FULL VERSIONS OF SOME OF THE ARTICLES SUMMARIZED ABOVE

"THOSE BRAINS AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE ALWAYS GET IT WRONG"

Lessons of history No 52: those brains at the Foreign Office always get it wrong
By Andrew Roberts
The Times (of London)
April 28, 2004

Tony Blair should be delighted that no fewer than 52 former diplomats have written to him to say that his Middle Eastern policy is "doomed to failure". Whenever a collective view has developed in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office it has been only a matter of time - and usually not long, either - before it has been proved spectacularly wrong.

In the superb new biography of Lord Palmerston by James Chambers, it is clear that the majority of Britain's mid-19th-century ambassadors heartily disapproved of his policy of extending liberal constitutions to anywhere that could sustain them; how those long-dead diplomats would have agreed with their successors' haughty statement that the creation of an Iraqi democracy today is "naive".

Similarly, Lord Salisbury saw the Foreign Office as the enemy for its continual pressure to end Britain's "splendid isolation". He disliked the process by which diplomats sometimes went native, telling Queen Victoria: "An occasional change of post increases the usefulness of a diplomatist. If he remains too long at one post he falls under special personal influences, or gets mixed up in local quarrels." Going native is notoriously true of the FCO's Arabist ambassadors, many of whom signed yesterday's letter.

Yet before the letter is taken to be indicative of general FCO feeling, we ought to check the small print. There are no former ambassadors to Washington among the signatories, no permanent under-secretaries, only two ambassadors to a great power and an awful lot of third-rankers. We have been treated to the views of our former ambassadors to very minor countries indeed, such as Switzerland, Chad, Cameroon, Colombia and Chile. Oh, and a former Governor of the Falkland Islands. Two of the countries - Luxembourg and the Vatican - are so small they could comfortably be carpeted over in Axminster by the Treasury without anyone noticing the cost. Even if we accept that these scores of CMGs and KCMGs somehow do represent mainstream FCO opinion, what of it? Zara Steiner's work shows how few of its supposedly first-class brains foresaw the cataclysm of 1914; the appeasement policy of the Thirties was directed from an FCO that agreed with Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax; its top echelons were keen on "dual-flag solutions" at the time of the Falklands.

Finally, and tellingly, the FCO has been the primary British engine for pushing Britain closer and closer towards a European superstate. The best collective noun for any group of British diplomats - let alone 52 of them - is "a cringe".

Many in the Foreign Office, with their happy memories of reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom at Oxbridge, cannot come to terms with the very existence of the State of Israel. The reference in their letter to "one-sided and illegal" actions which "cost yet more blood", for example, is not to Palestinian suicide-bombers but to the policies of President Bush and Ariel Sharon.

In 1948, the Foreign Office, with the same "long experience of the Middle East" that the co-signatories boasted of, advised the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the Israelis would lose the war of independence and be defeated by the (largely British-trained) Arabs. They estimated that the Arab-Israeli conflict "would be of relatively short duration and would eventually be checked somehow by the UN". Bevin put the timing at a fortnight, but then, as the High Commissioner in Palestine said, Bevin was "completely surrounded by Arabists". It is that group whose hands have finally, after half a century, been wrested from Middle East policy. The letter - signed by the former ambassadors to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain and the UAE - is merely a howl of rage at their present exclusion.

Some of my most depressing moments as a historian have been spent reading FCO minutes. The phrases are nicely turned, the writing is grammatically faultless, the historical allusions learned. Nonetheless, the FCO's Central Department was irritated in May 1944 that "unnecessary publicity" was being given to Jewish suffering, and stated: "The Allies resent the suggestion that Jews in particular have been more heroic or long- suffering than the other nations of occupied countries."

We shouldn't have listened to them then, and, after 60 years of the same kind of stuff, we certainly shouldn't listen to them now.

 

THE CAMELS WERE WRONG TO GET THE HUMP

The camels were wrong to get the hump
Leader
The Daily Telegraph
April 28, 2004

The Prime Minister could be forgiven for wondering what he has done to provoke 52 retired diplomats to publish a letter denouncing his Middle East policy. Virtually all the signatories have privately opposed intervention in Iraq; why, then, have they suddenly broken cover?

What seems to have precipitated this letter was not Iraq, but Israel. It was the endorsement by Mr Blair of President Bush's support for Ariel Sharon's decision to pull out of Gaza, while eliminating the leaders of Hamas and redrawing the Israeli-Palestinian border. For an older generation of Foreign Office "camels" (Arabists), this was the final straw. Not only had Mr Blair embarked on a Middle Eastern war in the teeth of Arab and European hostility; by aligning himself with Israel, he had humiliated the camels.

What did the ex-diplomats hope to achieve? They insist that they do not intend to damage Mr Blair, yet they released their letter to Reuters, maximising coverage abroad as well as at home. Opinion is bound to be divided about the propriety of a public protest by professionals who do not lack access in Whitehall. Since their views are probably shared by serving diplomats, it is in the public interest for them to be aired. The signatories are indeed officials of "long experience" who deserve to be taken seriously.

