uk (newspaper of the year!):
CLINTON IN FURY OVER BLAIR IRAQ ‘BETRAYAL’ Aug 19 2004
By Oonagh Blackman Political Editor
BILL Clinton has accused Tony Blair of “betraying” him over the way he backed the Iraq War.
The former President has privately told Democratic Party friends Mr Blair should have challenged George Bush more.
A senior Labour source who visited Democrats in the US revealed: “Clinton feels betrayed by what Blair did.
“He feels the PM gave Bush respectable cover for the war and under- estimated his influence, which could have been put to better uses.
“But he has made it clear he’s not going to hold a grudge.”
Senior Democrats are dismayed at the closeness between the PM and Republican Mr Bush - and his failure to publicly back Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry.
They have assured Labour figures they will “not hold a grudge” if they win November’s elections.
But ex-Foreign Secretary Robin Cook hinted Labour’s relationship with the Democrats could be wrecked.
He said: “They’re confident they’re going to win.
“This is good news for the world but not unalloyed joy for Tony Blair.”
Two months ago ex- Democrat presidential hopeful Howard Dean said: “We don’t know what to make of Tony Blair.
“He was a strong friend of Clinton, now he’s an ally with President Bush.”
Thomas
19/08/2004
Un message pour dire mon admiration pour le contenu de ce site d’une grande qualité. On y ressent la grande et haute humanité de son auteur.
Stassen
18/08/2004
President Outlines Overseas Troop Cut
70,000 Affected In Europe and Asia
By Mike Allen and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 17, 2004; Page A01
CINCINNATI, Aug. 16—President Bush announced plans Monday to recall as many as 70,000 troops from Cold War-era bases in Europe and Asia as part of a global rearrangement of forces that is aimed at making the military more agile in an age of unpredictable enemies.
The plan could significantly change the face of the U.S. military at home and abroad, in what administration officials called the largest restructuring overseas since the end of the Korean War. The typical three-year tours abroad would be sharply curtailed, and administration officials hope to ease the pressures placed on military families by the need for frequent moves.
The repositioning is to unfold gradually over seven to 10 years and cut by one-third the 230,000 U.S. service members now stationed overseas. The largest reductions would occur in Germany, which would lose two Army divisions, and South Korea. The two countries account for more than half of the U.S. troops stationed permanently on foreign soil.
“For decades, America’s armed forces abroad have essentially remained where the wars of the last century ended,” Bush said at the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, held in the swing state of Ohio. “The world has changed a great deal, and our posture must change with it.”
Bush’s announcement of the plan—which drew mixed assessments from military analysts—gave him a chance to talk about bringing troops home at a time when his opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), has pledged to substantially reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq. The administration plan, which will not affect the number of troops in Iraq, has been under development for many months. Its main outlines were reported publicly last week.
Kerry, who was vacationing in Idaho, did not immediately respond to Bush, but several of his allies attacked the plan vigorously. The Democratic National Committee organized a conference call with retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO’s former supreme allied commander, who said the plan “will significantly undermine U.S. national security.”
“As we face a global war on terror with al Qaeda active in more than 60 countries, now is not the time to pull back our forces,” Clark said.
Richard C. Holbrooke, a former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, accused Bush of trying to deflect attention from the strain on the military by prolonged deployments in Iraq. He criticized Bush for slipping a “historic announcement” into essentially a campaign speech.
“It’s not good diplomacy,” said Holbrooke, who argued that the plan will undermine relations with allies. “It sends the message that this administration continues to operate in a unilateral manner without adequately consulting its closest allies. It’s a mistake, driven by the fact that we’re stretched too thin in Iraq and the presidential election.”
Senior administration officials briefing reporters at the Pentagon, however, said the moves would make the military more flexible in a world where threats are less predictable, while allowing troops and their families to be stationed in the United States.
The shift is part of a broader Pentagon plan that includes closing bases in what Bush’s aides have called “old Europe.” Instead, the administration would build training camps and smaller bases in the former Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe that could be used for rapid deployments to the Middle East. The new bases would house equipment but would be sparsely staffed and far smaller than the massive, citylike bases in Germany.
“More of our troops will be stationed and deployed from here at home,” Bush said. “We’ll move some of our troops and capabilities to new locations, so they can surge quickly to deal with unexpected threats. We’ll take advantage of 21st-century military technologies to rapidly deploy increased combat power. The new plan will help us fight and win these wars of the 21st century.”
The plan prompted debate among military and government analysts over the potential costs and benefits of what was a relatively vague though dramatic announcement.
“I think the redeployment of U.S. overseas forces is long overdue, a decade or two,” said Loren Thompson, a defense expert with the Lexington Institute. “The reason why the U.S. has 70,000 personnel in Central Europe is because that was the high tide line for communist expansion. There’s no reason to be there in those numbers.”
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman said U.S. forces would lose the intangible advantages of living and working in allied countries, and he said the moves could send the wrong messages to adversaries. The shift would pull some U.S. ground troops from the Korean Peninsula, a hot spot where the United States has been working to deter North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.
“I couldn’t imagine a worse time to be pulling troops out of Korea at the same time we’re trying to get Pyongyang to give up its nukes,” Christman said. “It seems like preemptive concession.”
The White House provided few details of where troops would be moved beyond saying that, over the next decade, the military would close hundreds of U.S. facilities overseas and bring home 60,000 to 70,000 service members, plus about 100,000 family members and civilian defense employees.
Defense officials declined to talk about costs or specific redeployment figures, saying they are still working on details with several countries. The plan figures to be quite costly, as U.S. bases would have to be refurbished or expanded to handle the influx of troops and their families.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report in May that greatly reducing the U.S. presence overseas could save more than $1 billion a year but could cost nearly $7 billion upfront.
“Restationing Army forces would produce, at best, only small improvements in the United States’ ability to respond to far-flung conflicts,” the CBO said.
