"Iran on Saturday insisted that 15 British sailors it seized had illegally entered Iranian waters, denouncing what it called a 'blatant aggression' and accusing Britain of trying to cover up an incursion into its territory. The tough comment came after Britain demanded the return of the sailors and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq's coast.....The incident came at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini ...... described the incident as a 'suspicious move' and accused Britain of trying to cover up the illegal entry. 'The British officials instead of making up for their blunders should try to refrain from putting the blame on others by way of irrelevant interpretations,' he said."
Iran: UK troops illegally entered waters
Associated Press, 24 March 2007

"US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed... Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. 'Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place.' He added: 'We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous.'... Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made. Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action. In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled.... Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was under way: 'Gates said there is no planning for war. We know this is not true. He possibly meant there is no plan for an immediate strike. It was sloppy wording. 'All the moves being made over the last few weeks are consistent with what you would do if you were going to do an air strike. We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq. It is an air operation.'..."
Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring
Guardian, 10 February 2007

"Here, for instance, is a plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran: Iraq fails to meet the benchmarks for progress toward stability set by the Bush administration. This is followed by U.S. accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq..... culminating in a 'defensive' U.S. military action against Iran."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter
A road map out of Iraq
Los Angeles Times, 11 February 2007

Zbigniew Brzezinski
(Former US National Security Adviser)
Exchange With Reporter Following Session
Of The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1 February 2007
On The Potential To Provoke War With Iran

Q: Dr. Brzezinski, who do you think would be carrying out this possible provocation?
A: I have no idea. As I said, these things can never be predicted. It can be spontaneous.
Q: Are you suggesting there is a possibility it could originate within the US government itself?
A: I’m saying the whole situation can get out of hand and all sorts of calculations can produce a circumstance that would be very difficult to trace.

How To Start A War
Brzezinski And Robert Gates (Now US Defense Secretary)
Know How Such Things Work
And The Reality Can Be Very Different To What Is Perceived
By The Media At The Time

Interview With Zbigniew Brzezinski
Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

"Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ['From the Shadows'], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would."

"A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines. Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds. In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment. Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. "
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Independent, 3 April 2007

"Iran was no doubt hoping that in the country and across the Middle East, people would compare Iran’s decision to free the Britons for the holidays and the US refusal to release the five Iranian officials seized in northern Iraq in January. The Iraqi government had pleaded with the US military to free the Iranians before the Iranian new year holiday, which began on March 21 – but to no avail. ... such are the historical suspicions about Britain that many Iranians apparently believed London had deliberately provoked Tehran into capturing the sailors and marines."
Theatre in Tehran as Iran releases sailors
Financial Times, 4 April 2007

The following memorandum by the steering group of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
is signed by Ray Close [ex-CIA] , Princeton, N.J.; Larry Johnson [ex-CIA], Bethesda, Md.;
David MacMichael [ex-CIA], Linden, Va.; Ray McGovern [ex-CIA], Arlington, Va.; and Coleen Rowley [ex-FBI], Apple Valley, Minn.

"At this point, the relative merits of the British and Iranian versions of what actually happened are greatly less important than how hotheads on each side—and particularly the British—decide to exploit the event in the coming days. There is real danger that this incident, and the way it plays out, may turn out to be outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s last gesture of fealty to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and 'neo-conservative' advisers who, this time, are looking for a casus belli to 'justify' air and missile strikes on Iran.... Intelligence analysts place great store in a sources’ record for reliability and the historical record. We would be forced to classify Tony Blair as a known prevaricator who, for reasons still not entirely clear, has a five-year record of acting as man’s best friend for Bush. If the president needs a casus belli, Blair will probably fetch it...... The way the UK and U.S. media has been stoked..... suggests that both London and Washington may decide to represent the intransigence of Iranian hotheads as a casus belli for the long prepared air strikes on Iran. And not to be ruled out is the possibility that we are dealing with a provocation ab initio. Intelligence analysts look to precedent, and what seems entirely relevant in this connection is the discussion between Bush and Blair on Jan. 31, 2003, six weeks before the attack on Iraq. The 'White House Memo' (like the famous 'Downing Street Memo' leaked earlier to the British press) shows George Bush broaching to Blair various options to provoke war with Iraq. The British minutes (the authenticity of which is not disputed by the British government) of the Jan. 31, 2003 meeting stated the first option as: 'The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.' Not to mention the (in)famous Tonkin Gulf non-incident, used by President Lyndon Johnson as the 'provocation' to justify bombing North Vietnam."
Unwise Brinkmanship In Iran
Tom Pain.com, 29 March 2007

"It is a highly-charged atmosphere in the Middle East and although there is a purely British-Iranian dimension to the tensions, the British are also caught up in the ongoing US-Iranian animosity and sabre-rattling. An issue like this could be hijacked by Americans or Iranians wishing to grandstand and we know there are people at both ends of the US-Iran spectrum, as well as some Arabs and Israelis, who would like a casus belli."
Rosemary Hollis, director of research at the London-based foreign affairs think-tank Chatham House
The experts - 'There is a lot to be learned here'
Guardian, 5 April 2007

Those In Control Of The HMS Cornwall In The Persian Gulf
Have Some Serious Questions To Answer In An Incident Which Nearly Gave The United States A Casus Belli To Attack Iran

"The boarding team had communications equipment broadcasting their position back to HMS Cornwall. The Ministry of Defence has declined to provide computer printouts....The timing has changed. On Friday the MoD said that it happened at 10.30am. By Wednesday, it said that communications went dead at 9.10am. The boarded vessel has changed. Early reports described it as a dhow or Arab sailing craft. The MoD says it was a cargo ship.....The MoD says that debriefing of the helicopter crew indicates that the team was ambushed leaving the merchant vessel. But the helicopter had flown back to the Cornwall..."
Blair livid as hostage letter seeks withdrawal from Iraq
London Times, 30 March 2007

"It also remained a mystery how the Cornwall’s advanced radar and sonar systems failed to alert its crew to a problem. As a type 22 frigate, the Cornwall has the capability to track ships up to 200 miles away. One recently retired naval officer said even basic navigation radar should have picked up motorboats at shorter range, assuming someone was looking out for them."
Focus: In the eye of the storm
Sunday Times, 1 April 2007

"It is hardly surprising that the crisis is proving fertile ground for Iranian conspiracy theorists..... Britain, according to the theory, wants to put Iran under pressure on one of its most sensitive territorial issues – the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which forms the historical, racial and religious divide between Persians and Arabs and has been disputed for centuries. The Royal Navy had deliberately used the 15 as bait for the Revolutionary Guards naval units, according to the theory. Why else were they so exposed so far from HMS Cornwall, their mother ship?' Historically, Iranians have some ammunition for viewing Britain as perfidious. It was a British-inspired coup, engineered by MI6 with the CIA, that in 1953 toppled Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular Prime Minister, two years after he nationalised Iran’s oil industry, which had been controlled by Britain."
Conspiracy theories bubbling under
London Times, 3 April 2007

"The Iranians made it clear more than three weeks ago that they were looking to capture 'blond-haired and blue-eyed officers'."
Patrick Mercer, Conservative MP for Newark, and former Army colonel
We showed weakness and will pay the price
Sunday Telegraph, 8 April 2007

"Iranian intelligence officers told the 15 British captives they first became suspicious about their activities after watching an interview with one of them on British television. Families of the hostages said that their loved ones had told them the Iranians had made the claim soon after capturing them. The revelation is likely to raise questions about the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow the media to accompany Cornwall, the ship on which the service personnel were based, and report on its activities. On 13 March - 10 days before the 15 were seized - Channel 5 broadcast an interview with Captain Chris Air, one of the captured Royal Marines, in which he stated that his crew's role was to liaise with Iraqi vessels to 'let them know we are here to protect them, protect their fishing and to stop any terrorism or any piracy in the area'. The Iranian interrogators told their captives, who were seized while travelling in two dinghies during a patrol, that this had alerted them to Cornwall's role. ..... The MoD confirmed last night that the Iranians had made the claim that they had become interested in Cornwall's activities after learning about it on British television, but denied the decision to allow the ship's crew to be interviewed while on active duty had jeopardised the mission.... The MoD's decision to allow media access to Cornwall had been welcomed by newspapers and broadcasters keen to tell the story of the navy's role in patrolling the seas off Iraq. Also on board the frigate was a BBC film crew and a journalist from the Independent. But as attention now turns to the MoD's role in handling the affair, questions are likely to be asked as to whether lessons will have to be learnt regarding the media's relationship with the armed forces."
TV interview 'tipped off' Iran about ship's intelligence role
Observer, 8 April 2007

"The British lapse was all the more surprising because the same thing happened in June 2004, when eight sailors and marines were seized in the same area and released three days later. The defence ministry compiled a 'lessons learnt' paper to ensure that those mistakes were not repeated. The Sunday Times has learnt that the paper highlighted the need for 'top cover' for boarding parties, which should always have been covered from the air by the presence of a helicopter. The Cornwall’s Lynx – armed with a .50 machinegun that could have caused serious damage to the Iranian fast boats – had apparently been overhead when the sailors boarded the Indian freighter. Why did it turn back, leaving the sailors exposed? The ministry initially said last week that it needed to refuel before retreating behind an insistence that there was no standard procedure for keeping a helicopter in place. "
Focus: In the eye of the storm
Sunday Times, 1 April 2007

"[Capt. Air:] It was during the boarding that we noticed the helicopter had returned to 'Mother,' and we started calling the ship on VHF to find out why. "
British sailors' statement: Full text
CNN, 6 April 2007

"The Times understands that appeals for more firepower to protect Britain’s UN-mandated patrols in the Gulf were repeatedly turned down by Whitehall."
Deaths fuel Iran row
London Times, 6 April 2007

"Royal Navy commanders are furious that the Ministry of Defence and senior Fleet officers have failed to order a full inquiry into the debacle surrounding the capture by Iranians of 15 servicemen. There is a growing belief that the furore over the media payments story is acting as a smokescreen to the 'national scandal' of the mistakes made that have substantially undermined Britain's international standing, Fleet sources said. Officers believe a board of inquiry would reveal what led to the decision to allow 15 troops so close to the Iranian border without support.... "
Officers fear furore hides real 'scandal'
Daily Telegraph, 13 April 2007

'Set Aside The Nuclear Question'
It's The Oil Stupid - Cheney Still Wants His War

"Although Downing Street publicly insists that Bush and Blair remain 'closely in touch' on the Iranian threat, some British officials are privately concerned that Dick Cheney, the hardline American vice-president, is driving the administration’s policy on Iran.... One well known US weapons specialist last week described the Iranian nuclear issue as 'the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion'.... "
Blair’s loyalty tested as Bush menaces Iran
Sunday Times, 23 January 2005

"The US is to continue holding five Iranians captured in Iraq despite protests from Tehran, US media said. The fate of the five sparked disagreement, with the White House overruling the State Department on the issue, the Washington Post reported. Administration officials have not commented on the report. The US says the men seized in a January raid on Iran's consulate in Irbil are linked to the Revolutionary Guard. Iran says they are diplomats. The US accuses the Revolutionary Guard of providing support to insurgents. The issue has further raised tension between the US and Iran, which has demanded that the men be released. The decision was made at a high-level meeting on Tuesday, the Washington Post said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly argued that the five Iranians be released because they were 'no longer useful'. But Vice President Dick Cheney's office said their capture signalled that Iranian activities were monitored and their operatives at risk of detention, the daily said."
US 'will keep Iranian detainees'
BBC Online, 14 April 2007

"Sources close to the office of Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) confirmed that the progressive Democratic congressman and Democratic presidential aspirant intends to introduce a bill of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, April 25.... Kucinich's bill will go to the Judiciary Committee, where Chairman John Conyers (R-MI) and the other members will have to decide whether to request subpoena powers and to begin a hearing into impeachable offenses by the vice president. Kucinich's action marks a major step forward for impeachment activists, who have been frustrated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has repeatedly stated that she has no interest in having the House hold impeachment hearings against president or vice president (and who has been leaning hard on Democratic caucus members in the House not to file impeachment bills). By bucking Pelosi and filing his bill, Kucinich may force the mainstream corporate media to start discussing the idea. There has been a virtual blackout on impeachment in the media, which has not even been asking the question in polls, since a year ago, when Pelosi made it clear she had no interest in impeachment. Kucinich's move comes as citizens across the country are bringing impeachment resolutions to town meetings, city councils, Democratic Party county and state committees, and even state legislatures--and getting them passed."
Impeaching Cheney First. Finally!
Baltimore Chronicle And Sentinel, 19 April 2007

"Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions in Iraq and the U.S. 'raise serious questions of constitutionality.'.... The resolution says Bush and Cheney's actions in the U.S. and abroad, including in Iraq, 'raise serious questions of constitutionality, statutory legality, and abuse of the public trust.'"
Vermont Senate calls for impeachment of Bush
Associated Press, 20 April 2007

"But as Britain refused to apologize for the behavior of its boarding party, continuing to insist that they were operating in Iraqi waters – not inside Iran's territorial waters, as Tehran alleged – some of Khamenei's advisers began to have second thoughts [about holding the British captives]. Adding to those doubts were reports that the USS Nimitz was steaming toward the Persian Gulf – making it the third Carrier Strike Group in the area. The Nimitz is expected to join the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS John C. Stennis, both currently in the Persian Gulf, in the coming weeks."
USS Nimitz Forced Iran's Decision
Newsmax, 4 April 2007

"Israel will be at war by summer, a prominent opposition member of the Israeli Knesset told NewsMax in an exclusive interview this week.... Like most Israeli leaders, Dr. Eldad would prefer that the United States and its partners take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites, if for no other reason than the vastly superior conventional firepower the U.S. could bring to bear."
Israel Will be at War by Summer, Politician Says
Newsmax, 31 March 2007

2007 Armedinejad And The Bushehr Nuclear Power Station
1956 Nasser And The Suez Canal

The Eden And MI6 Secret Plots Against Nasser

"All the time here he [British Prime Minister Anthony Eden] was with this personal [secret] declaration of war against Nasser, but no means of putting it into effect. Because although Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal Company he hadn't given us any casus belli, he hadn't actually stopped a ship, or arrested a British subject, or shot anybody, or done anything which would give us the opportunity to go in and invade. And then suddenly the French came up with this plan ..... It was as if suddenly the heavens had opened, and here was the opportunity at last. I was allowed to consult two officials at the Foreign Office - Permanent Under Secretary, and the Under Secretary in charge of the Middle Eastern area. Nobody was to be told."
Anthony Nutting, Foreign Office Minister of State 1956, interviewed decades later
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"You find that people in MI6 were conducting quite separate policies..... quite regardless of what the Foreign Office view was. I was astonished when somebody showed me some document written by an acquaintance of mine in MI6. I wouldn't have recognised it at all as being anything like British policy, but it was set out as being so. These secret people, you see, they get so above themselves, if I might say so."
Evelyn Shuckburgh, Assistant Under Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs at the Foreign Office in 1956, interviewed decades later
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"With hindsight it's clear that Eden was already committed to military action [against Egypt in 1956]. Approaching the problem through the United Nations was unlikely to work, since in international law Nasser probably was within his rights to nationalise the Suez Canal Company. With the likelihood of armed conflict in mind, in fact Eden would ultimately engage in an illegal secret pact with France and Israel to provide a pretext to start it..... no one outside of a very few close confidants knew of Eden's single minded commitment to a military solution, and still less about the very secret plan hatched with the French and Israelis to provide a pretext for that military action to start.... Government preparations for war went largely unreported in detail having been the subject of two 'D' notices. That's the system by which press and broadcasters agree voluntarily to restrict reporting of matters relating to national security. Meanwhile unknown to any but his closest inner circle the plan for the Israelis to invade Egypt, thus allowing Britain and France to intervene on the pretext of keeping the waring sides apart, was ready to be put into action."
'A Comfort to the Enemy'
BBC Archive Hour, Saturday 4 November 2006 20:00-21:00 (Radio 4 FM)

"The British hostage crisis was a byproduct of a game of brinkmanship, which could ultimately make war more likely. For now, perhaps, a sense of relief is justified. But for how long? As Massey heads off for 'a couple of days with my girlfriend', the next crisis may already be brewing."
Iran laughs at Easter 'gift' of humiliation
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

'If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try, Again'
Another 'Yoo Hoo!' Target Brewing

"Iraqi militia groups have drawn up detailed plans to seize Prince Harry as a hostage when he arrives in Iraq next month, The Observer can reveal. Some of the most notorious paramilitary factions in southern Iraq claim they have informants placed inside British military barracks in Iraq monitoring the third in line to the throne. The claims call into question the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow Harry to serve in Iraq where he and his unit will be seen as a valuable target. Last night an MoD spokesman said: 'We have not concealed the fact that he [Harry] is going out there and the bad guys know that he's coming, and we expect that they will consider him a high-profile scalp.' Despite the threats, Whitehall officials ruled out the possibility that the prince might not be sent to Maysan, the most volatile province in southern Iraq, where British casualties are mounting. Harry will serve with the Blues and Royals for a six-month tour of duty. He is trained as a troop leader to take command of four Scimitars and will be deployed in Iraq alongside 11 men who will serve under him. Militia leaders claim that photographs of Harry have already been downloaded from the internet and disseminated to insurgent groups."
Harry is militia target in Iraq, admits army
Observer, 22 April 2007

By Providing This Much Scope For A Truly Incendiary Hostage Crisis In An Altogether Different League
Somebody In Whitehall Is Doing A Very Passable Impression Of Planning Serious Escalation In The Gulf
Otherwise They Would Simply Be Saying
'Sorry Harry Old Boy, Very Honourable And All That. But No Thank You. Now Off You Go To The Falklands'

"Abu Zaid, commander of the Malik Ibn Al Ashtar Brigade of the notorious Mehdi Army militia, said: 'We are awaiting the arrival of the young, handsome, spoilt prince with baited breath and we confidently expect he will come out into the open on the battlefield. 'We will be generous with him. For he will return him to his grandmother [the Queen] but without ears,' added Zaid, a senior figure within the largest and strongest Shia militia group operating where British troops are deployed. We have printed out many photographs of him from the internet and given them to all other groups. 'They know the prince is their main objective and I have every confidence he will be targeted and attacked.' Abu Samir, a leader of the Iranian-backed Sunni group Thar-allah - meaning God's revenge - added: 'Our people are ready to welcome him in their special way - like Leachman.' This was a reference to a British officer Colonel Gerard Leachman who was murdered by Sheikh Dhari, a tribal leader, in Iraq in 1920. Dhari is still considered by many Iraqis as a hero. While news of his death shocked the British public, it is credited with inspiring Arab tribes to revolt against Western occupying forces. Samir added it would be impossible for Harry to avoid detection once in Iraq, describing his face as more familiar to Iraqis than world-famous footballers....Another senior Sunni militia source said: 'Plans [to abduct] are already in place. As soon as the prince arrives, the race will be on to seize him as a trophy and then to decide his fate.'.... Zaid, who commands an arm of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army which has been responsible for attacks against British troops, said that if plans to abduct the prince failed then militias would try and assassinate the prince. He said: 'Our sniper teams have also been issued with pictures so they will know his face long before he arrives in our land.'....Experts believe the international media coverage towards Iran's capture of the 15 British soldiers and Marines from the Shatt al Arab waterway in March will have underlined the value of taking Harry hostage."
Harry 'the mother of all targets' in Iraq
Observer, 22 April 2007

Coming Soon In A Tabloid Near You - 'It Was The Iranians Wot Dun It'
How To Create World War III

"Twelve years ago, para-bolas of green, red and yellow tracer fire used to arch over the city of Sarajevo at night, accompanied by deadly artillery shells. When Maja heads for home, I walk with her as far as the cobbled span of the Latin Bridge - also known as the Gavrilo Princip Bridge, being the place at which, in 1914, the young Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus sparking the First World War."
Bright lights, hopeful city
Scotsman, 21 April 2007

Message From Stop The War Coalition

"There are many rumours of an imminent attack on Iran. If an attack takes place, Stop the War Coalition, in conjunction with CND, will call an emergency protest outside Downing Street at 6pm on the day of the attack. We are asking all our supporters to join this protest. (If the attack takes place at night, the protest will take place at 6pm on the following day, or if on a weekend, at 12 noon on the appropriate day). If you need information and the Stop the War office is closed (evenings, weekends) call 07951 579 064 for information. If unable to speak directly to us leave a message and we will return your call or send you a text message if using a mobile."
(full details here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/)

PUBLIC MEETINGS ON IRAN

Tues 24 April: South Tyneside StWC
Trinity House Social Centre, 134 Laygate lane, Laygate,
South Shields. (Nearest Metro Chichester)
7.30pm - 8.30pm
Thurs 26 April: Bristol StWC
Opposite Caf� Bar, Park Street Avenue, BRISTOL, BS1 5JU
7.30pm
Mon 30 April: Debyshire STW
Friends Meeting Hall, St Helens Street, Derby DE1
7pm - 9pm
Weds 9 May: Canterbury Kent
Westgate Hall, Canterbury Kent
7.30pm
Weds 9 May: London, Goldsmith's College
Ian Gulland lecture theatre, Whitehead Building, Lewisham Way, London SE14 7.30 pm

"When Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, published his memoirs DC Confidential 18 months ago, Tony Blair reportedly called him 'a complete pr**k'. .... So Downing Street residents are unlikely to be tossing ticker tape over an interview that Sir Christopher's wife, Lady Catherine Meyer has granted Whitehall and Westminster World magazine, in which she mentions the famously testy subject of Blair and George Bush's shared Christianity. 'They are both very religious and I believe that they both feel that what they are doing - especially Blair - is what God wants them to do and that God has chosen their way,' says Lady Meyer, a Conservative who (regardless of the Meyers' pillow talk) had opportunity to observe both leaders closely. 'This is why they bonded immediately.' She adds: 'Blair started talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein way before September 11 ... in 1998. So I think that on Iraq he was more ready than Bush, who only really came into this conversation after 9/11.' Lady Meyer goes on to accuse Blair's government of 'astounding hypocrisy'."
Lady Catherine Meyer, wife of former British US Ambassador, Christopher Meyer
Independent, 20 March 2007

"'The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. There are 50 million Christians standing up and applauding the State of Israel.' So began a speech by Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United For Israel, before an AIPAC Policy Conference plenary earlier this week.....offers of Christian assistance will continue to be met with a considerable degree of wariness...... their support is colored by doctrines of 'rapture' and the apocalypse, in which a catastrophic global war plays an important part..... Hagee reports that CUFI now has 13 regional directors, 40 state directors, 80 city directors, and is aiming to organize in every Congressional district. After only four months in operation, CUFI brought 3,500 members to Washington, DC to lobby Congress last July. That is already over half the size of the AIPAC conference, and the numbers are growing quickly. The objective, Hagee told AIPAC, is to signal to Congress that American support for Israel 'is no longer just a Jewish issue, but a Christian-Jewish issue from this day forward.' The political importance and value of such a transformation, if successful, is difficult to overstate."
Christians For Israel
Jerusalem Post, 14 March 2007

"Israel's military campaign in southern Lebanon is still being backed by most American voters, according to a survey published yesterday that shows public opinion in the US once again sharply at odds with views in Europe.... Last month the Reverend John Hagee, a Pentecostal television evangelist from Texas, convened a meeting in Washington of 3,500 members of Christians Unified for Israel. The organisation is dedicated to building support for Israel, even in states where there are few Jewish voters. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican presidential hopeful, attended the rally, as did Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, and Daniel Ayalon, the Israeli Ambassador. Mr Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a 'miracle of God' and suggested that a ceasefire would violate 'God’s foreign policy statement' towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ’s return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace. 'The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad — the best is yet to be,' Mr Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies. President Bush sent a message to the gathering praising Mr Hagee and his supporters for 'spreading the hope of God’s love and the universal gift of freedom'. He is said to have added: 'God bless and stand by the people of Israel and God bless the United States.' The support for Israel of 50 million American evangelicals chimes with the reality of the Administration’s foreign policy, which refuses to tolerate terrorist organisations — or the Middle Eastern regimes linked to them. Dennis Ross, a Middle East envoy in the administrations of the first President Bush and Bill Clinton, said recently that evangelical supporters of Israel were now an 'important part of the landscape'."
Bombing is backed by most American voters
London Times, 4 August 2006