The letter accuses Mr Blair of "abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land", in favour of Israel's "one-sided and illegal" policies. What are these abandoned "principles"? Surely they cannot mean the Palestinian "right of return", which no Israeli leader could accept? Perhaps they mean that the "occupied territories" must be subject to negotiation. But with whom is Mr Sharon to negotiate?

The letter ignores the fact that the basis for a negotiated settlement was destroyed when Yasser Arafat turned down Ehud Barak's peace offer at Camp David four years ago. That event led to the Palestinian "intifada", the defeat of Mr Barak, the election of Mr Sharon, suicide bombings on an unprecedented scale and the erection of a barrier around Israel. Many people will share the diplomats' regret for the failure of the road map, but the cause lies, not in bad faith by America or Israel, let alone Mr Blair, but in the lack of a credible Palestinian interlocutor.

Turning to Iraq, the diplomats state that "to describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful". How would they prefer to describe those who have maimed, killed and dismembered not only hundreds of coalition troops and civilians, but also countless Iraqis? There is room for debate about which tactics are most effective in suppressing these insurgents, but suppressed they must be if Iraq is ever to govern itself.

The letter condemns as "naive" the notion that the coalition could create a democratic Iraq. What, though, do its authors propose? That the UN should "work with the Iraqis themselves, including those who are now actively resisting the occupation, to clear up the mess". After the oil-for-food scandal, after fiascos from Rwanda to the Balkans, to place such faith in the UN is a luxury that only armchair strategists can afford.

Mr Blair says, rightly, that he will study the letter and reply in due course. But the diplomats' parting shot is to advise Mr Blair that "there is no case for supporting policies that are doomed to failure". Does this mean that Britain should follow Spain and leave the Americans in the lurch? The Prime Minister should treat such an indecent proposal with contempt. Rather, he should give our troops the tools to finish the job.

 

BLAIR SHOULD LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS

Blair should listen to the experts
Lead article
Financial Times
April 28, 2004

In possibly the most stinging rebuke ever to a British government by its foreign policy establishment, 52 former ambassadors and international officials have written to Tony Blair telling him he is damaging UK (and western) interests by backing George W. Bush's misguided policies in the Middle East. It would be comforting to imagine that their comments will be heeded.

The signatories to the letter include many distinguished and experienced public servants. They extend beyond the "usual suspects" of well-known Arabists, and there is every indication that many more serving and retired diplomats, as well as army officers, harbour the same misgivings.

In any case, the notion that so-called Arabists - expert in the language, culture and politics of Arab countries - should be excluded from policy because of their alleged predilection to "go native" should be discredited by the way the Pentagon, which shut out anyone with actual knowledge of Iraq, has serially bungled the occupation.

The organisers of this most undiplomatic démarche are, moreover, Atlanticists. Yet, in essence, what they are telling Mr Blair is: if you really have influence with the Bush administration, now is the time to use it. If that proves "unacceptable or unwelcome" in Washington, they write, "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure".

The diplomats were shocked into action not just by gathering signs of implosion in Iraq but by US backing for the decision of Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, to keep most Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank - and Mr Blair's endorsement of this "one-sided and illegal" new policy. Downing Street insists it has not abandoned the principle of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and the internationally underwritten "roadmap" to it. But Mr Sharon's strategy tramples on several United Nations Security Council resolutions, and Washington and London's support for it has inflamed Arab opinion to the point where it sees Palestine and Iraq as two fronts in a war of resistance against the west - the optimal outcome for the fanatics who follow Osama bin Laden.

In Iraq itself, the letter says, the indiscriminate use of force and heavy weapons "have built up rather than isolated the opposition", while there "was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement". The critique is trenchant and almost wholly accurate.

Detractors say the diplomats propose no alternative. But the problem is that the mishandling of Iraq (and Israel-Palestine) has gradually closed off any plausible path forward. What this letter warns is that this is an accelerating downward spiral with no brake - and that Britain's duty as an ally is to use such influence as it has in Washington as "a matter of the highest urgency". Though the letter does not say it, it is hard to see how that meagre influence would not augment, were London to co-ordinate its position more closely with its European partners.

 

DIPLOMATIC DIVIDE

Diplomatic divide
Lead Editorial
The Guardian
April 28, 2004

There are three big things to say about the robustly critical open letter to Tony Blair on Middle East policy from 52 former British diplomats published yesterday. The first is that its publication is a genuinely significant event. The word "unprecedented" is overused and has been much in evidence in the last 24 hours. In this case, though, its use is wholly justified. Attempts to liken the diplomats' letter to the open attack against Margaret Thatcher's policies signed by 364 economists in 1980 are wide of the mark. Economists are forever promoting their views in public.

Diplomats - even retired ones - are not. Discretion is implanted in their DNA from an early age. In extreme circumstances, they may send an internal note or, rarer still, ask for a private meeting. They do not do open letters to prime ministers. And they certainly do not do open letters using words like "dismay", "naive", "illegal" and "doomed" - and publish them in the press. That is a breach of the code. It signals the fact that this is an exceptional event that cannot be brushed aside or easily forgotten.