John P. White, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former deputy secretary of defense, said he believes such money should only be spent with an “imperative need” to do so. “I don’t understand how we gain strategic ability to respond by moving people to the U.S., further away from the likely trouble spots,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
Senior defense officials said yesterday that two heavily armored divisions now stationed in Germany would return to the United States as part of the realignment, and a Stryker brigade—with its more modern attack vehicles—would move into its place.
The major moves are not likely to begin until at least fiscal 2006 or later, with a bulk of those returning to the United States coming over several years.
Bush said changes are necessary “for the sake of our military families” and added: “Our service members will have more time on the home front, and more predictability and fewer moves over a career. Our military spouses will have fewer job changes, greater stability, more time for their kids and to spend with their families at home.”
The overture to military families in a national security speech reflected the political stakes and timing of the speech. This is the second week of an effort by Bush and his campaign to undo any success Kerry had in using the Democratic National Convention to portray himself as worthy of the title commander in chief. Veterans and military families, traditionally a Republican constituency, are thought to be in play this year because of Kerry’s credentials in Vietnam and concern over unexpectedly long deployments and continuing casualties in Iraq.
The appearance was paid for by Bush’s reelection campaign, and he laced his remarks with digs at Kerry. He entered to “Hail to the Chief” and received standing ovations before, during and after his speech.
Continuing the two campaigns’ mirrored schedules, Kerry is to address the VFW on Wednesday.
White reported from Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6461-2004Aug16.html?referrer=email
federico
16/08/2004
Très bon article sur la Commission. A mon avis cela démontre, une fois de plus, comment les Américains et les atlantistes agissent sans difficulté dans l’UE. Ceux qui pensent que l’UE puisse limiter l’hégémonie états-unienne en Europe et dans le monde, se trompent. En fait, l’UE détruit les souverainétés nationales, qui sont la seule garantie de démocratie et de justice sociale, pour les remplacer avec une oligarchie amorphe, très influencée par Washington.
Il faut retourner à une politique EN Europe, et laisser tomber toute idée d’Union intégrée, qui ne fait que ruiner les peuples européens.
Anamorphose
12/08/2004
Une dépêche d’Associated Press relayée par Yahoo! nous apprend qu’un homme politique important des US,le gouverneur du New Jersey, démissionne après avoir reconnu “honteusement” une relation homosexuelle adultère.
Quand verrons-nous enfin un homme politique américain assumer plenement et librement sa sexualité, fût-elle “déviante” par rapport à la moyenne statistique de la population globale ?
Faudra-t-il que tous, comme le fit Clinton, nous abreuve de leurs écoeurants actes de contrition ?
Bon Dieu de bon sang, ces hommes-là n’ont-ils plus aucune tripes, plus aucune couilles, pour ainsi s’avilir dans le plus obscène repentir ?
Quand on voit à quel point un peuple peut être coincé au niveau de la braguette, pas étonnant qu’il lui arrive les déboires qui lui arrivent. ( Et on a envie d’ajouter : on récolte ce que l’on sème) Nietzsche aurait pu nous écrire des pages et des pages inoubliables sur ce sujet…
Pas une once de fierté, pas un fifrelin de force morale ou plutôt, de force vitale, pour pouvoir simplement dire “Eh oui, j’aime baiser, que ce soit avec une stagiaire de bureau ovale ou que ce soit avec un homme ! C’est ainsi, que cela vous plaise ou non ! Et de toutes façons c’est pas vos oignons !” Au lieu de cela, la plus abjecte contrition, la plus veule repentance, la pratique consciencieuse et appliquée de l’autoflagellation, les vains regrets, les remords les plus vifs, dans un nauséabond besoin de confession publique.
Que ne demande-t-il pas, tant qu’il y est, sa lapidation publique ???
Beeuuurkkk !
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/040812/5/408ou.html
“jeudi 12 aout 2004, 22h50
Le gouverneur du New Jersey démissionne après avoir reconnu une liaison adultère avec un autre homme
TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) - Le gouverneur démocrate du New Jersey a annoncé jeudi sa démission après avoir reconnu avoir eu une relation extra-conjugale avec un autre homme.
“Ma vérité, c’est que je suis un gay américain”, a déclaré James McGreevey. Cet homme marié et père de deux enfants a précisé que sa démission prendrait effet le 15 novembre.
“Honteusement, j’ai eu des relations adultes consentante avec un autre homme, ce qui viole les liens du mariage”, a ajouté le gouverneur. “C’était mal, c’était inconscient, c’était inexcusable”, a-t-il lancé, expliquant qu’il avait décidé de démissionner car ce secret, sur sa sexualité et sa liaison adultère, rendait trop vulnérable sa fonction de gouverneur. AP”
Pauvre type ! Pauvre Amérique…
boudou
12/08/2004
http://www.courrierinternational.com/article.asp?obj_id=25414&provenance=accueil&bloc=02
Revue de presse PRÉSIDENTIELLE AMÉRICAINE - L’angoisse de la fraude A trois mois du scrutin présidentiel, un arsenal de mesures a été mis en place pour réduire au minimum le risque de fraude et d’erreurs. Une seule obsession : ne pas reproduire le scénario chaotique de l’an 2000. Pourtant, organisation du scrutin et commission de surveillance électorale restent sujets à polémique.
“Le 2 novembre 2004, environ 96 millions délecteurs américains (sur un total de 115) vont désigner leur futur président à laide dun système informatisé piratable de manière totalement invisible par les programmeurs des sociétés privées qui gèrent les élections, sinquiète The Nation
. Selon le magazine de gauche américain, la conséquence pourrait être léchec de la présidentielle américaine et son effondrement, provoqué par une avalanche de soupçons, daccusations, et le déclenchement dune colère publique telle que les événements de 2000 en Floride auront lair davoir été une banale querelle de famille.”