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday. Kingdom Come, the last of the 'Left Behind' series of Bible-inspired thrillers written by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, tells the story of the final postmillennial battle between Jesus and Satan.... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. Sales elsewhere in the world have been meagre.... A 2006 survey for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 79 per cent of American Christians believe in the Second Coming, with 20 per cent believing it will happen in their lifetime. The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation. Those left behind, struggling to make sense of what has happened, are then ruled by a Romanian politician named Nicolae Carpathia who becomes United Nations Secretary-General. He turns out to be the Anti-Christ who sets up a world government, as well as establishing his capital in the biblical Babylon, Baghdad. Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants. The books have attracted a fair share of controversy, not least from mainstream Christian theologians and other religions. American Muslims, for instance, have asked Wal-Mart to stop stocking the Left Behind video game which encourages children to zap the AntiChrist’s team which includes a lot of Arab and Islamic-sounding names."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

"The former technician jailed for 18 years for leaking Israel's nuclear secrets has said he was trying to prevent a nuclear holocaust. In his first interview since his release, Mordechai Vanunu said he did not feel he was a traitor. 'I felt it was not about betraying; it was about reporting. It was about saving Israel from a new holocaust.' In the interview for the BBC's This World programme, Mr Vanunu said he had no regrets over his actions. 'I have no regrets despite the fact I have paid a heavy punishment, a large price,' he said. Mr Vanunu, 50, who is widely regarded as a traitor in Israel, spent nearly 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear arms programme. Supporters welcomed his release in April, calling him a 'hero of peace'.... Mr Vanunu was kidnapped in Italy by Israeli agents in 1986 following a Sunday Times article, based on an interview with him, which exposed Israel's atomic secrets. He described how a female secret agent lured him from London to Rome and distracted him in the car.... In Rome, Mr Vanunu was overpowered and drugged, then shipped back to Israel to be tried in secret. Now living in Jerusalem's St George's Anglican cathedral, Mr Vanunu is banned from using the internet or mobile phones, and may not approach embassies or borders."
Vanunu 'wanted to avert holocaust'
BBC Online, 29 May 2004

"All I can say is this: the Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. The Israeli Defense Ministry has long had a nuclear arsenal. Israeli intelligence tried to keep the existence of this arsenal secret from the outside world, but fortunately did not succeed. Nevertheless, they are still trying to silence me - even now, after seventeen-and-a-half years in prison."
Interview with Mordechai Vanunu: Israel preparing to use nuclear weapons against Iran
Voyenny Parad, No. 4, 2005 (original Russian) - Globalresearch.ca

"The release of the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran has robbed the U.S. of a pretext to attack Iran, but the U.S. has not given up plans to attack Iran militarily, said Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems, a Russian think tank. 'Preparations to strike Iran's strategic facilities continue.... If Iran strikes back at Israel with missiles, Tel-Aviv is likely to use nuclear weapons on Iran,' Ivashov said, adding that such a 'development of the situation would undermine stability not only in the Middle East, but also in the entire world.'"
Russian general says U.S. continues preparations for military action against Iran
Interfax (Russia), 8 April 2007

“Who was responsible for exposing the sailors within reach of one of the most reckless nations in the world? This was a kidnapping waiting to happen. ”
The Iran Crisis Is Blair’s True Legacy
Mail On Sunday, 1 April 2007

"... The Royal Navy and Royal Marines have huge experience of operating in the narrow Gulf waterway and there is concern, if not bewilderment, over the manner in which the 14 service-men and one servicewoman were so easily seized by the Iranian gunmen."
Browne apologises, offers two inquiries . . . and keeps his job
London Times, 17 April 2007

"General Sir Michael Rose, [is] former head of the SAS, ex-commander of UN forces in Bosnia, and formerly in charge of standards in the Army as Adjutant General..... 'The overall system should have responded in some way,' he says, referring to the mother ship, the heavily armed HMS Cornwall which was nearby when the hostages were taken. He also criticises the ship’s crew for not detecting the Iranian approach on their radar screens..... 'I am amazed that the Navy hasn’t had a Board of Inquiry about what happened. Who put them in that situation? They should be held responsible. .... Yes, there should indeed have been charges, and the senior officers should have been asked how come they allowed this situation to occur. '..."
J'Accuse! Top General lambasts 'moral cowardice' of government and military chiefs
Dail Mail, 12 April 2007

"A catalogue of errors, from poor intelligence to inadequate training and lack of firepower, was blamed yesterday for the capture of the 15 British Marines and sailors by Iranian forces two weeks ago. As the Ministry of Defence began an inquiry into the circumstances of the incident on March 23, when a lightly armed Royal Navy boarding party was ambushed and taken hostage by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, naval sources said that clear failings had already been identified... The inquiry will want to know why the Lynx helicopter flying from HMS Cornwall, which was equipped with a heavy machinegun, had already returned to the ship before the mission was complete. It was scrambled when the ambush was under way but arrived back on the scene too late to save the Marines and sailors. ' 'I understand that HMS Cornwall had requested a sniper team be added to its crew but this was turned down by the Ministry of Defence,' one naval source said. 'That has now been rectified.' There are also concerns that Royal Navy commanders had inadequate intelligence that may have made them complacent. Iranian military commanders had been giving warning publicly for weeks that they intended to capture American or British forces in Iraq in retaliation for the arrest in January of five Iranian officials by US troops. British servicemen were particularly at risk on March 23 since Britain was pushing through a UN Security Council resolution the next day, imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme. British soldiers operating in southern Iraq were put on alert earlier this year against the hostage threat. They were authorised to use 'maximum force' to avoid being captured while on patrol. The same rules of engagement clearly did not apply to naval personnel patrolling Iraqi waters."
Inquiry begins into errors that led to crew’s ambush
London Times, 6 April 2007

"Intelligence failures are also being blamed for the incident. British troops in southern Iraq had been warned of the dangers of being taken hostage, after Iran openly threatened to capture American or British soldiers. They had been authorised to use 'maximum force' to protect themselves. And yet, on the eve of a UN Security Council vote on a British resolution to impose sanctions against Iran, no warning was given to the boarding party about the dangers to which they were being exposed."
Deaths fuel Iran row
London Times, 6 April 2007

"... it is hard to think of anything in modern times that has held Britain up to such, and such richly deserved, international contempt as the case of the 15 captured mariners in the Shatt al Arab. There was the original sin; messing about in lightly armed little boats in a waterway contested by Iran — a bit like poking a mad dog in the eye without being prepared to clobber it with a big stick if it bites."
Why Old Britain's Time is Up
TIME, 12 April 2007

"Iranian intelligence officers told the 15 British captives they first became suspicious about their activities after watching an interview with one of them on British television. Families of the hostages said that their loved ones had told them the Iranians had made the claim soon after capturing them. The revelation is likely to raise questions about the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow the media to accompany Cornwall, the ship on which the service personnel were based, and report on its activities. On 13 March - 10 days before the 15 were seized - Channel 5 broadcast an interview with Captain Chris Air, one of the captured Royal Marines, in which he stated that his crew's role was to liaise with Iraqi vessels to 'let them know we are here to protect them, protect their fishing and to stop any terrorism or any piracy in the area'. The Iranian interrogators told their captives, who were seized while travelling in two dinghies during a patrol, that this had alerted them to Cornwall's role. ..... The MoD confirmed last night that the Iranians had made the claim that they had become interested in Cornwall's activities after learning about it on British television, but denied the decision to allow the ship's crew to be interviewed while on active duty had jeopardised the mission.... The MoD's decision to allow media access to Cornwall had been welcomed by newspapers and broadcasters keen to tell the story of the navy's role in patrolling the seas off Iraq. Also on board the frigate was a BBC film crew and a journalist from the Independent. But as attention now turns to the MoD's role in handling the affair, questions are likely to be asked as to whether lessons will have to be learnt regarding the media's relationship with the armed forces."
TV interview 'tipped off' Iran about ship's intelligence role
Observer, 8 April 2007

The White House And Downing St -V - The State Department And The Foreign Office

"Dramatic new evidence that Cabinet rebel Jack Straw was sacked as Foreign Secretary as a result of pressure from George W. Bush has been revealed. Senior sources close to the US Government told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Straw's outspoken opposition to America's policies on the Middle East was discussed by White House aides weeks before his shock dismissal by Tony Blair in May.... He angered the White House by saying that threats to bomb Iran to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons - a course of action which Mr Bush and Mr Blair have refused to rule out - were 'nuts'. A US source told The Mail on Sunday: 'Mr Straw's views did not find favour in the White House and its concerns were passed on to the British Government.... Some Foreign Office insiders say it could be part of an American plan to pave the way for an attack on Iran next year."
U.S. 'told Blair to sack Straw after Condi's Blackburn trip'
Mail On Sunday, 6 August 2006

"The release of the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran has robbed the U.S. of a pretext to attack Iran, but the U.S. has not given up plans to attack Iran militarily, said Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems, a Russian think tank. 'Preparations to strike Iran's strategic facilities continue. Three major groups of U.S. forces are still in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Altogether, they have up to 450 cruise missiles on alert,' the general told Interfax-AVN. 'Military operations against Tehran will begin with the launch of at least two unexpected strikes using Tomahawk cruise missiles and air power in order to disable Iran's air defense capabilities,' he said. 'According to our data, up to 150 aircraft are to be involved in each strike on Iran. Land-based air defense systems will be disabled in the first place, then mobile short-range systems, which Tehran has (including some 30 new systems),' he said. Primary targets will include command centers, air defense installations, the navy, airfields, ports and docking facilities, the general said. 'Nuclear facilities may be secondary targets. According to expert assessments, at least 20 such facilities need to be destroyed in order to stop Iran's nuclear program,' Ivashov said. Ivashov did not rule out that nuclear weapons may be used against Iran. 'Combat nuclear weapons may be used for bombing. This will result in radioactive contamination of the Iranian territory, which could possibly spread to neighboring countries,' he said. 'If Iran strikes back at Israel with missiles, Tel-Aviv is likely to use nuclear weapons on Iran,' Ivashov said, adding that such a 'development of the situation would undermine stability not only in the Middle East, but also in the entire world.'"
Russian general says U.S. continues preparations for military action against Iran
Interfax (Russia), 8 April 2007

"The media's requests were passed on by the 'shielders' and were dealt with at Fleet Headquarters in Portsmouth by the man in charge of personnel issues, Second Sea Lord Vice-Adml Adrian Johns. Back in London, the second permanent secretary at the MoD, Sir Ian Andrews, was kept informed as was Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of Defence Staff..... Normally members of the Armed Forces are not allowed to profit from telling stories to the press unless they receive permission in 'exceptional circumstances'. But on this occasion they were actively encouraged to do so. The Navy feared that after the euphoria of the hostages' return had passed, the Navy itself would face a wave of criticism for allowing them to be seized by the Iranians in the first place. Getting their stories out in full, and under the controlling eye of Navy and MoD officials, would, they believed, deflect attention from what had gone wrong.... Tony Blair was informed while Mr Browne formally 'signed off' on the deal."
How the Navy spun its way into a PR disaster
Daily Telegraph, 10 April 2007

"The British lapse was all the more surprising because the same thing happened in June 2004, when eight sailors and marines were seized in the same area and released three days later. The defence ministry compiled a 'lessons learnt' paper to ensure that those mistakes were not repeated. The Sunday Times has learnt that the paper highlighted the need for 'top cover' for boarding parties, which should always have been covered from the air by the presence of a helicopter. The Cornwall’s Lynx – armed with a .50 machinegun that could have caused serious damage to the Iranian fast boats – had apparently been overhead when the sailors boarded the Indian freighter. Why did it turn back, leaving the sailors exposed? The ministry initially said last week that it needed to refuel before retreating behind an insistence that there was no standard procedure for keeping a helicopter in place. "
Focus: In the eye of the storm
Sunday Times, 1 April 2007

"Defence Secretary Des Browne admitted he 'made a mistake in not blocking sailors from selling their stories of their Iran ordeal to the media.....Announcing the investigation into how the sailors and Marines came to be snatched during a routine patrol, he said it had been 'an unusual situation with wide and far-reaching consequences. It would be led by the Governor General of Gibraltar, Lieutenant General Sir Rob Fulton, Royal Marines, a retired former commander of UK Amphibious Task Forces. The six-week inquiry would cover 'all operational aspects' and the full results would be presented to the Commons defence committee but not published, he said.... An inquiry into the media handling aspects would be conducted by a senior military officer and a senior MoD official both unconnected with the decision and led by an independent figure 'with wide media experience', he told MPs. But it would not be a 'witch hunt', he insisted."
Browne 'sorry' over sailor stories
Guardian, 16 April 2007