The second big thing is nevertheless to inject a note of contextual caution. Feelings are inevitably and rightly high about Israel-Palestine, about the crisis in Iraq, and about the prime minister's support for the US. But the diplomats do not speak for the whole of the foreign service - much of which is at least as strongly Atlanticist as Mr Blair- and nor are their views holy writ. Ask yourself how often the whole Westminster village embraces the views of the Foreign Office mandarinate with enthusiasm? Certainly not over the European Union, that is for sure. If 52 retired diplomats had published a letter calling for the adoption of the EU constitution, it is a fair bet that they would not get the lead slot on the BBC News, the splash in the Daily Telegraph or be rewarded with an approving leader in the Daily Mail. It is not impossible that they would find themselves denounced as an arrogant elite who have gone native and whose time has passed.

But the main thing to say about the letter is that the diplomats are overwhelmingly right. The three large points that they make are, first, that the US government has unilaterally committed itself to a one-sided policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict; second, that the US is now paying the price for having no effective post-invasion plan for Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and, third, that Britain has not exerted its influence to redress these dangerous policies.

The breaking-point for the organisers of the letter appears to have been the joint press conference given by George Bush and Mr Blair in the White House Rose Garden on April 16. This was a genuinely shocking event. Mr Blair made no effort either implicitly or explicitly to distance Britain in any way from the president's unilateral endorsement of the Sharon withdrawal plan on April 14. Nor did he give any hint of having qualms, or even anything independent to say, about US tactics and priorities in the increasingly bloody battles in Iraq. On the contrary. Mr Blair appeared to give his backing to both strategies. It was a disastrously complacent performance and it is not surprising that it outraged the diplomats, as it also outraged so many others.

Ever since then, it is true, Mr Blair and his officials have tried to repair the initial damage. They have portrayed the Sharon plan as an opportunity to return to the Middle East road-map, where all issues will be part of the final status negotiations. And they have emphasised that the Bush administration is working with the United Nations representative Lakhdar Brahimi in Iraq. But these are fig leaf efforts. The attempt to reconcile mainstream opinion in this country with the undisguised unilateralism of the underlying US positions is, as the diplomats said, naive and probably doomed.

 

BACKLASH BEGINS AGAINST "CAMEL CORPS" PLOTTERS

Backlash begins against 'camel corps' plotters
By Anne Penketh Diplomatic Editor
The Independent
April 28, 2004

It is known as the "school for spies". Britain's foremost Arabists have passed through the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies (Mecas) since the British Government opened the language school in Shemlan, outside Beirut, in 1947.

So have some of Britain's best-known spies, among them Sir David Spedding, a former head of MI6, and the traitors Kim Philby and George Blake.

It emerged yesterday that many of the 52 signatories of the searing letter criticising Tony Blair's Middle East policies are also alumni of the centre, who have become known as the "camel corps" because of their pro-Arab views.

"The 'camel corps' were obviously a factor," one recently retired ambassador said yesterday. "Many of my colleagues must be thoroughly frustrated."

Sir Marrack Goulding, the former United Nations head of peace-keeping who was among the prime movers behind the letter, graduated from Mecas after joining the diplomatic service in 1959. The Lebanon centre was closed in 1974.

Yesterday, he denied suggestions that the group was acting on behalf of diplomats still working for the Foreign Office and who cannot speak out. "Nobody came from the Foreign Office," Sir Marrack told The Independent. "It was spontaneous and generated by Tony Blair's visit to Washington."

The letter's signatories explain that the trigger for their action was the Rose Garden appearance by Mr Blair on 16 April when he stood at Mr Bush's side and appeared to tear up decades of internationally agreed Middle East policy.

"All of us who signed the letter had been concerned over the last year or so that Middle Eastern expertise in the Foreign Office had been ignored by No 10," one of the letter's authors said.

"What triggered it this week is not so much that we feel the Iraq adventure is a failed enterprise but we were horrified to see the Prime Minister next to Bush in the Rose Garden tearing up [UN resolutions] 242 and 338 and the whole diplomatic and political framework for Palestinian-Israel peace.

"This broke the camel's back," said the diplomat, only half-jokingly. "It made us all feel that we had to take action."

It appears that within the "camel corps", the group coalesced around former diplomats with official or unofficial links to Oxford - St Antony's College in particular - including Sir Marrack, Oliver Miles, the former ambassador to Libya, and Sir Bryan Cartledge, a former envoy to Moscow. But some of their former colleagues yesterday questioned the fact that they failed to muster signatures from ambassadors who had served in prestigious posts such as Washington, Paris or Nato.

"Look at the list - you can't find any grade-one ambassador who has retired in the past 10 years who is on that list," said one former envoy who was not contacted by the group.

Recently retired ambassadors, including the former UN ambassador Sir John Weston, are known to have reservations about the Iraq war and on the inadequacy of Britain's position on the Middle East peace process, but are critical of the letter writers' tactics. "I don't personally think that cohorts of retired diplomats engaging in the politics of gesticulation on a major issue of this kind is going to be helpful," said one.

A Foreign Office insider also noted, after running through the list of the letter's signatories, that "a lot of figures are marginal". The official said that "there is a problem with Arabism in the Foreign Office" and suggested it was time to look at the intractable problem of Middle East peace with a fresh eye. "God knows, you can be critical of Sharon, but in 37 years of diplomacy, what has been achieved?"