Selon The Nation, revue dopinion, confier le compte des voix à des entreprises privées ouvre un champ impressionnant de fraude et derreurs possibles”. Daprès lhebdomadaire, les quatre sociétés qui gèrent le vote automatique ne sont pas fiables et impartiales”. Par exemple, affirme le magazine, les machines de lentreprise texane Diebold Election Systems, qui se revendique républicaine, nont pas bien fonctionné en 2004 lors dune élection en Californie”. Une autre entreprise, Hart InterCivic, dAustin, au Texas, a pour principal investisseur Tom Hicks, un des hommes qui a aidé George W. Bush à devenir millionnaire.
De plus, ajoute The Nation, malgré le secret qui entoure le codage des programmes, il existerait toujours une ‘trappe’, une porte dentrée cachée que les pirates utilisent pour pénétrer dans le système. Enfin, aucune trace papier ne sera disponible pour recompter les votes. Lordinateur émettra une liste qui pourra être truquée ou tout simplement faussée par une erreur incontrôlable. Selon lhebdomadaire, il existe la possibilité que 30 % des votes de novembre soient impossibles à vérifier, à recompter et à contrôler”.
Or lun des soucis majeurs est déviter de reproduire le chaos électoral vécu en Floride lors de la précédente élection présidentielle, en 2000. En obtenant la majorité des voix dans cet Etat, George W. Bush avait remporté le scrutin, devenant président des Etats-Unis. Toutefois, le décompte des voix avait été particulièrement contesté et aujourdhui encore nul ne sait de manière incontestable si George W. Bush a réellement obtenu plus de votes que son adversaire Al Gore en Floride en 2000.
Les aléas de ce scrutin devenu par la force des choses historique furent nombreux. Machines à voter qui fonctionnaient mal, bulletins incompréhensibles, jusquà des votes délecteurs, en particulier ceux provenant de minorités ethniques, qui nont pas été comptabilisées faute de listes électorales correctes”.
La crainte de voir le même scénario se reproduire a conduit au vote de la loi HAVA (Help America Vote Act), en 2002. La loi HAVA a aggravé la situation, estime pourtant The Nation. Créée à la suite de cette loi, la commission de surveillance des élections doit définir le mode de fonctionnement du recomptage, mais quatre mois avant lélection, elle manque toujours de personnel et son action est controversée, dénonce le magazine. Le 17 juin 2004, la commission a envoyé 861 millions de dollars à 25 Etats, principalement pour quils séquipent de machines pour lesquelles aucune norme technique na encore été définie, affirme le journal new-yorkais.
Outre lautomatisation quasi totale du vote, une autre modification du système électoral pourrait empêcher la comptabilisation de tous les votes : certaines personnes vont devoir faire la preuve de leur identité avant de voter, note The Nation. En effet, les personnes votant pour la première fois dans une juridiction après sêtre inscrites sur Internet, où la vérification de lidentité nest pas effectuée, devront présenter une pièce didentité. Cela peut poser des problèmes pour les Indiens qui vivent dans les réserves et qui nont pas de pièce didentité où figure leur photo. Il y a plusieurs manières dexclure des électeurs du scrutin, en omettant de leur donner la liste des pièces didentité sans photo permettant de voter, par exemple, note le magazine.
“Les militants des droits civiques craignent que seuls les membres des minorités se voient demander une pièce didentité par les employés des bureaux de vote, explique le journal. Une autre des mesures mises en place par la commission est la possibilité denregistrer un vote provisoire pour les électeurs qui ne sont pas correctement inscrits sur les listes électorales, relate le New York Times
. Le but est de comptabiliser le maximum de votes et de ne pas écarter des gens sous prétexte dune irrégularité administrative, précise le quotidien américain. Mais, ce qui risque de coincer, cest le manque dhabitude et de qualification des employés des bureaux de vote, ajoute le journal.
De même, USA Today
assure que la plus grande menace pour lélection présidentielle de novembre 2004 est la désorganisation et les erreurs potentielles du million et demi demployés vieillissants des bureaux de vote, daprès les conclusions de la commission de surveillance”. Il manque 2 millions de personnes pour mener à bien une élection dune telle envergure et la moyenne dâge des employés des bureaux de vote est de 72 ans, sinquiète le quotidien américain. La commission demande le recrutement de nouveaux employés dans les lycées, les universités, les conseils municipaux”. Un guide à lusage de ces salariés qui vont encadrer le scrutin a été créé, recommandant par exemple d’inciter les gens à sentraîner sur la machine sur laquelle ils voteront”. Cest la première fois que le gouvernement fédéral simplique autant dans des élections nationales, traditionnellement gérées par les Etats, note USA Today. Lenjeu : Ne pas répéter les mêmes erreurs quen Floride.”
Ainsi les Etats-Unis sont même allés jusquà accepter, pour la première fois de leur histoire, la présence dobservateurs internationaux de lOSCE (Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe) pour sassurer du bon déroulement du scrutin. Les démocrates, menés par la députée Corrine Brown, de lEtat de Floride, ont souhaité le recours à des observateurs de lONU après les résultats controversés de lélection de 2000, rapporte le Boston Globe
. Le département dEtat américain a salué la décision de lOSCE denvoyer une équipe et a démenti lexistence du moindre doute sur la transparence de lélection à venir.”
Hamdam Mostafavi
pilou
11/08/2004
en fin d’article de l’IHT, on apprend les relations cordiales qui animent les mebres de la Force Multi Nationale ...
In Copenhagen, The Associated Press said that the Danish military in Iraq had suspended handing over prisoners to British forces after the Iraqi government reinstated capital punishment.
Kovy
11/08/2004
Il faut relativiser, les pilotes américains ont en effet l’habitude de se faire “ratatiner” durant les exercices…ce n’est pas vraiment nouveau.
En Inde, on parle de combat tournoyant. Or les pilotes de su-30 sont équipés de viseurs de casque (meme s’ils sont rudimentaires) et de missiles R-73 qui sont assez nettement supérieurs à l’aim-9L en terme de manoeuvrabilité (pour la fiabilité c’est sans doute autre chose mais comme ce sont des combats simulés cela ne rentre pas en ligne de compte).