"Making a skilful defence of his much-criticised report into the pre-war intelligence, Lord Butler insisted that no one - neither Tony Blair nor John Scarlett, now head of M16 - could be held responsible.... In a rare foray into details, Lord Butler, cabinet secretary under John Major and Mr Blair, said he was satisfied that he was not prevented from a proper investigation - nor that he should have passed judgment on policy decisions.... Nor was it his job to apportion specific blame, Lord Butler told sceptical members of the Commons public administration select committee. 'Our conclusion was that you could not pick out anyone who bore special responsibility for (the dossier's retrospective weaknesses). I think that is often the case in government. 'We did look for evidence whether there was distortion or negligence that you could pin on individuals. If we could have found that, we might have commented on it. But that was not the position.' Pressed by Tony Wright, the committee's Labour chairman, to concede that 'parliament and the public were misled', Lord Butler, now, master of University College, Oxford, insisted that Mr Scarlett - then head of the joint intelligence committee (JIC) - was 'not solely responsible for the contents of the dossier'.Throughout his two hour session Lord Butler insisted the Blair regime was not basically different from the other five premierships he had witnessed. The circulation of papers to cabinet ministers before their Thursday meetings - which his committee said should be improved - had been declining since 1945. Faced with the charge that the decision to go to war was the most personal by a prime minister since Sir Anthony Eden invaded Suez in 1956, Lord Butler countered that Lady Thatcher had done the same over the Falklands crisis."
'No one to blame' for flaws in Iraq dossier, Butler tells MPs
Guardian, 22 October 2004

"If there is another terrorist attack in the United States, you can bet your bottom dollar that there also will be immediate charges that Iran was responsible in order to generate public hysteria in favor of military action. But there are four compelling reasons against a preventive air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities... For now, our choice is either to be stampeded into a reckless adventure profoundly damaging to long-term U.S. national interests or to become serious about giving negotiations with Iran a genuine chance. The mullahs were on the skids several years ago but were given a new burst of life by the intensifying confrontation with the United States. Our strategic goal, pursued by real negotiations and not by posturing, should be to separate Iranian nationalism from religious fundamentalism. Treating Iran with respect and within a historical perspective would help to advance that objective. American policy should not be swayed by the current contrived atmosphere of urgency ominously reminiscent of what preceded the misguided intervention in Iraq."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter
Los Angeles Times, 23 April 2006

More Bait On Its Way From Whitehall
How Can The MOD Possibly Justify This Decision?

"Iraqi militia groups have drawn up detailed plans to seize Prince Harry as a hostage when he arrives in Iraq next month, The Observer can reveal. Some of the most notorious paramilitary factions in southern Iraq claim they have informants placed inside British military barracks in Iraq monitoring the third in line to the throne. The claims call into question the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow Harry to serve in Iraq where he and his unit will be seen as a valuable target. Last night an MoD spokesman said: 'We have not concealed the fact that he [Harry] is going out there and the bad guys know that he's coming, and we expect that they will consider him a high-profile scalp.' Despite the threats, Whitehall officials ruled out the possibility that the prince might not be sent to Maysan, the most volatile province in southern Iraq, where British casualties are mounting. Harry will serve with the Blues and Royals for a six-month tour of duty. He is trained as a troop leader to take command of four Scimitars and will be deployed in Iraq alongside 11 men who will serve under him. Militia leaders claim that photographs of Harry have already been downloaded from the internet and disseminated to insurgent groups."
Harry is militia target in Iraq, admits army
Observer, 22 April 2007

"Abu Zaid, commander of the Malik Ibn Al Ashtar Brigade of the notorious Mehdi Army militia, said: 'We are awaiting the arrival of the young, handsome, spoilt prince with baited breath and we confidently expect he will come out into the open on the battlefield. We will be generous with him. For he will return him to his grandmother [the Queen] but without ears,' added Zaid, a senior figure within the largest and strongest Shia militia group operating where British troops are deployed. We have printed out many photographs of him from the internet and given them to all other groups... Abu Samir, a leader of the Iranian-backed Sunni group Thar-allah - meaning God's revenge - added: 'Our people are ready to welcome him in their special way - like Leachman.' This was a reference to a British officer Colonel Gerard Leachman who was murdered by Sheikh Dhari, a tribal leader, in Iraq in 1920. Dhari is still considered by many Iraqis as a hero. While news of his death shocked the British public, it is credited with inspiring Arab tribes to revolt against Western occupying forces. Samir added it would be impossible for Harry to avoid detection once in Iraq, describing his face as more familiar to Iraqis than world-famous footballers.... One prominent member of the insurgency indicated that Harry might also be targeted by militias for religious reasons. Abu Ahmed, another commander within the Mehdi Army, said: 'He should follow his mother, Diana, and rebel against the imperialistic family and not come here as a crusader, or his blood will flow into our desert.'... Experts believe the international media coverage towards Iran's capture of the 15 British soldiers and Marines from the Shatt al Arab waterway in March will have underlined the value of taking Harry hostage."
Harry 'the mother of all targets' in Iraq
Observer, 22 April 2007

"Forced to react to both events at the same time, the Prime Minister spoke of the welcome return of the captured servicemen and one woman, 'safe and unharmed', before turning to the 'sober and ugly reality' of Iraq. It was far too early to say that any elements of the Iranian regime had been involved in the Basra attack, but 'the general picture ... is that there are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, supporting terrorism in Iraq'. This is an accusation that has been made regularly in the past four years, but in the absence of specific proof, such claims tend to fade away after an initial flurry. Basra's police chief said the device that destroyed a Warrior armoured vehicle, killing most of its occupants, had not been seen in the area before, and was a shaped charge of the kind the US has accused Iran of supplying to insurgents further north. British military sources did not confirm his claim, however. What Mr Blair was at pains not to say in his reaction, but many would have been thinking, was that neither the hostage drama nor the bombing in Basra would have happened if he had not taken the decision to invade Iraq in partnership with President George Bush in 2003."
Pawns in a losing game: Britain's policy in tatters
Independent, 8 April 2007

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says 15 British naval personnel captured in the Gulf are free to leave.... He said they were being pardoned to mark both the Prophet Muhammad's birthday on 30 March, and the upcoming Easter holiday."
Iranians release British sailors
BBC Online, 4 April 2007

"Washington did not launch air strikes against Iran early Friday despite recent media reports, but expectations of the attack have driven Brent price to $70 per barrel. Russian and foreign media have recently reported the U.S. could launch an operation, codenamed Bite, against Iran at 4:00 a.m. local time April 6. The operation was expected to deliver air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over a 12-hour period to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.....Iran's Defense Ministry declined to comment on possible U.S. strikes Thursday night, saying it was closed for Thursday and Friday, which are days off in the republic. Israel's DEBKAfile Web site quoted intelligence sources in Moscow in late March as saying a U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear sites had been scheduled for April 6 and aimed at setting Tehran's nuclear program back several years."
No U.S. attack on Iran, oil price hits $70 in expectation
RIA Novosti (Russia), 6 April 2007

The Final Stage Of The Neocon 'Strategy' Has To Be Stopped
Cheney And MI6 May Want 'Eternal Oil' But Bush And Blair Want 'Eternal Life' As Well
Delivered At The Expense Of Others

"There is still time this year to deal with Iran diplomatically to halt its nuclear program, but a military option may await if such pressure fails, Israel's envoy to the United States said on Wednesday."
Israel urges tough diplomacy this year on Iran
Reuters, 18 April 2007

"Israeli television on Wednesday aired for the first time footage of a bombing on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and minute preparations leading up to the widely condemned attack. The 90-minute film directed by Nir Toyb showed how the Israeli secret service and the army planned the attack and prepared the pilots for any eventuality and the actual June 7 1981 raid on the Tammouz reactor, west of Baghdad. Eight F-16 US fighter jets were used in the attack and the pilots were trained for low-altitude flights in secret in Cyprus and the Red Sea. Tammouz was beleived to be key to an Iraqi nuclear bomb programme."
Israeli television airs footage of Iraqi nuclear reactor's bombing
Turkish Press, 18 April 2007

"While domestically he [Blair] favours 'what works', when it comes to international affairs he rejects the Foreign Office's traditional commitment to realpolitik in favour of an almost messianic desire to change the world."
Iraq has tested Mr Blair's interventionism to destruction
Daily Telegraph, 23 May 2006

"Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq’s weapons capability.....According to two of those present at the briefing.... this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the C.I.A. had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, .....On the same day, in London, Tony Blair’s government made public a dossier containing much of the information that the Senate committee was being given in secret—that Iraq had sought to buy 'significant quantities of uranium' from an unnamed African country... President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought 'significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'....Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes.... Some I.A.E.A. investigators.... speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy.... Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections....A former Clinton Administration official told me that London had resorted to, among other things, spreading false information about Iraq. The British propaganda program—part of its Information Operations, or I/Ops—was known to a few senior officials in Washington.... dozens of unverified and unverifiable intelligence reports and tips—data known as inactionable intelligence—[were] to be funnelled to MI6 operatives and quietly passed along to newspapers in London and elsewhere. 'It was intelligence that was crap, and that we couldn’t move on, but the Brits wanted to plant stories in England and around the world,' the former officer said. There was a series of clandestine meetings with MI6, at which documents were provided, as well as quiet meetings, usually at safe houses in the Washington area..... None of the past and present officials I spoke with were able to categorically state that the fake Niger documents were created or instigated by the same propaganda office in MI6 that had been part of the anti-Iraq propaganda wars in the late nineteen-nineties (An MI6 intelligence source declined to comment.)....[However] What is generally agreed upon, a congressional intelligence-committee staff member told me, is that the Niger documents were initially circulated by the British—President Bush said as much in his State of the Union speech—and that 'the Brits placed more stock in them than we did.' It is also clear, as the former high-level intelligence official told me, that 'something as bizarre as Niger raises suspicions everywhere.'... "
WHO LIED TO WHOM?
New Yorker, 24 March 2003

"A popular view outside America, occasionally expressed inside the US, is that the limits to debate about the Middle East are set by some powerful group called the Israel Lobby. This shadowy bunch, depending on your favoured conspiracy theory, either bankrolls all American politicians or plants its own members in critical positions inside the US Government. No politician dare step out of line from what is decreed acceptable by the Lobby. Last year two academics gave public voice to this view in a paper that quickly earned notoriety. But fixation on the Israel lobby is not only misplaced and, with its evocation of wealthy bankers and unscrupulous political consultants, just a tiny bit antiSemitic. It also misses the real reasons that the US can’t seem to have a sensible discussion now about the Middle East..... Some of these reasons are to do with internal political developments long in the making. The rise of evangelical Christianity as a political force, especially within the Republican Party, has something to do with it. The belief that the Jews must be returned to the Biblical lands of Judaea and Samaria before the world can end has driven up support for an aggressive Israeli approach to its neighbours in the Holy Land. Those of us who are not evangelical Zionists will feel a little queasy about that idea."
‘Israel right or wrong’ is not a grown-up debate
London Times, 6 April 2007

"Looking to their American counterparts on Monday, Knesset members were surprised at the solidarity and support being shown among key US politicians. Several top US political figures, including Sen. John McCain (R) Arizona, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Rep.) called the current Middle East crisis the beginning of 'World War III' and said they were 'gravely concerned' in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live. 'We need to make our European allies understand that this is the most serious challenge we have faced in the Middle East in a long time,' McCain said. He added that the US might be forced to take direct action in the crisis. McCain has been widely speculated to run in the next presidential race. Gingrich, who called the crisis World War III in several interviews over the weekend, said that the US and Israel were acting with much restraint and that the US should shoot down Iranian planes sending supplies to Lebanon.... Not all MKs were so hard on America, however, with one Likud MK remarking that it was better to have the US take the crisis seriously than ignore it entirely. 'They said this because they think it will lead to Iran getting involved, which they believe will set off World War III,' said MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party). 'I don't think they are right that WWIII has started but I understand where they are coming from. I have to agree that there could be an escalation, depending on how strongly we act.' Elon said that the comments originated with American evangelist John Hagee, who published a book in 2006 called Jerusalem Countdown, which predicted that World War III would begin in Jerusalem and spread to Western states."
Is this the start of World War III?
Jerusalem Post, 17 July 2006