As the backlash intensified, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, accused the group of undermining Britain's relations with the US. "It is very important for us to try to work with the United States and not to have a polarisation that would weaken our influence and weaken the influence of Europe," he said in an interview on BBC2.

Asked why more prominent diplomats were not among the signatories, one of the group said that a "large number" of people were sent the first draft, but later felt that they did not want to sign. Some diplomats who had retired recently were hesitant because "this is a policy they had been defending in recent months".

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ON THE EX-DIPLOMATS' LETTER

British Ex-Diplomats Assail Blair on Mideast
By Patrick E. Tyler
New York Times
April 27, 2004

In a rebuke of British and American policy in the Middle East, 52 former ambassadors and senior government officials signed a letter on Monday criticizing Prime Minister Tony Blair for his unflinching support for the Bush administration's approach to occupied Iraq and to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The letter, delivered to Mr. Blair's office and released to the news media, asserted that those policies were "doomed to failure."

Among those signing the letter were former ambassadors to Israel, Iraq and other Middle Eastern capitals, as well as senior British envoys to the United Nations.

They accused both governments of abandoning important principles of impartiality in the Holy Land, while engaging in poor planning and military overkill against Iraqi resistance forces in the Sunni Muslim areas west of Baghdad and in Shiite Muslim strongholds around Najaf.

"It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders," the letter said, adding, "Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition."

In the Holy Land, the diplomats said, the decision by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to publish a "road map" to peace between Israelis and Palestinians had "raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the West and the Islamic and Arab worlds."

But instead of pressing ahead, the diplomats said, "Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence." They added, "Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain."

A spokesman for Mr. Blair defended the government's policies as energetic in the pursuit of peace and stability. He said the letter would be studied and a reply drafted. The pointed criticism from career diplomats, all Middle East specialists, who served both Labor and Conservative prime ministers, put Mr. Blair's government immediately on the defensive at a crucial moment of Iraqi crisis and diplomacy. In recent weeks, Mr. Blair's influence in Washington has been questioned as intensely as his influence in Europe, where Britain seeks to play a bridging role.

With political sovereignty in Iraq scheduled to be turned over to an interim government in nine weeks, Britain and the United States are being forced to bolster their occupation forces to take account of the withdrawal of 2,000 soldiers from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

A spokeswoman for the British Ministry of Defense appeared to confirm reports that as many as 2,000 more British troops might be dispatched to supplement the troops in Iraq now.

The spokeswoman said that "in light of recent events," discussions were under way "with coalition partners" on troop levels required to cope with a wave of instability that is expected to peak with the transfer of power on June 30.

The letter on Monday came as a surprise, and Mr. Blair's aides were seeking to reiterate his arguments that he believed that the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan might be enhanced by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to pull forces and Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip.

One long-serving Middle East envoy who did not sign the letter was Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who has just returned from a six-month tour in Iraq as Mr. Blair's representative in the occupation authority. He complained that his colleagues had failed to "prescribe any alternatives" to the current policies.

"Let's have a bit of persistence in finishing this job," he said in an interview. Nonetheless, Sir Jeremy added that he, too, expressed criticism in Baghdad of some policies because he believed that the "coalition had been careless about killing civilians" and that the initial phase of the military assault on Falluja "was not handled the way it should have been."

Still, he said, there is now a "clear political process" in Iraq, based on negotiation and a more precise use of force. The former diplomats, he said, "should be more balanced" in their assessment.

The diplomats said they shared Mr. Blair's view that Britain has an interest in working closely with the United States in order to exert "real influence as a loyal ally."

But now is the time, they said, to use such influence, and if it is unwelcome in the Bush administration, then "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure."

 

THE EX-DIPLOMATS' LETTER

[The letter has been reproduced in dozens of newspapers and news websites as a comment article. Here is the version from The Guardian.]

Doomed to failure in the Middle East
Comment Article
The Guardian
April 27, 2004

A letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair

Dear Prime Minister,

We the undersigned former British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, including some who have long experience of the Middle East and others whose experience is elsewhere, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close cooperation with the United States. Following the press conference in Washington at which you and President Bush restated these policies, we feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment.

The decision by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN to launch a "road map" for the settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the west and the Islamic and Arab worlds. The legal and political principles on which such a settlement would be based were well established: President Clinton had grappled with the problem during his presidency; the ingredients needed for a settlement were well understood and informal agreements on several of them had already been achieved. But the hopes were ill-founded. Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence. Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain.

Worse was to come. After all those wasted months, the international community has now been confronted with the announcement by Ariel Sharon and President Bush of new policies which are one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood. Our dismay at this backward step is heightened by the fact that you yourself seem to have endorsed it, abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land and which have been the basis for such successes as those efforts have produced.

This abandonment of principle comes at a time when rightly or wrongly we are portrayed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as partners in an illegal and brutal occupation in Iraq.

The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement. All those with experience of the area predicted that the occupation of Iraq by the coalition forces would meet serious and stubborn resistance, as has proved to be the case. To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful. Policy must take account of the nature and history of Iraq, the most complex country in the region. However much Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society, the belief that one could now be created by the coalition is naive. This is the view of virtually all independent specialists on the region, both in Britain and in America. We are glad to note that you and the president have welcomed the proposals outlined by Lakhdar Brahimi. We must be ready to provide what support he requests, and to give authority to the UN to work with the Iraqis themselves, including those who are now actively resisting the occupation, to clear up the mess.