Cela donne un avantage décisif aux indiens pour le combat tournoyant…avantage qui serait sans doute largement comblé si les pilotes de F-15 avaient été équipés de viseurs HMS et d’aim-9x.
La meme chose est arrivé récemment aux français : Les combats tournoyants entre mirage 2000 français et F-16 Belges sont fréquents et assez équilibrés.
Il y a peu, les Belges ont testé le missile aim-9X couplé à un viseur de casque américain…resultat, les mirages se font tailler en pièces…
Tout cela pour dire qu’en combat tournoyant, le moindre avantage est déterminant mais ne vient pas forcément de l’avion lui meme.
Pour en revenir à l’USAF, il ne faut pas oublier que la guerre aérienne moderne est surtout une question de AEW (détection longue portée) de BVR (combat hors de la portée visuelle) et de brouillage (guerre électronique)...3 domaines dominés par les américains (et les européens). pour l’heure, les Indiens (comme la plupart des forces aériennes du monde) ne fabriquent à grande échelle ni leurs missiles BVR, ni leurs contremesures, ni leur radars…ils sont donc extremement vulnérables lors d’engagement BVR.
sd
10/08/2004
Je dirais que ce ne serait pas la première fois que les pilotes de l’Air Force se font botter le derrière…
La première, c’était vers la fin des années 80, avec des mirages F1CR français participants a red flag.
Plus récemment, les Rafales de la marine ont surclassé les F14 et F18 en combat aérien.
Enfin, un exercice mettant en oeuvre 4 F15 contre un unique F22, s’est achevé par la victoire complète du F22, sans même que les pilotes de F15 n’aient pu localiser l’origine de la menace…
Que faut-il en retenir ?
Un: F15, F14, F18 première génération, F16 première génération, sont des appareils dépassés face aux 2000-5, Rafale, Gripen, SU-30 M/K/I. Il y a un rattrapage US sur l’électronique (antenne à balayage, contre mesure) mais ce qui est mis en défaut ici se sont bien les qualités de vol (taux virage, rayon de virage, incidence ...).
Deux: en conséquence une vitoire US ou une dérouillée dépend du scénario de l’exercice. En combat tournoyant, il est clair que les appareils US (sauf peut-être certains F16 E/F et F8 E/F) sont surclassés (manque de jus, qualité de vol inférieure) Dans un scénario d’engagement longue distance, les choses s’équilibrent. Je dis s’équilibrent car une appareil comme le SU-30 MKI indien possède, comme l’amraam US, des missiles d’origine russe (R-77) de qualité équivalente (tout comme le MICA français).
La différence se situera au niveau de la qualité du radar et sa sensibilité au brouillage.
Dans le cas indien, il semble que le scénario engagé fut celui d’un combat tournoyant. Et en effet, F15 vs SU-30 MKI, il n’y a pas photo, le sukhoi vire bien plus serré, possède plus de puissance motrice, et l’agilité naturelle de l’avion est encore plus impressionante grace à ses tuyères orientables.
Trois: en effet, les scénario d’entrainement type RED FLAG, MAPPLE FLAG ou COPER THUNDER ne correspondent pas à la réalité du combat aérien moderne, dans le sens combat aérien, c’est à dire avion contre avion.
90% des scénarii concernent l’attaque au sol dans la profondeur, où des assaillants doivent délivrer un armement de précision en essayant de passer au travers de la défense adverse. Il ne s’agit pas réellement d’ affrontements de défense aérienne à défense aérienne en vue d’acquérir la supériorité.
Quatre: les agresseurs sont en général équipés d’appareils qui ont une voire, deux générations de retard sur les matériels en ligne. Les spécialistes US semblent oublier, que des forces aériennes comme le Qatar, les Emirats, les Indiens, les égyptiens, les Russes, les Chinois sont relativement bien équipée de machines aux qualités équivalentes ou supérieure au F16 et F15. C’est une réalité quelque peu “oubliée” ou “ignorée”.
Cinq: la supériorité aérienne est un art, qui ne s’apprend pas en standardisant un cursus de formation dans une ecole, aussi prestigieuse soit-elle. Le combat aérien est une confrontation d’expérience, or, a part deux ou trois migs isolés abattus durant les campagne du kosovo ou la Gulf War I, il me semble (avis personnel) que les pilotes US perdent cette expérience acquise durant les années vietnam. Ce qui entraine, un manque d’inittiative, des formations formattés et à la carte ... qui ne sont pas adapatée face à une force aérienne moderne.
Six: les tactiques US de défense aérienne et d’engagement face à des agresseurs multiples non jamais été mise à l’épreuve, si ce n’est au cours d’exercice bien délimité ou chacun se doit, d’une certaine manière, d’accepter les règles strictes d’un jeu quelque peu faussé par rapport à la réalité. En général le scénario est un peu taillé sur mesure pour les machines US.
Sept: les forces aériennes étrangères ont envoyé de nombreux pilotes dans les pays occidentaux, cela fait partie des contrats de vente. Exemple: les singapouriens s’entrainent souvent avec les français, beaucoup de pilotes du moyen orient sont passé par les cursus de formation US; idem puor la force aérienen indienne. Ces pilotes ont été bien formés, et connaissent les tactiques US, l’état d’esprit US, et ont de bonnnes infos sur la qualité de leur matérielle. On oublie souvent de dire que c’est aussi la qualité des pilotes et des commandants d’unités de ces forces aériennes qui ont enormément progressé ces dernières années pas uniquement les pilotes US qui se sont ramollis. Les USA retrouvent lors de ces exercices des unités moins complexées, des pilotes plus agressifs, plus audacieux, des tactiques mieux construites et surtout mieux éxécutées (plus de discipline).
Que faut-il en retenir ?
L’USAF s’est fait l’apôtre depuis les années 80 de la doctrine de “Air Dominance”, il est clair aujurd’hui que cette doctrine a du plmob dans l’aile: les matériels ont pris un énorme coup de vieux face aux nouveaux modèles de Sukhoi, face au Rafale… Les pilotes US s’embourbent dans des formations un peu stéréotypées aux engagements beaucoup trop formattés et surtout, les gouffres financiers du F22 et F35 oblitèrent complètement le débat en le déplaçant sous le seul regard de la technologie.