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday. Kingdom Come, the last of the 'Left Behind' series of Bible-inspired thrillers written by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, tells the story of the final postmillennial battle between Jesus and Satan.... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. Sales elsewhere in the world have been meagre.... A 2006 survey for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 79 per cent of American Christians believe in the Second Coming, with 20 per cent believing it will happen in their lifetime. The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation. Those left behind, struggling to make sense of what has happened, are then ruled by a Romanian politician named Nicolae Carpathia who becomes United Nations Secretary-General. He turns out to be the Anti-Christ who sets up a world government, as well as establishing his capital in the biblical Babylon, Baghdad. Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants. The books have attracted a fair share of controversy, not least from mainstream Christian theologians and other religions. American Muslims, for instance, have asked Wal-Mart to stop stocking the Left Behind video game which encourages children to zap the AntiChrist’s team which includes a lot of Arab and Islamic-sounding names."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

"It was only 25 years ago when there began to be a melding of the Republican Party with fundamentalist Christianity, particularly with the Southern Baptist Convention. This is a fairly new development, and I think it was brought about by the abandonment of some of the basic principles of Christianity. First of all, we worship the prince of peace, not war. And those of us who have advocated for the resolution of international conflict in a peaceful fashion are looked upon as being unpatriotic, branded that way by right-wing religious groups, the Bush administration, and other Republicans.... what do Christians stand for, based exclusively on the words and actions of Jesus Christ? We worship him as a prince of peace. And I think almost all Christians would conclude that whenever there is an inevitable altercation -- say, between a husband and a wife, or a father and a child, or within a given community, or between two nations (including our own) -- we should make every effort to resolve those differences which arise in life through peaceful means. Therein, we should not resort to war as a way to exalt the president as the commander in chief. A commitment to peace is certainly a Christian principle that even ultraconservatives would endorse, at least by worshipping the prince of peace... The alleviation of suffering was a philosophy that was enhanced and emphasized by the life of Christ. Today the ultra-right wing, in both religion and politics, has abandoned that principle of Jesus Christ’s ministry. Those are the two principal things in the practical sense that starkly separate the ultra-right Christian community from the rest of the Christian world: Do we endorse and support peace and support the alleviation of suffering among the poor and the outcast?"
Jimmy Carter [America's first evangelical Christian president and a southern Baptist]
explains how the Christian right isn't Christian at all
The American Prospect, 5 April 2004

"This [English news article] is very interesting in light of the report of a possible US strike on Iran April 6th.
This could be why Blair says the next 48hrs are crucial in the hostage crisis."
Post from Orange County, Californai on 'Rapture' blogging web site
'Rapture Ready', April 3rd, 2007 at 11:56 AM

Meanwhile Ultra Cynical Dick Cheney Is Likely To See Israel Mainly As A Giant Proxy Aircaft Carrier
Permanently Stationed In The Middle East Available To Help Protect Access To Oil
And As A Potential Transit Route For Iraqi Oil Shipments To The Mediterranean

"'We must consider, as well, just what a precipitous withdrawal [from Iraq] would mean to our other efforts in the war on terror, to our interests in the broader Middle East, and to Israel,' the U.S. vice president said over the weekend to a Republican Jewish Coalition leadership gathering in Latana, Fla."
Cheney: Iraq pullout would hurt Israel
JTA Daily Briefing, (22?) April 2007

"We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil, and whoever controls the supply of oil, especially if it were a man like Saddam Hussein, with a large army and sophisticated weapons, would have a stranglehold on the American economy and on — indeed on the world economy."
Dick Cheney, US Secretary of Defense 1990
New York Times, 24 February 2006

"Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.... 'Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam,' one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. 'It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border.'.... In the autumn the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak told the US vice president, Dick Cheney, that America had lost in Iraq. Israel 'had learned that there's no way to win an occupation,' he told Mr Cheney, and the only issue was 'choosing the size of your humiliation'."
Israelis 'using Kurds to build power base'
Guardian, 21 June 2004

"Israel's finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, predicted yesterday that the British-era oil pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields through Jordan to the Israeli port city of Haifa would be reopened. 'It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa,' Mr Netanyahu told a group of British investors in London. 'It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean.'"
Iraq-Israel oil pipeline 'to reopen'
Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2003

"Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the Israelis have other things in mind. An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy.... All of this lends weight to the theory that Bush's war is part of a masterplan to reshape the Middle East to serve Israel's interests. Haaretz quoted Paritzky as saying that the pipeline project is economically justifiable because it would dramatically reduce Israel's energy bill. US efforts to get Iraqi oil to Israel are not surprising. Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the US guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. The MoU, which has been quietly renewed every five years, also committed the USA to construct and stock a supplementary strategic reserve for Israel, equivalent to some US$3bn in 2002. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the USA agreed to divert oil from its home market, even if that entailed domestic shortages, and guaranteed delivery of the promised oil in its own tankers if commercial shippers were unwilling or not available to carry the crude to Israel. All of this adds up to a potentially massive financial commitment. The USA has another reason for supporting Paritzky's project: a land route for Iraqi oil direct to the Mediterranean would lessen US dependence on Gulf oil supplies. Direct access to the world's second-largest oil reserves (with the possibility of expansion through so-far untapped deposits) is an important strategic objective."
Oil from Iraq : An Israeli pipedream?
Jane's Foreign Report, 16 April 2003

"Robert Baer, a former CIA spy who presents a television documentary on the history of suicide bombing, says he knew the practice would come to the UK. And it’s not the West’s values, but its foreign policies, that are to blame.... There is, however, a three-letter reason why the US will not impose a peace plan on Israel and leave the region. Baer, the author of Sleeping With The Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, well knows what it is. 'I don’t think any American politician, however at fault we are in Iraq or anywhere else, can say, ‘All right, let the crazies have the oil fields’, because oil at $200 a barrel would put us into a depression.' So because the American economy is at stake, we can’t get out even to save our skins? 'That, I believe, is your classic paradox.' "
Suicide bombing is a virus that’s here to stay
London Times, 2 August 2005

Cheney Is Also Likely To See The Rapturists Merely As 'Useful Idiots'
Who Conveniently Suit His Rather More Secular Purpose In Attempting To Dominate The Middle East
Namely His Energy War With China

"Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said that oil was one of the reasons for the US-led invasion of Iraq, a Swedish news agency reports. 'I did not think so at first. But the US is incredibly dependent on oil,' news agency TT quoted Blix as saying at a security seminar in Stockholm. 'They wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard.' Blix, who helped oversee the dismantling of Iraq's weapons programs before the war, said another reason for the invasion was a need to move US troops from Saudi Arabia, TT reported. Competition over oil is creating tension between the United States and China, Blix said........."
Blix says war motivated by oil
Australian Associated Press, 7 April 2005

"US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed... Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. 'Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place.' He added: 'We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous.'... Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made. Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action. In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled.... Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was under way: 'Gates said there is no planning for war. We know this is not true. He possibly meant there is no plan for an immediate strike. It was sloppy wording. 'All the moves being made over the last few weeks are consistent with what you would do if you were going to do an air strike. We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq. It is an air operation.'... Other neo-cons elsewhere in Washington are opposed to an air strike but advocate a different form of military action, supporting Iranian armed groups, in particular the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), even though the state department has branded it a terrorist organisation."
Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring
Guardian, 10 February 2007

"The US is to continue holding five Iranians captured in Iraq despite protests from Tehran, US media said. The fate of the five sparked disagreement, with the White House overruling the State Department on the issue, the Washington Post reported. Administration officials have not commented on the report. The US says the men seized in a January raid on Iran's consulate in Irbil are linked to the Revolutionary Guard. Iran says they are diplomats. The US accuses the Revolutionary Guard of providing support to insurgents. The issue has further raised tension between the US and Iran, which has demanded that the men be released. The decision was made at a high-level meeting on Tuesday, the Washington Post said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly argued that the five Iranians be released because they were 'no longer useful'. But Vice President Dick Cheney's office said their capture signalled that Iranian activities were monitored and their operatives at risk of detention, the daily said."
US 'will keep Iranian detainees'
BBC Online, 14 April 2007

"Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: 'What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.' Mr Wilkerson said such secret decision-making was responsible for mistakes such as the long refusal to engage with North Korea or to back European efforts on Iran."
‘Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy’
Financial Times, 20 October 2005

"A month before the November elections, Vice-President Dick Cheney was sitting in on a national-security discussion at the Executive Office Building. The talk took a political turn: what if the Democrats won both the Senate and the House? How would that affect policy toward Iran, which is believed to be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? .... If the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would put 'shorteners' on any legislative restrictions, Cheney said, and thus stop Congress from getting in its way. The White House’s concern was not that the Democrats would cut off funds for the war in Iraq but that future legislation would prohibit it from financing operations targeted at overthrowing or destabilizing the Iranian government, to keep it from getting the bomb..... In late 1982, Edward P. Boland, a Democratic representative, introduced the first in a series of 'Boland amendments,' which limited the Reagan Administration’s ability to support the Contras, who were working to overthrow Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government. The Boland restrictions led White House officials to orchestrate illegal fund-raising activities for the Contras, including the sale of American weapons, via Israel, to Iran. The result was the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-eighties. Cheney’s story, according to the source, was his way of saying that, whatever a Democratic Congress might do next year to limit the President’s authority, the Administration would find a way to work around it."
The Next Act
The New Yorker, 27 November 2006

"For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton, now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999

"Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.' The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org. ......Judicial Watch has been seeking these documents under FOIA since April 19, 2001. Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) when the government failed to comply with the provisions of the FOIA law. U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Friedman ordered the government to produce the documents on March 5, 2002."
CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS
Judicial Watch, 17 July 2003

"Iraq's oil reserves are significantly untapped and daily production could be doubled within five years, a report has concluded.... If these reserves were exploited, it said, Iraq could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer. But a major improvement in security and investment was needed, it added.... The IHS survey, which examined Iraq's oil reserves both before and after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is the most comprehensive conducted since the 2003 invasion. It found that Iraq had known reserves of 116 billion barrels and could be sitting on a further 100 billion barrels.... Current output of two million barrels a day is lower than in early 2003, when three million barrels were being pumped, and almost half that being produced in 1979. However, it said Iraq had the capacity to increase production to four million barrels by 2012 and to further increase that to six million within time. 'Iraq's reserves are clearly phenomenal,' said Ron Mobed, president and chief operating officer of IHS, adding that they represented a 'gold star opportunity'."
Iraqi oil wealth 'going untapped'
BBC Online, 19 April 2007

"US oil services giant Halliburton said Monday it had wrapped up its work commitments in Iran and was no longer conducting any projects in the Islamic republic.Halliburton announced in January of 2005 that it was shutting-down its Iran operations, but would honor existing 'contractual commitments' until they were fulfilled. 'Halliburton announced today that all of its contractual commitments in Iran have been completed and the company is no longer working in Iran,' the firm said in a brief statement. The company, headed by Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000 before he became vice president, added that its 'prior business' in Iran was 'clearly permissible under applicable laws and regulations.' Halliburton, which could not be reached for further comment....."
Halliburton winds up Iran work
Agence France Presse, 9 April 2007

"A major new alliance is emerging between Iran and China that threatens to undermine U.S. ability to pressure Tehran on its nuclear program, support for extremist groups and refusal to back Arab-Israeli peace efforts. The relationship has grown out of China's soaring energy needs -- crude oil imports surged nearly 40 percent in the first eight months of this year, according to state media -- and Iran's growing appetite for consumer goods for a population that has doubled since the 1979 revolution, Iranian officials and analysts say... Beijing has also provided Iran with advanced military technology, including missile technology, U.S. officials say."
Iran's New Alliance With China Could Cost U.S. Leverage
Washington Post, 17 November 2005