The military actions of the coalition forces must be guided by political objectives and by the requirements of the Iraq theatre itself, not by criteria remote from them. It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders. Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition. The Iraqis killed by coalition forces probably total 10-15,000 (it is a disgrace that the coalition forces themselves appear to have no estimate), and the number killed in the last month in Falluja alone is apparently several hundred including many civilian men, women and children. Phrases such as "We mourn each loss of life. We salute them, and their families for their bravery and their sacrifice," apparently referring only to those who have died on the coalition side, are not well judged to moderate the passions these killings arouse.

We share your view that the British government has an interest in working as closely as possible with the US on both these related issues, and in exerting real influence as a loyal ally. We believe that the need for such influence is now a matter of the highest urgency. If that is unacceptable or unwelcome there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure.

Yours faithfully,

Sir Graham Boyce (ambassador to Egypt 1999-2001); Sir Terence Clark (ambassador to Iraq 1985-89); Francis Cornish (ambassador to Israel 1998-2001); Sir James Craig (ambassador to Saudi Arabia 1979-84); Ivor Lucas (ambassador to Syria 1982-84); Richard Muir (ambassador to Kuwait 1999-2002); Sir Crispin Tickell (British permanent representative to the UN 1987-90); Sir Harold (Hooky) Walker (ambassador to Iraq 1990-91), and 44 others

[Full list of signatories: Brian Barder; Paul Bergne; John Birch; David Blatherwick; Graham Boyce; Julian Bullard; Juliet Campbell; Bryan Cartledge; Terence Clark; David Colvin; Francis Cornish; James Craig; Brian Crowe; Basil Eastwood; Stephen Egerton; William Fullerton; Dick Fyjis-Walker; Marrack Goulding; John Graham; Andrew Green; Vic Henderson; Peter Hinchcliffe; Brian Hitch; Archie Lamb; David Logan; Christopher Long; Ivor Lucas; Ian McCluney; Maureen MacGlashan; Philip McLean; Christopher MacRae; Oliver Miles; Martin Morland; Keith Morris; Richard Muir; Alan Munro; Stephen Nash; Robin O'Neill; Andrew Palmer; Bill Quantrill; David Ratford; Tom Richardson; Andrew Stuart; David Tatham; Crispin Tickell; Derek Tonkin; Charles Treadwell; Hugh Tunnell; Jeremy Varcoe; Hooky Walker; Michael Weir; Alan White.]

 

US SAYS IT KILLED 64 IRAQIS TODAY - AP VERSION

64 Iraqis killed in fighting in Najaf
The Associated Press
April 27, 2004

US troops fought a gun battle with insurgents overnight near the southern holy Shiite city of Najaf, killing 64 gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents, the US military in Baghdad said Tuesday.

The fighting, which began Monday night and involved helicopter gun ships, lasted several hours, a military spokesman said.

The battles came as around 200 US forces made their first deployment inside Najaf, moving into a base that Spanish troops are vacating about six kilometers from the city's holy shrines near where a radical Shiite cleric is holed up.

US commanders have said they will not move against the shrines in order to capture Muqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters have launched attacks against the US-led forces.

Nine killed as fighting in Fallujah continues

Earlier Monday, US troops came under a heavy insurgent attack in Fallujah a day after US officials decided to extend a cease-fire rather than launch a full-scale offensive on that city. Eight suspected insurgents and one US Marine were killed.

US Marines battled Sunni guerrillas around a mosque in Fallujah's Jolan district, a poor neighborhood where insurgents are concentrated. US helicopter gun ships joined the battle, which sent heavy black smoke over the city. Tank fire demolished a minaret from which US officials said gunmen were firing.

The patrols are a key part of the US effort to establish a semblance of control over Fallujah without a wider assault, which would revive the bloody warfare seen earlier this month. The United States decided to try the patrols after US President George W. Bush consulted with his commanders over the weekend, and the cease-fire was extended in part to allow for patrols to be organized.

"We will take the time necessary to see if there is not a political solution," Secretary of State Colin Power said Monday. "But as you saw today, when our soldiers and our Marines are attacked, they will respond and they will respond with force to protect themselves."

 

US SAYS IT KILLED 64 IRAQIS TODAY - REUTERS VERSION

U.S. Inflicts Heavy Losses on Iraqi Shi'ite Militia
By Khaled Farhan
Reuters

U.S. forces killed dozens of Iraqi fighters near Najaf overnight, hours after Washington issued an ultimatum to a radical cleric to clear his militia from mosques in the holy city.

Local television said Tuesday wounded people were dying for lack of blood and issued an urgent appeal for donors.

The clashes were the deadliest since Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia launched a brief revolt against the U.S.-led occupation three weeks ago. They may mark a new phase in American efforts to dislodge him from Najaf, where he has taken refuge among some of the holiest shrines of Shi'ite Islam.

About 64 militiamen were killed, U.S. military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference, 57 of them in a night-time air strike after U.S. forces spotted an anti-aircraft gun.

Another U.S. official said an AC-130 gunship -- a massive plane that can spew cannon fire and machinegun fire across wide areas -- was used.