Ces deux appareils ne correspondant pas aux futures menaces, et leur coût prohibitf font qu’ils ne seront déployés qu’en petite quantité, et donc si chers, qu’on ne va les engager que dans des scénarios où ils pourront a coup sur emporter la victoire.
Je terminerai par l’état d’esprit de l’USAF.
Souvenez-vous, au Kosovo, un F117A avait été descendu par la défense sol-air serbes. L’analyse de cette perte, à montré que les serbes avaient mis au point une véritable tactique anti-furtif. Certes, elle était rudimentaire, très empirique, et un peu aveugle. Mais ce qui a permis d’abattre cet avion, c’était que les responsables US faisaient passer leur F117A toujours aux memes endroits, toujours par les mêmes couloirs de pénétration sans même s’imaginer que la défense adverse aurait la possibilité d’exploiter cette faiblesse dans les conditions d’emploi du F117. Alors, s’agissait-il d’arrogance ? Je ne pense pas, mais il s’agissait surtout de routine, on les fait passer par ces couloirs car on a toujours fait comme ça ... Point. C’est bien un manque de formation et de souplesse qui est à l’origine de cette perte.
Voilà, ce que je voulais dire à propos de l’USAF tatouille. :)
SD
10/08/2004
Je dirais que ce ne serait pas la première fois que les pilotes de l’Air Force se font botter le derrière…
La première, c’était vers la fin des années 80, avec des mirages F1CR français participants a red flag.
Plus récemment, les Rafales de la marine ont surclassé les F14 et F18 en combat aérien.
Enfin, un exercice mettant en oeuvre 4 F15 contre un unique F22, s’est achevé par la victoire complète du F22, sans même que les pilotes de F15 n’aient pu localiser l’origine de la menace…
Que faut-il en retenir ?
Un: F15, F14, F18 première génération, F16 première génération, sont des appareils dépassés face aux 2000-5, Rafale, Gripen, SU-30 M/K/I. Il y a un rattrapage US sur l’électronique (antenne à balayage, contre mesure) mais ce qui est mis en défaut ici se sont bien les qualités de vol (taux virage, rayon de virage, incidence ...).
Deux: en conséquence une vitoire US ou une dérouillée dépend du scénario de l’exercice. En combat tournoyant, il est clair que les appareils US (sauf peut-être certains F16 E/F et F8 E/F) sont surclassés (manque de jus, qualité de vol inférieure) Dans un scénario d’engagement longue distance, les choses s’équilibrent. Je dis s’équilibrent car une appareil comme le SU-30 MKI indien possède, comme l’amraam US, des missiles d’origine russe (R-77) de qualité équivalente (tout comme le MICA français).
La différence se situera au niveau de la qualité du radar et sa sensibilité au brouillage.
Dans le cas indien, il semble que le scénario engagé fut celui d’un combat tournoyant. Et en effet, F15 vs SU-30 MKI, il n’y a pas photo, le sukhoi vire bien plus serré, possède plus de puissance motrice, et l’agilité naturelle de l’avion est encore plus impressionante grace à ses tuyères orientables.
Trois: en effet, les scénario d’entrainement type RED FLAG, MAPPLE FLAG ou COPER THUNDER ne correspondent pas à la réalité du combat aérien moderne, dans le sens combat aérien, c’est à dire avion contre avion.
90% des scénarii concernent l’attaque au sol dans la profondeur, où des assaillants doivent délivrer un armement de précision en essayant de passer au travers de la défense adverse. Il ne s’agit pas réellement d’ affrontements de défense aérienne à défense aérienne en vue d’acquérir la supériorité.
Quatre: les agresseurs sont en général équipés d’appareils qui ont une voire, deux générations de retard sur les matériels en ligne. Les spécialistes US semblent oublier, que des forces aériennes comme le Qatar, les Emirats, les Indiens, les égyptiens, les Russes, les Chinois sont relativement bien équipée de machines aux qualités équivalentes ou supérieure au F16 et F15. C’est une réalité quelque peu “oubliée” ou “ignorée”.
Cinq: la supériorité aérienne est un art, qui ne s’apprend pas en standardisant un cursus de formation dans une ecole, aussi prestigieuse soit-elle. Le combat aérien est une confrontation d’expérience, or, a part deux ou trois migs isolés abattus durant les campagne du kosovo ou la Gulf War I, il me semble (avis personnel) que les pilotes US perdent cette expérience acquise durant les années vietnam. Ce qui entraine, un manque d’inittiative, des formations formattés et à la carte ... qui ne sont pas adapatée face à une force aérienne moderne.
Six: les tactiques US de défense aérienne et d’engagement face à des agresseurs multiples non jamais été mise à l’épreuve, si ce n’est au cours d’exercice bien délimité ou chacun se doit, d’une certaine manière, d’accepter les règles strictes d’un jeu quelque peu faussé par rapport à la réalité. En général le scénario est un peu taillé sur mesure pour les machines US.
Sept: les forces aériennes étrangères ont envoyé de nombreux pilotes dans les pays occidentaux, cela fait partie des contrats de vente. Exemple: les singapouriens s’entrainent souvent avec les français, beaucoup de pilotes du moyen orient sont passé par les cursus de formation US; idem puor la force aérienen indienne. Ces pilotes ont été bien formés, et connaissent les tactiques US, l’état d’esprit US, et ont de bonnnes infos sur la qualité de leur matérielle. On oublie souvent de dire que c’est aussi la qualité des pilotes et des commandants d’unités de ces forces aériennes qui ont enormément progressé ces dernières années pas uniquement les pilotes US qui se sont ramollis. Les USA retrouvent lors de ces exercices des unités moins complexées, des pilotes plus agressifs, plus audacieux, des tactiques mieux construites et surtout mieux éxécutées (plus de discipline).