"Move over, Big Oil. There's a new oilman on the world stage - China. China's takeover bid for Unocal Corp. makes clear to sticker-shocked Americans that the 1.3 billion Chinese people are demanding an ever-larger supply of the world's energy to fuel their booming economy and are willing to get it wherever necessary. From Central Asia to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and even Canada, Chinese firms are pumping oil and natural gas in many areas that the United States was counting on to meet its own record-high demand.... While the Bush administration tries to build international pressure against Iran over its nuclear aspirations, China has signed a $70 billion long- term oil and gas supply deal with the Tehran... Chinese firms signed numerous contracts to co-produce oil and natural gas. Iran is China's largest single source of foreign oil, providing 13 percent of China's total annual imports..."
China on global hunt to quench its thirst for oil
San Francisco Chronicle, 26 June 2005

"A day after chastising Moscow for its use of oil and natural gas as 'tools for intimidation or blackmail,' Vice President Dick Cheney visited Kazakhstan on Friday to promote export routes that bypass Russia and directly supply the West. With his comments, Mr. Cheney waded into a messy geopolitical struggle for energy and influence in the countries of the former Soviet Union, rapidly becoming one of the world's largest-producing regions. The United States backs efforts to weaken Russia's grip by building new export routes for the enormous energy reserves of Central Asia, much of which now must cross Russian territory to reach ports in the Black Sea or pipelines to Europe....Mr. Cheney's visit to Kazakhstan, on Russia's southern rim, highlighted the balancing of United States interests, trying to counter Russian dominance in energy matters by cozying up to states like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that have spotty human rights records and limited democracy — and plenty of oil..... In an echo of the 19th-century Great Game scramble for colonial possessions in Central Asia, the United States is seeking to weaken Russia's control over oil and natural gas while also keeping China from stepping in to the breach. It is also encouraging export options that avoid Iran, another longstanding rival for regional influence....On Thursday, Kazakhstan's energy minister cheered the United States and Europe by saying he was interested in building a gas pipeline westward to Azerbaijan and then to Turkey, bypassing Russia and loosening Gazprom's lock on this trade. But that same day, Kazakhstan's national pipeline operator issued a guarantee to Russia to ship Russian oil to China through its new Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline.... The United States is also concerned about maintaining its military presence in Central Asia. The need became acute after Uzbekistan reacted to American criticism of its violent suppression of a demonstration last summer by expelling the Americans from an air base supporting operations in Afghanistan. The United States' other Central Asian base, in Kyrgyzstan, also seems to be on wobbly foundations, with the government there demanding higher rent payments and discussing whether to expel the Americans — cheered on by Russia and the Chinese, analysts say."
Cheney, Visiting Kazakhstan, Wades Into Energy Battle
New York Times, 6 May 2006

"China's fast-paced economic growth—averaging 9.1% per year in the last decade—can only be sustained by high energy consumption, an increasing amount of which will need to be imported. Given global competition for energy resources, China's energy policy is now focused on securing a steady supply in the medium to long term..... China has been a net oil importer since 1993, and energy demand is expected to continue increasing at a greater proportional rate than production. In 2005 China produced 3.6m barrels/day, only slightly up from 2.8m b/d in 1990. China consumed 6.9m b/d in 2005, representing a 100% increase in consumption in the last decade. This made China the world's second-largest consumer of petroleum products in 2005, just behind the US. The US Energy Information Administration estimates that China's consumption will increase to 15m b/d by 2030, whereas its output will lag behind at 4.2m b/d. The country's energy demand dictates that it will need to increase both its imports and its suppliers in the next ten years if it is to avoid shortages. At present, the bulk of China's oil imports come from the Middle East (40% in 2005 according to a UK energy company, BP), closely followed by Africa (23%) and Asia (21%). However, there are strategic risks associated with China's long-term reliance on these established trading partners. A key risk is international competition, particularly with regard to the Middle East. With fellow high-level oil importers such as the US already well established in the region, aggressive competition will mean that China cannot rely on the Middle East alone to make up its projected supply shortfall. In any case, China will be wary about becoming over-reliant on a single supplier, whether a specific country or a region. This is closely linked to the risk of reliance on politically unstable suppliers and routes of supply. Of China's top five oil suppliers in 2005, Saudi Arabia, Angola and Iran remain at risk either of internal political upheaval or terrorist attack. As a result, China is increasingly looking beyond its immediate sphere of influence...."
Growing energy nexus
Economist, 10 April 2007

".... the implications of China's exploding thirst for crude oil are epic in scope... There is not just one new economic behmoth emerging in the China Rim region, there are two... The simultaneous economic rise of China and India will have a huge impact on worldwide crude oil markets.... The rapid and simultaneous rise of at least two behmoth economies, China and India, comes at time when the world's oil production appears poised to peak. A sustained upward move in crude oil prices is likely to create drilling economics that will favor the exploitation of reserves that were previously uneconomical to tap. However, the marginal increase in reserves that might result is unlikely, in our view, to substantially offset the crude oil impact of an eventual worldwide 'peak' in crude oil production...While China's economic rise is fostering a worldwide grab for crude oil reserves, it is also creating a 'war chest' with which China is financing the rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA, in turn, is the ultimate guarantor of China's energy security. One of the key purposes of this analysis is to provide our research users with a 'context' or 'unified theory' for interrelating economic, crude oil, and military developments on the China rim.... The Laguna Research Partners Energy Security Index measures total military expenditures per barrel of crude oil consumed. We calculate ESI for nations and regions.... These figures lend credence to our view that the US is currently critical to the energy security of both India and Russia - in defence of sea lanes and oil fields, respectively - vis-a-vis China... Our ... calculations show that China and the United States make estimated non-core military expenditures of US $47.01 AND US $42.38 per barrel of crude oil imported, respectively...[Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan] have been beneficiaries of the US energy security umbrella. China's economic, crude oil, and military emergence, though, is prompting all of these leading China Rim crude oil importers to implement increasingly aggressive defence postures... From a short-term standpoint, worldwide crude oil demand is continuing to expand, but the world's crude oil production infrastructure is running at 'near full' capacity. From a long-term perspective, major new China Rim region buyers of crude oil - China and India - are emerging during a period when worldwide crude oil is approaching a peak. Meaningful new crude oil demand from Brazil will likely add to demand-side pressures during this critical 'peak oil' transition..."
Crisis on the China Rim: An Economic, Crude Oil, and Military Analysis
Laguna Research Partners, 14 April 2005
Who Are Laguna Research Partners? - Click Here
Download Full 85 Page Report - Click Here

"In the struggle for global dominance, oil is the central currency. Its indispensability for industry, agriculture, transport and military capability, along with the near-certainty that oil production will peak around 2010-2015, is refashioning conventional power rivalries. A new regional and superpower coalition of China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging, and attracting the close interest of major oil producers, such as Iran and Venezuela, as a counterweight to American power. The coalition already covers 75 per cent of the world's population and 80 per cent of its natural resources. Iran also looks poised to join, after its recent $200bn (�106bn) energy deal with China, while Venezuela under Hugo Chavez may turn out, even more than Iran, to be the next centre of confrontation for oil supremacy. Venezuela, the biggest Opec producer outside the Gulf, and a major supplier to the US in the past, is offering to help China build a strategic oil reserve. China, like the US, tends to equate energy security with physical possession or control of energy supplies. Chinese oil and natural-gas companies have already set up deals with African regimes such as Sudan's. They are increasingly active in the Gulf states, and may perhaps replace the US as Saudi Arabia's patron and protector. Some suspect that the US lifted sanctions on Libya a year ago at least partly because it wanted to check China's growing influence in Africa. Even more significant is the realignment between Russia and China, wrought by fear of more assertive US power. Proposed joint military exercises, to be held in China, signify a rapprochement that is one of the most fundamental changes on the geopolitical scene for decades.... It is oil, not ideas of freedom or democracy, that will increasingly determine the direction of events. One wonders why, if human rights and freedom from oppression were really the lodestone of US foreign policy, Condoleezza Rice branded only Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe as 'outposts of tyranny'. Why not also Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan? The regimes in charge of all these countries could be called 'oppressors', with systemic use of torture and sup-pression of basic rights. But the US depends on these countries economically, logistically and politically for its pursuit of the war on terror, as well as for its critical oil-supply routes. The rhetoric about democracy may suit Bush's domestic audience. But the British government will make serious errors over the next four years if it takes what he and other members of his administration say at face value."
Michael Meacher - Now for an even newer world order
New Statesman, 9 May 2005

Israel As Cheney Pawn
In The Real Struggle For The Middle East And Central Asia
America's Battle Against China
For Control Of Persian Gulf And Caspian Energy Resources
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATUSvChina.htm
Iran And Syria Next In Firing Line
In Global Energy War
Click Here

"The U.S. and China, the world's top two oil consuming nations, must work together to avoid a competition for foreign supplies that might lead to military conflict, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman said.... China's demand for oil is forecast to grow 2.9 percent a year between now and 2025, and U.S. demand will grow 1.5 percent a year. Efforts by each nation to use imports to meet growing demand may escalate competition for oil to something 'as hot and dangerous' as the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, Lieberman, 63, said in a speech today in Washington.... 'There is a problem because China, like the United States, is tying its energy deals to military assistance,' said Michael Klare, author of 'Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum.' 'In the short term, it's more a case of stirring up local conflicts, where the U.S. and China are competing for the loyalty of oil producing countries, but that does have a tendency over time to escalate into something bigger,' said Klare, a professor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts."
U.S., China Must Cooperate or Risk Oil Conflict, Lieberman Says
Bloomberg, 30 November 2005

"Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. Kucinich has made ending the war in Iraq the central theme of his campaign. He has even taken aim at the leading Democratic presidential candidates in the field for their votes on authorizing the war.Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, vice president and 'all civil Officers of the United States' for 'treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'"
Articles of Impeachment To Be Filed On Cheney
Washington Post Blog, 17 April 2007

".... the world in 30 years' time [is] envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the 'future strategic context' likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an 'analysis of the key risks and shocks'..... Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. 'From the middle of the period,' says the report, 'the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."
Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future
Guardian, 9 April 2007

"The Security Council imposed further sanctions on Iran on 24 March 2007 following Iran's failure to comply with a 21 February 2007 deadline to stop the enrichment of uranium....Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a country has the right to enrich its own fuel for civil nuclear power, under IAEA inspection. Iran says it is simply doing what it is allowed to do. It argues that it needs nuclear power and wants to control the whole process itself.... Western powers fear that Iran secretly wants to develop either a nuclear bomb or the ability to make one, even if it has not decided to build one right now. So they want Iran to stop any enrichment. The same technology used for producing fuel for nuclear power can be used for producing fuel for a nuclear explosion....The latest estimate from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London (in its 2007 annual review) says: 'If and when Iran does have 3,000 centrifuges operating smoothly, the IISS estimates it would take an additional 9-11 months to produce 25 kg of highly enriched uranium, enough for one implosion-type weapon. That day is still 2-3 years away at the earliest.'.... Other experts think it could be a long time. Norman Dombey, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at Sussex University said: 'It would probably take about two years to install and run [the 3,000 centrifuges] and another two before they could enrich enough uranium for one weapon.'.... Iran says its policy is 'Yes' to enrichment but 'No' to nuclear weapons. A fatwa against nuclear weapons has been issued by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.... Israel, however, is not a party to the NPT, so is not obliged to report to it."
Iran and the nuclear issue
BBC Online, 24 March 2007

"Egypt has a small atomic reactor for research purposes but recently unveiled plans for a civilian nuclear programme.... Egypt is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows countries to build nuclear power stations under international supervision. Israel is not a signatory and is believed to be the only state in the region with a nuclear arsenal, though it maintains a position of 'ambiguity' on its nuclear weapons. The two countries ended decades of hostility with the Camp David accords in the late 1970s, but ties have been put under strain over a string of espionage cases. Last September, Egypt said it wanted to revive its nuclear power programme, which was frozen 20 years ago following the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union. Demand for electricity has been growing in Egypt at an average rate of 7% a year and the country faces worsening power shortages."
'Nuclear spy' arrested in Egypt
BBC Online, 17 April 2007