Locals said aircraft had destroyed a militia checkpoint outside Kufa, 10 km (six miles) from Najaf, after a firefight. Kimmitt said guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank. Staff at two hospitals counted at least 23 dead and 34 wounded. Some of the casualties did not appear to be guerrillas.

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WHAT NUKE WHISTLEBLOWER DOESN'T KNOW SCARES ISRAEL

What nuke whistleblower doesn't know scares Israel
By Dan Williams
Reuters
April 16, 2005

With one newspaper interview, Mordechai Vanunu blew away Israel's cherished nuclear secrecy.

Now Israeli policy makers fear the 49-year-old whistleblower could emerge from prison with new claims about his work at the Dimona reactor and that fantasy may be as harmful as fact.

"Who will guarantee that he will only speak the truth? What is to stop him imagining things?" Shabtai Shavit, a former chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told Reuters.

"The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing damage to Israel," said Shavit, who took part in secret deliberations on keeping Vanunu under surveillance when he ends an 18-year jail term next week.

In statements made through relatives, Vanunu has said he has nothing to add to his 1986 disclosures to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper -- which led analysts to conclude Dimona had produced as many as 200 nuclear bombs and made Israel a military superpower.

A mid-level Dimona technician, Vanunu was fired in 1985 and converted to Christianity. After the Sunday Times interview, he was abducted by Mossad and tried as a traitor.

By all accounts, Vanunu is angry and distraught at his treatment and vowed to continue campaigning to expose Israel's non-conventional capabilities.

Israeli security veterans are worried by this mix of ideology and ire.

Some question the government's decision to keep Vanunu in the country, tap his phone and bar his access to the press for a probationary period after his release.

"I think it is a mistake to gag him," said David Kimche, a retired Mossad operative and Foreign Ministry chief of staff.

"It only bolsters Vanunu's supposed credibility and, in turn, pretty much anything he may choose to concoct about Israel."

Keen to ward off Middle East foes while avoiding regional arms races, Israel maintains a "strategic ambiguity" over its nuclear programme. The policy also allows it to skirt U.S. bans on supporting countries that proliferate non-conventional arms and thus receive $2.8 billion in annual aid from Washington.

The official Israeli reticence means a ready audience for individuals claiming to have been privy to national secrets.

Military censors are empowered by law to block reports that could be seen as a threat to Israel's security -- but only those containing bona-fide information, not invention.

Israeli officials say that is how false reports got into newspapers that Israel had tested nuclear-type missiles in the Indian Ocean and that it tried at one time to develop a bomb that could target Arabs based on their genes.

The legality of what Israel can do is also an issue with Vanunu, who according to security sources was so set on having his say that last year that he rejected early release because it would have meant promising not to discuss Dimona in public.

"Punishing a man who has spilled his secrets and done his time, on the assumption of a future guilt, seems little more than vindictive," said Vanunu's former lawyer Avigdor Feldman.

A Justice Ministry source allowed that, even within the generous parameters of emergency law, the case was problematic.

"There is no double jeopardy when it comes to treason. The non-disclosure contract Vanunu signed at Dimona is still in force. He can be prosecuted if he talks again," the source said.

"But as for him making things up -- our options are more limited. We hope he understands that the ban on him leaving the country is open-ended, and will be lifted based on him showing good faith. After that we can only hope for the best."

The last convicted Israeli traitor to go free was Marcus Klingberg, who was jailed for 20 years for passing the Soviet Union information about his research on biological and chemical weapons at a secret plant outside Tel Aviv.

Klingberg, 85, moved in with relatives in France last year and avoids the public eye.

By contrast, Vanunu has been disavowed by many family members and is far from retiring.

In prison letters, he has said he wants to emigrate, start a family, and lecture on American history. Many believe he will carry psychological scars from his incarceration, 12 years of which were spent in solitary confinement.

"Mordechai is not crazy, but he is very angry and sometimes suffers from notions that there is a vast Israeli conspiracy against him, all around," said Vanunu's brother, Meir.

Critics suggest Vanunu might be tempted to sell his story once outside Israel and maybe even embellish it.

As precedent, Kimche cited "By Way of Deception", a 1990 expose by former Mossad recruit Victor Ostrovsky. Israel went to court to try to stop its publication in Canada. That just boosted sales.

"We made that ridiculous book a best-seller," Kimche said. "Israel should not leverage Vanunu into a similar position."

When Ostrovsky came out with a sequel four years later, a leading Israeli political commentator, Yosef Lapid, called on Canadian Jews to kill him. That prompted international outcry.

Lapid is now Israel's justice minister, and a more moderate voice on Vanunu. Explaining why he talked security chiefs out of placing the whistleblower under house arrest after his release, Lapid said: "We must preserve Israel's democratic essence."

 

HISTORY CATCHES UP WITH MOSSAD SEDUCTRESS WHO TRAPPED VANUNU

History catches up with Mossad seductress who trapped Vanunu
How 'Cindy' the sex spy found a new life at an exclusive Orlando golf suburb. By Donald Macintyre
The Independent (UK)
April 21, 2004

She was the only missing player in the drama which ended in the 18-year incarceration of the man who first told the world Israel had nuclear weapons. But Cheryl Hanin, the agent who back in 1986 seduced Mordechai Vanunu in London, then lured him to Rome and into the hands of Mossad, who drugged him and smuggled him back to Israel, turns out to be alive, well, married and distinctly prosperous in Alaqua, Florida.