Que faut-il en retenir ?
L’USAF s’est fait l’apôtre depuis les années 80 de la doctrine de “Air Dominance”, il est clair aujurd’hui que cette doctrine a du plmob dans l’aile: les matériels ont pris un énorme coup de vieux face aux nouveaux modèles de Sukhoi, face au Rafale… Les pilotes US s’embourbent dans des formations un peu stéréotypées aux engagements beaucoup trop formattés et surtout, les gouffres financiers du F22 et F35 oblitèrent complètement le débat en le déplaçant sous le seul regard de la technologie.
Ces deux appareils ne correspondant pas aux futures menaces, et leur coût prohibitf font qu’ils ne seront déployés qu’en petite quantité, et donc si chers, qu’on ne va les engager que dans des scénarios où ils pourront a coup sur emporter la victoire.
Je terminerai par l’état d’esprit de l’USAF. Souvenez-vous, au Kosovo, un F117A avait été descendu par la défense sol-air serbes. L’analyse de cette perte, à montré que les serbes avaient mis au point une véritable tactique anti-furtif. Certes, elle était rudimentaire, très empirique, et un peu aveugle. Mais ce qui a permis d’abattre cet avion, c’était que les responsables US faisaient passer leur F117A toujours aux memes endroits, toujours par les mêmes couloirs de pénétration sans même s’imaginer que la défense adverse aurait la possibilité d’exploiter cette faiblesse dans les conditions d’emploi du F117. Alors, s’agissait-il d’arrogance ? Je ne pense pas, mais il s’agissait surtout de routine, on les fait passer par ces couloirs car on a toujours fait comme ça ... Point. C’est bien un manque de formation et de souplesse qui est à l’origine de cette perte.
Voilà, ce que je voulais dire à propos de l’USAF tatouille. :)
Stassen
10/08/2004
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
U.S. Is Accused of Playing Role in Chalabi Case
A member of the former ally’s party says Iraqi charges against him are part of a plot to weaken the government.
By Henry Chu and Paul Richter
Times Staff Writers
August 10, 2004
BAGHDAD A top supporter of embattled former Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi accused the United States on Monday of backing bogus counterfeiting charges against the onetime American ally in order to neutralize Chalabi politically and install an “impotent” government.
Mithal Alusi, a member of Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress party, said arrest warrants issued by an Iraqi court over the weekend were part of an international plot that is “bigger than anyone could imagine” to strip Chalabi of his popularity.
The charges come a week before a conference of Iraqi civic and tribal leaders that will appoint an interim national assembly. Chalabi, who was shut out of the interim government that took power in June, was expected to play a lead role at the gathering.
“The warrants were issued by a government that is lacking in will and authority,” Alusi said. “Every Iraqi government institution and facility is being run by so-called U.S. advisors who are under the control of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The people behind this plot want an impotent Iraqi government, not capable of doing anything.”
Chalabi and his nephew, Salem Chalabi, were named in the arrest warrants issued by Zuhair Maliky, chief investigative judge of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq.
Salem Chalabi, who has been overseeing the effort to try deposed dictator Saddam Hussein on war crimes charges, was accused of murder in connection with threats made to a Finance Ministry official who was investigating Chalabi family real estate holdings. The official was later assassinated.
Both of the Chalabis issued new denials of the charges Monday, pledging to return to Iraq to fight them. Salem Chalabi was in London and Ahmad Chalabi was in Iran when the warrants were announced.
Ahmad Chalabi is accused of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars. But Alusi said only about 3,000 counterfeit dinars, worth approximately $2, were found in Chalabi’s office, and they were marked as forgeries with a red stamp from the Iraqi Central Bank. Chalabi, who headed the Finance Committee of the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council, has said he was engaged in an effort to stem counterfeiting. Alusi said Chalabi held the forged dinars as part of that effort.
A Central Bank official said his agency never sought the counterfeiting charges.
“The Central Bank has not lodged a complaint against any individual regarding money counterfeiting and never requested that such charges be brought,” Sinan Shabibi, the bank’s governor, told the French news agency Agence France-Presse.
As Chalabi’s supporters in Iraq insisted that the charges were politically motivated, U.S. officials in Washington sought to distance themselves from him in an estrangement that began this spring.
Chalabi worked closely with U.S. officials in the years before the Iraq war and was the top choice of the Bush administration for assuming leadership in a new Iraqi government.
But administration officials grew wary of him this year amid reports that he had contacts with Iran that may have included passing U.S. secrets. American officials also have been concerned that Chalabi has cultivated ties to militant Iraqi cleric Muqtada Sadr and his militia, who have been battling U.S. and Iraqi forces in renewed fighting since Thursday.
On Monday, the White House took a hands-off attitude to a onetime friend.
“His future will be decided by the people of Iraq, if he wants to continue to be involved in Iraq ‘s future,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. “This latest investigation, that is a matter for Iraqi authorities to handle.”
The State Department, never as close to Chalabi as the White House or Pentagon, also distanced itself. Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said the charges “are certainly new to us. This is a question of the Iraqi justice system at work. And we are going to play the appropriate role, which is to let that process take its course.”
At the Pentagon, civilian officials have long supported Chalabi. As recently as May, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz defended him, saying that intelligence he had provided saved American lives and helped troops. But a Wolfowitz spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry pressed for more information about Chalabi and his activities.
“Serious questions about Ahmad Chalabi remain, including his role in providing misleading information about Iraqi weapons and his connections to Pentagon officials,” a Kerry spokesman said Monday. “We need a full and frank accounting of the administration’s relationship with Chalabi.”
Still, the warrants for the Chalabis brought a strong defense from some of their allies in Washington, and illustrated the divisions over him among the war’s supporters.
Richard N. Perle, a former top advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and a leader of the so-called neoconservatives who embraced Chalabi and the war, said in an interview that he believed the warrants were part of an effort against Chalabi undertaken by the Iraqi government with the support of the U.S. government.