"Ahmadinejad is the first nonmullah to be Iran's President since 1981.... Though Westerners are concerned by his inflammatory rhetoric toward Israel, it's his domestic policies that have irked Iran's already skeptical political establishment.... Opposition to Ahmadinejad transcends the split between conservatives and reformists that has defined Iranian politics for the past decade. Last summer 50 Iranian economists wrote him a letter decrying his policies, which have frozen investment and precipitated a 26% drop in the value of the Tehran stock market. In January some of the President's former allies formed a faction to oppose him. 'The Parliament today is at the point of explosion,' says Mohammed Atrianfar, a Rafsanjani adviser. 'The volume of criticism emanating out is unprecedented in the last century of Iranian politics.'.... A politician close to Rafsanjani tells Time, 'Most of the decision makers and the �lite are against him. If he becomes less popular, even the Supreme Leader will withdraw his support.'.... Some experts believe that Khamenei will ultimately support a compromise with Western negotiators. Iranian sources tell Time that Ali Larijani, the country's top nuclear negotiator, wants to resurrect talks to resolve the nuclear impasse with European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana. The challenge is to find a formula that enables Iran to obtain enriched uranium for civilian energy production while allaying suspicion that it is diverting the material to a weapons program. The outlines of one such proposal have been given to Time (see accompanying article)."
Iran's War Within
TIME, 15 March 2007

"Javad Zarif, Iran's polished U.N. ambassador, is noted for being unexpectedly jovial for a person with such a difficult job. But soon after I arrive for a visit to his Manhattan office a few days ago, he turns rather serious and nods at a pad of paper for me to take notes. He wants to go on the record, which is unusual.... Zarif builds on an approach that Iran floated last October. 'Iran could agree that its nuclear facilities, including all of its enrichment plants, could be jointly owned by an international consortium. All countries with concerns, including the U.S., could participate in that consortium. Their people and other foreign nationals could come and go to work at the facilities, which would allow for the best type of monitoring.' An agreement could also have other elements the U.S. would want. 'You can put in a legal agreement that Iran could not withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,' which it ratified in 1970. In addition, he said, there could be protocols for intrusive monitoring. The consortium proposal is the key to Zarif's plan, because it could provide the best way to prevent cheating. 'Because many countries would own and operate the plants, there would be built-in safeguards against nationalization or cheating,' he says. From Iran's perspective, this would be less offensive than just having inspectors. 'It is an issue of respect,' Zarif explains. 'Of course you are monitoring as you do this, but you are doing it with respect as owners and operators.... One problem with such a plan is that Iran might use both the knowledge and the enriched uranium from consortium plants to pursue a secret bombmaking program. That is why any such outcome should be accompanied by other safeguards: involvement by the international consortium in all Iranian nuclear facilities rather than just the enrichment sites, an agreement that there can be snap intrusive inspections of any facility, a verifiable cap on Iran's production of enriched uranium and a requirement that no facilities be hidden or buried. Washington's position is that none of these ideas should be discussed until Iran again suspends enrichment."
An Offer on the Table
TIME, 15 March 2007

"The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not found conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a US magazine has reported. Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, cites a secret CIA report based on intelligence such as satellite images. Correspondents say the alleged document appears to challenge Washington's views regarding Iranian nuclear intentions. The article says the White House was dismissive about the CIA report..... It says the agency based its conclusions on technical intelligence, such as satellite photography and measurements from sensors planted by US and Israeli agents. The article says: 'A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it.... The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says if the New Yorker article is correct, it would suggest that the CIA is being more cautious than the Bush administration in evaluating whether or not Iran is on its way to building a bomb. And he says, as with Iraq, it suggests political battles to come over how intelligence is used as a basis for American foreign policy. "
'No proof' of Iran nuclear arms
BBC Online, 20 November 2006

"Iran's energy situation today is quite different from the late 1970s, when the shah's regime also pursued nuclear technology, a pursuit that did not seem so alarming to the West at the time. David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, speaking in November 2004 at a forum sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said: 'The first thing - of what we do know, and it's amazing how many Americans seem to skate over this - the first nuclear reactor given to Iran was given by the United States in 1967 - a five-megawatt trigger reactor, research reactor, under the Eisenhower Atoms for Peace Program. Still operated ... The other thing that Americans forget is that in 1974, the shah announced a policy of 23,000 megawatts of nuclear energy in Iraq. The US reaction? [Former US national security adviser and secretary of state] Henry Kissinger beat down the door to be sure that two US constructors, General Electric and Westinghouse, had a preferred position in selling those reactors. We did not say, 'it's a stupid idea, why would you want to do that when you are flaring gas and you have immense oil reserves?' We said, 'That is very interesting; it's an example of how the Iranian economy is moving and becoming modern.' Imagine in Iranian ears how it sounds now when we denigrate that capacity. They remember. We were sellers of nuclear reactors and wanted to be sellers of nuclear reactors to the shah. ..... In fact, president Gerald Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a US-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete 'nuclear fuel cycle' - reactors powered by and regenerating fissile materials on a self-sustaining basis. The construction of nuclear power plants in Iran has been contemplated for more than 30 years. The shah argued that hydrocarbon resources would be too valuable to burn by the beginning of 21st century and most of Iran's electricity generation must be supplied from nuclear power plants by then. After the Iran-Iraq war at the end of the 1980s, the need for electricity generation for reconstruction of the war-damaged economy was evident and as the maximum export of hydrocarbon resources was to be achieved for foreign exchange requirements, the attention was focused on rebuilding the Bushehr nuclear power plant...."
The fuel behind Iran's nuclear drive
Asia Times, 24 April 2005

"Iran has ensnared itself in a petroleum crisis that could drive its oil exports to zero by 2015. While Iran has the third- largest oil reserves in the world, its exports may be shrinking by 10 to 12 percent per year. How can this be happening? Heavy industry infrastructure must be maintained to remain productive. This is especially so for oil, because each oil well's output declines slightly every year. If new wells are not drilled to offset natural decline, production will fall. This is what is happening in Iran, which has failed to reinvest in new production.... Another threat to exports is the growth in domestic demand. Iranian oil demand is not just growing, it's exploding, driven by a subsidized gasoline price of about 9 cents a liter. This has created a 6 percent growth in demand, the highest in the world. So Iran burns its candle at both ends, producing less and less while consuming more and more. Absent some change in Iranian policy, a rapid decline in exports seems likely."
Iran actually is short of oil
International Herald Tribune, 8 January 2006

"The US Treasury and State Department have sent officials across Europe, stepping up pressure on international oil and gas companies in particular not to go ahead with investment plans in Iran. They are seeking to turn the economic screws on Tehran over its nuclear programme, which has already attracted limited United Nations sanctions. Bush administration officials testifying about Iran on Wednesday at a congressional hearing were given a roasting by Brad Sherman, the Democratic chair of a House subcommittee on terrorism and non-proliferation. Mr Sherman repeatedly cut short Paul Simons, a State Department official, for refusing to answer 'yes or no' to the question whether any foreign company had invested more than $20m (€15m, �10m) in Iran’s oil and gas industries and would thus be open to unilateral US sanctions. He also ridiculed the administration for allowing imports of Iranian caviar and carpets, and letting the World Bank lend more than $1bn to Iran. US officials have previously said they have spoken to the chief executives and senior financial officers of several big companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, Repsol of Spain, and companies from China and Malaysia to encourage them to stop investments.... Shell and Repsol signed an agreement in January with Iran over a $4.3bn project that constitutes a later phase of the South Pars development. A final decision is not expected before the first quarter of next year. A Shell spokesman said the company was a year or more away from any investment decision on the project and current work in Iran was to establish its 'engineering and economic feasibility. Repsol was not available for comment.'"
US under fire for anti-Iran tactics
Financial Times, 19 April 2007

"A former captain in the Scots Guards who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq describes both operations as a political and military shambles in a book to be published next week.... Mr Docherty, who speaks five languages, including Arabic and Pashto, became a captain in 2001 and was deployed to Basra in Iraq in November 2004. 'None of us in the officers' mess believed in the weapons of mass destruction nonsense - we all saw that as a kind of pretext,' he said. But things started to go wrong quickly, and Mr Docherty began to feel that Operation Telic was causing as many problems for the population as it solved. 'There are nearly 10,000 British troops there just getting on with the job, taking terrible risks and dying for the sake of a doomed project, and yet they crack on like it's inevitable, reasonable and sensible to be there,' he said. 'A lot of what you're doing is often counterproductive, in the sense that it's damaging relations with local people.'... 'I came out of the Army f****** angry - I felt I had a right to come out and say something,' he said. 'My friends had been killed, so I thought: 'I'm not going quietly.'"
Ex-army officer: troops are dying in Iraq for a 'doomed project'
Independent, 8 April 2007

"Britain's 'overstretched' armed forces will fight in Iraq for at least another five years. A confidential planning document drawn up by defence chiefs called the Operational Tour Plot, parts of which have been disclosed to this newspaper, reveals that troops will be serving on operations in the Gulf until at least 2012. News of the future operations can be revealed just three days after four soldiers, two of them women, were killed in a carefully planned ambush in Basra, taking the British forces death toll in Iraq to 140. Almost 100,000 of the 180,000 members of the country's armed services have now served in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.... The Operational Tour Plot, which lists the units to be sent on operations, reveals that 12 Mechanised Brigade, which saw service in Iraq in 2005 and which is about to embark on a six-month tour to Afghanistan in May, will return to Iraq in 2012 on Operation Telic 19, the codename for the war in Iraq. Troops in Iraq are currently serving on Operation Telic 9. The contents of the document, distributed last month, appear to be in marked contrast to a statement made by Tony Blair in February giving the impression that British troops would remain in Iraq for less than two years. "
Five more years in Iraq, say defence papers
Daily Telegraph, 7 April 2007

"Baghdad was under curfew on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of the capital to U.S. forces, as Iraqis gathered in the city of Najaf for a big anti-U.S. protest called by fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. 'No, no, to the occupation, no, no to America,' thousands of marching Iraqis, mainly men and young boys waving Iraqi flags, chanted as they marched through the southern Shi'ite holy city. Iraq imposed a 24-hour vehicle ban in Baghdad from 5 a.m. (0100 GMT) to prevent any attacks on the anniversary. Car bombs still plague the capital, despite a new security crackdown by tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops that is seen as a last attempt to avert sectarian civil war."
Big anti-US protest in Iraq, Baghdad under curfew
Reuters, 9 April 2007

"At least 140 people were killed when a massive car bomb tore through a market on a day of carnage in Baghdad yesterday. Other blasts took the death toll to 192 in the Iraqi capital — on one of its darkest days since Saddam was toppled in April 2003. One after the other, insurgents detonated a devastating chain of vehicle bombs in Shia areas in central Baghdad, with a suicide bomber in a suburb of the city.... Hours before the afternoon strikes, Iraqi PM Nouri al Maliki had vowed his forces would control his country by the year’s end. The bombs were also a blow to a US clampdown on Baghdad violence. A surge of 30,000 US troops had begun to halt the country’s slide into sectarian war. But a series of recent attacks has left optimism shattered. Last week a suicide bomber penetrated Iraq’s parliament, killing 18, while another blast collapsed a landmark bridge."
192 dead in Iraq bomb carnage
The Sun, 19 April 2007

"'Iraq is as bad as it looks, and Afghanistan is worse than it looks,' [Former Bush Deputy Secretary of State Richard] Armitage said. 'A year ago, the Taliban were fighting us in units of eight to twelve, and now they’re sometimes in company-size, and even larger.' Bombing Iran and expecting the Iranian public 'to rise up' and overthrow the government, as some in the White House believe, Armitage added, 'is a fool’s errand.'”
The Next Act
The New Yorker, 27 November 2006

But That Won't Stop Cheney And Co
As The World Energy Situation Continues To Tighten

"Alarm bells are ringing on the issue of security of global energy supplies, International Energy Agency (IEA) Chief Economist Dr. Fatih Birol said Friday at a press conference in Istanbul. 'The threat to the world's energy security, especially on oil and natural gas, will reach serious dimensions in the next 10 years,' he added.... Birol highlighted that the most important message the report was delivering was the 'threat to energy security, especially in natural gas.'.... The world is facing twin energy-related threats: that of not having adequate and secure supplies of energy at affordable prices and that of environmental harm caused by consuming too much of it, the report said.... The ability and willingness of major oil and gas producers to step up investment in order to meet rising global demand are particularly uncertain. ”
Agency report rings alarm bells for global energy security
Turkish Daily News, 23 December 2006