If the appetite of the Israeli public needed whetting for a story too improbable for fiction, the country's largest circulation daily has obliged.

On the eve of Mr Vanunu's release from an Israeli prison this morning, Yedhiot Arhronot yesterday painted, in the brightest of colours, a portrait of the woman who persuaded Mr Vanunu she was an American tourist called Cindy and sprang the trap from which Mr Vanunu will escape only when he emerges from Shekma prison in Ashkelon to a welcoming party of wellwishers and the world's press.

Then, she was an attractive, apparently open, and to Vanunu at least, very friendly 26-year-old. Lyrically, the paper described yesterday how 18 years on: "Cheryl, her husband and daughters live today in a private home in the middle of a green and manicured golf course. Cheryl drives in a blue town and country van, her husband drives a shiny Chevy Impala. In the pastoral landscape, white golf carts carrying the residents of the prestigious neighbourhood move about quietly.

"This is a dream residential compound for golf lovers, 25 minutes drive north of Orlando. Several hundred homes are spread out in the neighbourhood land, among artificial ponds and dense tropical growth."

To many Israelis, particularly in the defence and security establishment, Ms Hanin is a heroine who did her patriotic duty by ensnaring in a honeytrap the man who betrayed the country's defence secrets. To Vanunu's many supporters in the international anti-nuclear movement she is the Mata Hari who destroyed the life of an idealist who thought he was acting in the higher cause of world peace.

Understandably perhaps, Ms Hanin - Yedhiot calls her by the married name of Bentov which she apparently prefers not to use - has a bad case of media shyness. "For me this is a black story and I just want to erase it and forget it," the paper quotes her telling a friend in Israel.

She has a history of moving on when confronted by the press. When The Sunday Times, who first published Mr Vanunu's sensational revelations of the secrets of the Dimona nuclear plant, discovered her living quietly in the northern Israeli town of Netanya in 1988, she left Israel for her native United States.

Since then, Yedhiot says, she and her family have not returned to Israel, although they still maintain a home in Kochav Yair, which, in effect, is their only link to Israel. She was "rediscovered" by the press a decade later and moved within Florida. Even her new life in Florida is not exactly a Yedhiot scoop. Last month the St Petersburg Times in Florida unearthed her again, and published a lengthy story which differed in some details from Yedhiot's.

It had her driving "a red Cutlass convertible" and estimated that her house was worth just more than $500,000 (£330,000) rather than the $1m value attributed to it by the Israeli paper.

Neither Ms Hanin nor her husband were keen to be interviewed. When approached by the American newspaper "the burly Ben Tov", dressed in khakis and a maroon knit shirt, declined a request for an interview, and when a reporter visited the firm's headquarters in downtown Orlando. "So long, see you later," he said, and quickly retreated to his office. When the American paper reached a woman last month by telephone, she replied: "I have no interest in talking." And hung up.

Yedhiot quotes a close friend in Florida as explaining: "She left Israel to flee the media and the people who burrowed into her life. This bothered her a lot. She was terrified about journalists who came into her home and asked her questions. She felt a need to run. Since this affair Cheryl wants only one thing: a normal, quiet life."

This is a very different life from the one which prepared her for her last major assignment. Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon's Spies, the Secret History of Mossad, wrote: "She was sent on practice missions, breaking into an occupied hotel room, stealing documents from an office.

"She was roused from her bed in the dead of night and dispatched on more exercises: picking up a tourist in a nightclub, then disengaging herself outside his hotel. Every move she made was observed by her tutors." After her training, Ms Hanin joined the Mossad unit that worked with Israeli embassies, where she apparently posed as the wife or girlfriend of other agents.

Her last mission began when she engineered a meeting with Vanunu in Leicester Square and suggested a coffee, saying she was a beautician on holiday. Next day they met in the Tate gallery and began to see more of each other.

Peter Hounam, the Sunday Times journalist who had debriefed Vanunu, warned him that she could be a Mossad agent, but Vanunu insisted: "She is just a tourist who is critical of Israel. I think you would like her."

There were plans for Mr Vanunu to bring his new girlfriend to Mr Hounam's house but he cancelled because he "going out of the city". The trap, in other words, had been set.

Ms Hanin has until recently worked as an estate agent, as does her husband, also a former Mossad operative. Their daughters, aged 12 and 16, speak Hebrew, and according to Yedhiot, go every year to "the prestigious Scouts' camp in Atlanta, which teaches Zionism and has Israeli counsellers, to which Jewish children from all over the US come. The Bentovs are among the generous donors to the camp".

The paper adds that the person closest to Cheryl Bentov, whom she trusts unconditionally, is her mother, Riki Hanin, who lives close by and works as a property agent in Orlando and is very active in the Jewish community.

Yedhiot quotes one unnamed acquaintance as saying she has "exposed and shaky nerves. It was enough for her to suspect that her friends were talking about her big secret, for her to immediately cut off contact. Even relatives who talked about her found themselves banished from the family. She moves between discretion and paranoia".