“I’m sure it’s been encouraged by the U.S.,” Perle said in an interview from Europe.
He said CIA and State Department officials have long opposed Chalabi and have convinced others in the government to move against him. Now officials in the White House oppose Chalabi as well, Perle said.
“It was those reports that led to a decision to destroy him,” Perle said, adding that he believed there was no basis to the reports that Chalabi passed classified information to Iran.
Michael Rubin, a former advisor to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq now at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said the judge who issued the warrant was unqualified, and that the Bush administration and government of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi wanted to keep Chalabi from gaining influence.
Rubin said the Allawi government had moved against Chalabi to prevent him from gaining a role in the upcoming conference. Maliky, the investigative judge, told The Times on Monday that politics had played no part in the issuance of the warrants.
LA Times staff writers T. Christian Miller and Edwin Chen in Washington and Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chalabi10aug10.story
—-
July 9, 2004
Defectors’ Reports on Iraq Arms Were Embellished, Exile Asserts
By JIM DWYER
Shortly after President Bush declared war on terrorism in the fall of 2001, the Iraqi National Congress, the exile group led by Ahmad Chalabi, sent out a simple, urgent message to its network of intelligence agents: find evidence of outlawed weapons that would make Saddam Hussein a prime target for the United States.
Inevitably, that request reached Muhammad al-Zubaidi, himself an Iraqi exile who had been working to undermine Mr. Hussein for 24 years from posts in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and northern Iraq. Under the playful name of Al Deeb - Arabic for The Wolf - Mr. Zubaidi, now 52, served as a field leader for about 75 to 100 people who collected information on the machinations of Iraq’s police state.
Over the next three months, Mr. Zubaidi and his associates gathered statements from defectors who said they had knowledge of Mr. Hussein’s military facilities and who had fled Iraq for neighboring countries.
In short order, that same group of defectors took their stories to American intelligence agents and journalists. The defectors spoke of a nation pocketed with mobile weapons laboratories, a new secret weapons site beneath a Baghdad hospital, a meeting between a member of Mr. Hussein’s government and Osama bin Laden - accounts that ultimately became potent elements in Mr. Bush’s case for war.
Those accusations remain unproven. In fact, Mr. Zubaidi said in interviews last week in Lebanon, the ominous claims by the defectors differed significantly from the versions that they had first related to him and his associates. Mr. Zubaidi provided his handwritten diaries from 2001 and 2002, and his existing reports on the statements originally made by the defectors.
According to the documents, the defectors, while speaking with precision about aspects of Iraqi military facilities like its stock of missiles, did not initially make some of the most provocative claims about weapons production or that an Iraqi official had met with Mr. bin Laden.
The precise circumstances under which the stories apparently changed remains unclear. The defectors themselves could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Zubaidi contends that the men altered their stories after they met with senior figures in the Iraqi National Congress. Mr. Zubaidi, who acknowledged that he had a bitter split with the I.N.C. in April 2003, said officials of the group prepped the defectors before allowing them to meet with the American intelligence agents and journalists.
“They intentionally exaggerated all the information so they would drag the United States into war,” Mr. Zubaidi said. “We all know the defectors had a little information on which they built big stories.”
Yesterday, Nabil Musawi, one of Mr. Chalabi’s deputies who met with the defectors, said that Mr. Zubaidi’s assertions were “childish,” and bore no relation to reality. He said it was not the role of Mr. Zubaidi or his associates to do full debriefings of the defectors. Nor was it the responsibility of the I.N.C. to grade the reliability of each defector, he said.
“Whether the defector failed or succeeded, it meant nothing to us,” Mr. Musawi said, speaking by phone from Jordan. “There’s no question we wanted to indict the regime, but I wish we had someone clever enough to sit down and come up with stories.”
For a short time last year, Mr. Zubaidi was in the spotlight, immediately after the old government was toppled in April 2003. Acting in the power vacuum of those early days, he tried to form a civil administration in Baghdad with himself as the executive, an effort that lasted about two weeks before he was taken into custody by the United States military for 12 days and ordered to desist. He later was arrested again and held for about five months. He said he believed his former colleagues at the Iraqi National Congress were behind his jailing, an assumption Mr. Musawi says is not true.
Since February, Mr. Zubaidi has been living quietly outside Beirut. He said he had not publicly discussed details of his role in locating defectors until he was contacted by The New York Times last month. He agreed to be interviewed at length, and to make available any records that had not been confiscated by the American military forces.
Francis Brooke, an adviser to Mr. Chalabi in Washington, said yesterday that Mr. Zubaidi had been an effective agent but maintained that he had never raised concerns about the credibility of the defectors. “Sounds to me like the guy is a loony,” Mr. Brooke said. “Who knows who he is working for now? He was working closely for us. He never indicated anything to me like that. It’s completely inconsistent with any other knowledge I have of how things worked.”
Mr. Zubaidi said he decided to speak out not because of bad feelings against individuals, but to correct the record. “I’m not trying to defame those people, although they betrayed the cause,” Mr. Zubaidi said. “Now they are bearing the consequences. I’m a witness. This is something for history.”
Mr. Brooke said the I.N.C.‘s quest to obtain information on outlawed weapons in Iraq became more pressing after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. On Sept. 20, 2001, with the Pentagon hallways still reeking of smoke and disaster, Mr. Chalabi met with the Defense Policy Board, a group of private citizens that advises the secretary of defense. The clear consensus was that Mr. Hussein had to be removed from power in Iraq, in the interests of stabilizing the region and thwarting his support for terrorists, according to Mr. Brooke, who accompanied Mr. Chalabi to the Pentagon.
For the Iraqi National Congress, which was created in 1992 with United States financial support, the attacks presented an opportunity to define their cause - overthrowing Saddam Hussein - within the newly redrawn agenda of the United States.
Mr. Brooke, an American citizen who works in Washington, said he moved quickly to seek fresh details from the group’s agents on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. “I say to everybody, and that includes everybody in my intelligence network, now is a real good time for information on those two subjects,” Mr. Brooke said. He instructed them, he said, to “highlight it, put it in red and send it to me right away.”