In particular, the paper suggests, she is apprehensive that Vanunu, who is forbidden to go abroad for at least a year, will somehow make trouble for her after his release. The paper asks whether such seemingly unlikely fears are justified and remarks that "at least according to what Mordechai told his brother recently, he has no plans to get even with her".

 

ISRAEL FREES NUCLEAR WHISTLEBLOWER

Israel Frees Nuclear Whistleblower
The Associated Press
April 21, 2004

A defiant Mordechai Vanunu walked out of prison on Wednesday after serving 18 years for spilling Israel's nuclear secrets, saying he was proud of his actions and complaining he was treated cruelly by his jailers.

Vanunu, dressed in a checkered shirt and black tie, flashed victory signs and waved to hundreds of cheering supporters as he walked into the sun-splashed courtyard of Shikma Prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon. Dozens of counter-demonstrators booed and shouted epithets.

In the courtyard, Vanunu, 50, held an impromptu news conference, his brother Meir by his side. Vanunu said he was given ``very cruel and barbaric treatment'' by Israel's security services.

"To all those who are calling me traitor, I am saying I am proud, I am proud and happy to do what I did," Vanunu said in accented and at times broken English. He refused to answer questions in Hebrew because of restrictions Israel has imposed, including a ban on speaking to foreigners.

Vanunu, who converted to Christianity in the 1980s, said he was mistreated because of his religion. He also said there is no need for a Jewish state and demanded that Israel open its nuclear reactor in Dimona to international inspection.

"I said, Israel don't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East is free from nuclear weapons," he said.

He left the prison in a gray Mazda van as police dispersed a large crowd. His first stop was St. George, an Anglican church in Jerusalem's Old City. More than a dozen cars and motorcycles followed Vanunu's vehicle to Jerusalem, and a helicopter flew low overhead.

Israeli authorities have imposed a series of travel restrictions and other constraints on Vanunu, saying he still possesses state secrets. But Vanunu said he has no more secrets to reveal. ``I am now ready to start my life,'' he said.

Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, he was mobbed by reporters as the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, escorted him into the church. Other clergy members embraced Vanunu, and a tearful Peter Hounam, the journalist who wrote the 1986 article that led to Vanunu's imprisonment, hugged him.

In 1986, Vanunu leaked details and pictures of Israel's alleged nuclear weapons program to The Sunday Times of London. Based on his account, experts said at the time that Israel had the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The revelations undercut Israel's long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying its nuclear capability. He was abducted by Israeli secret agents before the article was printed and subsequently convicted of treason in a closed trial.

Vanunu said Israel's Mossad spy agency and the Shin Bet security services tried to rob him of his sanity by keeping him in solitary confinement for nearly 12 years. "I said to the Shabak (Shin Bet), the Mossad, you didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy."

Asked if he was a hero, he said "all those who are standing behind me, supporting me ... all are heroes."

"I am a symbol of the will of freedom," he said. "You cannot break the human spirit."

Hundreds of supporters and opponents squared off in shouting matches outside the prison ahead of his release. Supporters chanted "Mordechai is free," while counter-demonstrators held signs calling him a traitor and shouted curses.

"He won't get out of here alive," opponents screamed as Vanunu's adopted parents, Minnesota couple Nick and Mary Eoloff, arrived at the prison. Vanunu said he hopes to settle in the United States and study history.

While the crowds were vocal, there was no violence.

Anti-nuclear weapons activists from around the world had gathered at Shikma in recent days. Among his supporters, was British actress Susannah York and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland.

But Vanunu is widely detested in Israel.

"He's hell-bent to do as much harm as he can," Justice Minister Tommy Lapid told The Associated Press. "We will keep an eye on him, we will watch him ... We want to know where he is and we want to know whom he may or may not divulge state secrets."

Vanunu will not be allowed to travel abroad for at least a year, speak with foreigners or approach Israeli ports or borders. He also is barred from discussing his work at Israel's nuclear reactor. Vanunu was given a map of Israel marking the areas off-limits to him, the Defense Ministry said.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi said security services have confiscated several tapes and notebooks with Vanunu's writings. In Hebrew and English, Vanunu wrote a detailed account of places, processes and areas of the nuclear reactor, she said, adding that he has an "excellent memory."

"It was a lot more than a personal diary. To us this showed an intention and ability to make future use of it," Niedak-Ashkenazi said.

Vanunu said the papers were personal and had been written in 1991.

Vanunu's family and Yoav Loeff, of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which is representing the nuclear spy, have said they are concerned about his safety.

But Lapid said no precautions or special security measures are planned. "He's surrounded by at least 100 radicals who are worshipping him so I'm sure they'll take care of his safety,'' he said.

Vanunu will live in a luxury apartment complex in Jaffa, an old seaport and today part of Tel Aviv. Jaffa has both Arab and Jewish residents. Vanunu, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, converted to Christianity in the mid-1980s.

The Andromeda Hill complex has 170 apartments, and tenants include both wealthy foreigners and local residents. It was unclear who is paying for Vanunu's apartment.

Richard Caseby, managing editor of the Sunday Times, said the newspaper was giving Vanunu "some assistance," but declined to elaborate. He said Vanunu was not paid for the original story.