Mr. Zubaidi said he and his associates got that message. “My role during the process was to bring in the person, to write reports of what he said, and to give my personal information and opinion about what they were saying.”
Among the first, and most important, defectors was Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a civil engineer who left Iraq in November 2001 and made his way to Syria. There, Mr. Zubaidi said, he had a chance encounter with one of Mr. Zubaidi’s associates in a travel agency, and they struck up a conversation. Mr. Saeed had run into legal problems with Iraqi officials, he said, and was eager to move his family to Australia, where his brother lives.
Over a period of weeks, Mr. Zubaidi said, Mr. Saeed disclosed that he had contracts with the government’s Military Industrial Organization that involved building and repairing concrete shelters and wells, which he believed were for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. He provided several hundred pages of documents, and had gone to school with an I.N.C. official who vouched for him.
Mr. Saeed, while financially comfortable, needed logistical help getting out of the Middle East because of problems with his travel documents, Mr. Zubaidi said. Mr. Saeed paid his family’s way to Bangkok, according to Mr. Zubaidi.
He was accompanied by Mr. Zubaidi’s associate, who was interviewed in Damascus last week but asked that he not be named. After several days in Bangkok, two I.N.C. officials arrived from London and spent about a day with Mr. Saeed. Their purpose, Mr. Brooke said, was to put the defector at ease before interviews with a reporter from The Times and a freelance television journalist who had worked occasionally for the I.N.C. but was filming Mr. Saeed for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
During his sessions with reporters, Mr. Saeed mentioned for the first time the facility underneath the hospital, according to both Mr. Zubaidi and his associate. Like other defectors, Mr. Saeed recounted his story to American intelligence agents. In Mr. Saeed’s case, the White House specifically mentioned his account in a background paper that accompanied a speech by Mr. Bush.
Inspectors from the United States government tried to find the facility in the hospital that Mr. Saeed described but could not, according to David Kay, who was appointed by Mr. Bush to lead the search for outlawed weapons.
“It wasn’t there, didn’t pan out, so people took that to mean that nothing else he said was true,” Mr. Kay said yesterday by telephone. He said that the war and uncontrolled looting created a “margin of error” about a number of suspected sites, but the hospital was not disturbed.
Mr. Musawi, one of the I.N.C. officials who prepared Mr. Saeed for his interview, said that he could not have coached Mr. Saeed because his information was far too technical. “What can you coach a chemical engineer who specializes in concrete sealing?” he asked.
Also in November 2001, Mr. Chalabi’s group arranged for press interviews with an Iraqi Army lieutenant general to whom Mr. Zubaidi had spoken. A reporter for The Times flew to Beirut to meet with the general, Jamal al-Ghurairy, who said groups of Islamic terrorists were training on an airplane fuselage to simulate hijackings.
“We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States,” Mr. Ghurairy said. During the interview, the general acknowledged his own involvement in the execution of thousands of Shiite Muslim rebels after the Persian Gulf war of 1991.
Before Mr. Ghurairy met with the reporter, Mr. Zubaidi had tried to get him to write out his account, but the general held out, according to a report provided by Mr. Zubaidi and dated Nov. 11, 2001. In that report, Mr. Zubaidi said that Mr. Ghurairy “played sick. He was being evasive so that he would get guarantees for facilitating his trip” to Europe or the United States.
Mr. Musawi, who had flown from London to Beirut to take part in the session, “assured him that we will secure their trip as soon as possible to any destination they want,” the report stated.
Mr. Zubaidi did not have a high opinion of the general’s probity. He wrote of Mr. Ghurairy, “He is an opportunist, cheap and manipulative. He has poetic interests and has a vivid imagination in making up stories.”
In February 2002, a third defector, Harith Assaf, a major in the Iraqi intelligence service, was filmed by the CBS News program “60 Minutes” speaking about mobile biological weapons laboratories that he said were put into seven refrigerated trucks. Mr. Assaf also described a meeting between a member of the Iraqi government and Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan.
When Mr. Zubaidi objected and tried to stop the interview, Mr. Musawi, who had come with the television crew from London, said he insisted that it continue. “I told him, ‘It’s not your call. I’m allowing the story to be told,’ ” Mr. Musawi said.
Mr. Zubaidi said that the major, Mr. Assaf, had not revealed the purported bin Laden meeting and the mobile laboratories during discussions that had begun three months earlier. His diary entry for Feb. 11, 2002, says: “After the interview, an argument with Nabil about their way of working, especially the connection with bin Laden.” In a follow-up story in March 2004, “60 Minutes” reported that Mr. Assaf had been deemed unreliable by American intelligence. In addition, the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks has said that while there were reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, they did not appear to have “resulted in a collaborative relationship.”
Mr. Musawi said the risk to the I.N.C. of coaching defectors was considerable, because it had enemies in Washington. If a story was quickly disproved, he said, “We would look pretty stupid.”
Despite this, Mr. Kay said that during the hunt for weapons last year, a number of the defectors admitted they were lying after being put through a polygraph test. “Some of them claimed to have been coached by the I.N.C., and some of them claimed to have been coached on how to pass polygraphs,” Mr. Kay said.
Mr. Zubaidi said, “I don’t want to criticize U.S. agencies, but it’s strange that the U.S. with all its powerful agencies, the C.I.A., could not manage to know the truth from the lies in these people.”
Samar Aboul-Fotouh contributed reporting from Syria and Lebanonfor this article.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0C15FA385F0C7A8CDDAE0894DC404482
—-
For further journalistic inquiry, see this link :
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3057
Miller Brouhaha
The New York Times’ Judith Miller has been pummelled unmercifully for her reporting on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But coverage of this murky subject has hardly been the finest hour for the news media in general.
By Charles Layton
Charles Layton is an AJR contributing writer.
-
Pour poster un commentaire, vous devez vous identifier