"In March 1971, a Mexican fisherman named Rudesindo Cantarell took a few geologists from state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos to this spot, where he had seen oil slicks. Mr. Cantarell didn't know it, but he had stumbled across one of the largest offshore oil fields ever found. A few decades and 12 billion barrels of oil later, the field that bears Mr. Cantarell's name is dying, and Pemex, as the state-owned company is known, is struggling to stave off the field's demise. From January 2006 though February 2007, Cantarell lost a staggering one-fifth of its production, with daily output falling to 1.6 million barrels from two million. The oil industry was stunned. Cantarell, which currently produces one of every 50 barrels of oil on the world market, is fading so fast analysts believe Mexico may become an oil importer in eight years. That would batter Mexico's economy, which depends on oil exports to fund 40% of its government spending. The continued deterioration of the world's second-biggest field by output would also put pressure on prices on the global oil market, where supplies are barely keeping up with growing demand as it is. And it would leave the U.S. even more dependent on Middle Eastern supplies -- and that much more vulnerable to political tumult in that region. The demise of Cantarell highlights a global issue: Nearly a quarter of the world's daily oil output of 85 million barrels is pumped from the biggest 20 fields, according to estimates from Wood Mackenzie, a Scotland-based oil consulting firm. And many of those fields, discovered decades ago, could soon follow in Cantarell's footsteps. It's widely believed that the world's biggest oil fields have already been found. In the decades leading up to the 1970s, the world discovered eight big fields that produced between 500,000 to one million barrels a day, according to Matthew Simmons, a veteran oil industry banker. During the 1970s and 1980s, only two were found. Since then, only one -- the Kashagan field in Kazakhstan -- has the potential to easily top the 500,000 barrel-a-day mark. Two decades ago, about a dozen fields produced more than a million barrels a day. Now there are only four, one of which is Cantarell. The future of two others, discovered more than 50 years ago, remains in question. Some analysts speculate Saudi Arabia's Ghawar, the biggest field by far, could begin a gradual decline within a decade or so. Another, Kuwait's Burgan, is showing signs of maturity. In November of 2005, Kuwait Oil Co. lowered its estimate of the field's sustainable production level to 1.7 million barrels a day from 1.9 million a day."
Mexico Tries to Save A Big, Fading Oil Field
Wall St Journal, 5 April 2007

“In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”
Madeline Albright, US Secretary of State
Speech before the American-Iranian Council, March 2000

"It is hardly surprising that the crisis is proving fertile ground for Iranian conspiracy theorists.....Historically, Iranians have some ammunition for viewing Britain as perfidious. It was a British-inspired coup, engineered by MI6 with the CIA, that in 1953 toppled Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular Prime Minister, two years after he nationalised Iran’s oil industry, which had been controlled by Britain."
Conspiracy theories bubbling under
London Times, 3 April 2007

"If the 15 British sailors currently held by Iran's revolutionary guards are shocked by the hostility to Britain shown by their captors, it will be less surprising to British diplomats engaged in the delicate process of securing their release. Hostility to all things British is, as every foreign office mandarin knows, the default mode of Iran's staunchly anti-western political leadership. From its perspective, Britain - along with America - is in the vanguard of 'global arrogance', Iranian political shorthand for the contemporary western interventionism whose alleged goal is to dominate and control the resources of developing nations such as Iran.... But this is not just President Ahmadinejad. The antipathy goes back to colonial times, and the long and tortured history of British intervention in Iran. This anti-British sentiment is shared by ordinary Iranians. Its resonance defies boundaries of age, education, social class or political affiliation. In the eyes of a broad cross-section of the population, Britain - as much, or even more than, the US - is the real enemy. Four decades after the sun set on its imperial might, the Machiavellian instincts of the 'old coloniser' are believed to be alive, well and still acting against the interests of Iran. For every mishap - whether a bombing, rising living costs or simply the advent of an unpopular government - a hidden British hand is often thought to be at work..... In 1901, William Knox D'Arcy, a London-based lawyer and businessman, was granted exploration rights in most of Iran's oil fields for the princely sum of �20,000. It took several years for D'Arcy's investment to bear fruit but when it did - after he struck oil in Masjid-e Suleiman in 1908 - its effect was enduring and fateful. It turned out to be the world's largest oil field to date and a year later, D'Arcy's concession was merged into the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). In 1913, with war clouds gathering in Europe, the British admiralty - under Winston Churchill - discarded coal in favour of oil to power its battleships. To safeguard the decision, the government bought a 51% stake in APOC. The importance of oil - and Iran - in British imperial expansion was now explicit. It was a priority of which Churchill, for one, would never lose sight.... anger over the arrogant behaviour of the now-renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil Company - it later became BP - was leading inevitably to a fateful confrontation between Britain and Iran. Resentment over Iran's paltry share of company profits had festered for years. In 1947, out of an annual profit of �40m, Iran received just �7m. Iranian anger was further fuelled by the treatment of oil-company workers who were restricted to low-paid menial jobs and kept in squalid living conditions, in contrast to the luxury in which their British masters lived. Attempts at persuading the oil company to give Iran a bigger share of the profits and its workers a fairer deal proved fruitless. The result was a standoff that created conditions ripe for a nationalist revolt. Into this ferment walked Mohammad Mossadegh, a lawyer and leftwing secular nationalist politician fated to go down as perhaps Iranian history's biggest martyr before British perfidy. Mossadegh was elected prime minister in 1951 advocating a straightforward solution to the oil question - nationalisation. It was a goal he carried out with single-minded zeal while lambasting the British imperialists in tones redolent of a later Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Within months, he had ordered the Iranian state to take over the oil company and expelled its British management and workers. The company and the British government reacted furiously. The Labour government of Clement Attlee imposed a naval blockade in the Gulf and asked the UN security council to condemn Iran. Instead, the council embarrassingly came out in Iran's favour. Meanwhile, Mossadegh - who often did business in his pyjamas - embarked on an American tour in the naive belief that the US would back him against the British 'colonisers'. It was a serious misjudgment. The oil company's executives were clamouring for a coup to overthrow Mossadegh. Attlee rebuffed the idea but when a Conservative government took office in October 1951, led by Churchill, it fell on more sympathetic ears. With British power in decline, however, Churchill was unable to mount such a venture alone. American help would be needed. The result was Operation Ajax, a CIA-MI6 putsch that co-opted a loose coalition of monarchists, nationalist generals, conservative mullahs and street thugs to overthrow Mossadegh. With the economy teetering in the face of the British blockade, Mossadegh was ousted after several days of violent street clashes. The shah, at that time a weak figure, had fled to Rome fearing the coup would fail. When he heard the news of Mossadegh's demise, he responded: 'I knew they loved me.' He subsequently returned to install a brutally repressive regime - maintained in power by the notorious Savak secret police -backed to the hilt by both America and Britain for the next 25 years.... After the revolution, the Islamic authorities continued to draw on national resentment at more than a century of British interference, damning Britain as the 'little Satan' (the US was the 'Great Satan'). Such feelings were further fed by London's support for Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, despite Baghdad having started the war and subsequently resorting to chemical weapons. London and Tehran were at loggerheads again in 1989 after the revolution's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa (religious edict) sentencing the British author, Salman Rushdie, to death for blasphemy over his novel, The Satanic Verses. The antipathy resurfaced most recently in June 2004 in an incident with uncanny parallels to the current stand-off. Then, eight British sailors were seized and paraded blindfold on state TV after allegedly straying into Iranian waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where the 15 currently in detention were intercepted and arrested last Friday. On the previous occasion, the Britons were released following an apology from the foreign secretary at the time, Jack Straw.... The British RAF personnel and marines in Iran's captivity may well be oblivious to the long-accumulated resentments that have provided the backdrop to their detentions. Perhaps they are learning something of this tortured history from their captors."
A bitter legacy
Guardian, 30 March 2007

"Ever since oil was discovered there in 1908, Iran had attracted great interest from the West. The British played a dominant role there until World War II, when the Soviet Union joined them in fighting to keep the Germans out. Until 1953, the United States mostly stayed on the sidelines, advocating for an independent Iran under the leadership of the young king, Reza Shah Pahlavi. But that year, fearing that charismatic prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh might be moving Iran closer to Moscow, the CIA directed an operation to oust him and consolidate power under the Shah. "
People & Events: The Iranian Hostage Crisis, November 1979 - January 1981
Public Broadcasting Service, USA (Undated)

"Fifty years ago this week, the CIA and the British SIS orchestrated a coup d'etat that toppled the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The prime minister and his nationalist supporters in parliament roused Britain's ire when they nationalised the oil industry in 1951, which had previously been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company [later renamed as BP]. Mossadegh argued that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves. The British government tried to enlist the Americans in planning a coup... The crushing of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah... The author of All the Shah's Men, New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer, argues that the coup planted the seeds of resentment against the US in the Middle East, ultimately leading to the events of September 11.... The coup and the culture of covert interference it created forever changed how the world viewed the US, especially in poor, oppressive countries. For many Iranians, the coup was a tragedy from which their country has never recovered."
The spectre of Operation Ajax
Guardian, 20 August 2003

"The Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of its covert operation to overthrow Iran's government in 1953 offers an inside look at how the agency stumbled into success, despite a series of mishaps that derailed its original plans. Written in 1954 by one of the coup's chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran's elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist. The document shows that:

Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister.

"For nearly five decades, America's role in the military coup that ousted Iran's elected prime minister and returned the shah to power has been lost to history, the subject of fierce debate in Iran and stony silence in the United States. One by one, participants have retired or died without revealing key details, and the Central Intelligence Agency said a number of records of the operation — its first successful overthrow of a foreign government — had been destroyed. But a copy of the agency's secret history of the coup has surfaced, revealing the inner workings of a plot that set the stage for the Islamic revolution in 1979, and for a generation of anti-American hatred in one of the Middle East's most powerful countries. The document, which remains classified, discloses the pivotal role British intelligence officials played in initiating and planning the coup, and it shows that Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining the West's control over Iranian oil. The secret history, written by the C.I.A.'s chief coup planner and obtained by The New York Times, says the operation's success was mostly a matter of chance. The document shows that the agency had almost complete contempt for the man it was empowering, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, whom it derided as a vacillating coward. And it recounts, for the first time, the agency's tortured efforts to seduce and cajole the shah into taking part in his own coup. The operation, code-named TP-Ajax, was the blueprint for a succession of C.I.A. plots to foment coups and destabilize governments during the cold war — including the agency's successful coup in Guatemala in 1954 and the disastrous Cuban intervention known as the Bay of Pigs in 1961. In more than one instance, such operations led to the same kind of long-term animosity toward the United States that occurred in Iran."
How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)
New York Times On The Web, 2000

The 2007 British Captives Incident In The Gulf
May Have Been As A Result Of Series Of Extraordinary 'Blunders'
But History Shows That War Initiation Incidents Are Not Always What They Seem

"A short while later two speed boats were spotted approaching rapidly about 400 meters away. I ordered everyone to make their weapons ready and ordered the boarding party to return to the boats. By the time all were back on board, two Iranian boats had come alongside ...... Another six boats were closing in on us. We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down. It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won with consequences that would have had major strategic impact......"
British sailors' statement: Full text
CNN, 6 April 2007

In Most Cases Details Of These Anglo/American Frauds
Did Not Surface Until Decades After The Event
And Most 'Patriots' Still Remain Blissfully Unaware Of Them Today

"Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was 'solidly' behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today. A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.... The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London. Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced the prime minister to publish the full legal advice given to him by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith. The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals: Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of 'flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours'. Mr Bush added: 'If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]'."
Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo
Guardian, 3 February 2006

"A Sharp increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war 'to put pressure on the regime' was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice. The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began 'spikes of activity' designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war. The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was 'not consistent with' UN law, despite American claims that it was. The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election....the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations."
British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
Sunday Times, 19 June 2005

"One of America's spy agencies faked key intelligence used to justify its intervention in the Vietnam War, it was disclosed yesterday. But the revelation was kept secret by the National Security Agency, partly because of fears that it would boost criticism of the intelligence services over the war in Iraq. According to material uncovered by the NSA's own historian, Robert Hanyok, middle-ranking officers altered material relating to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Two US destroyers, Maddox and Turner Joy, were attacked by North Vietnamese craft in the gulf on Aug 2 1964. Two days later, amid bad weather and considerable confusion in the US chain of command, Maddox reported that she had been fired on a second time. Although its commander soon cast doubt on the reports, signals intelligence reported that the North Vietnamese admitted 'we sacrificed two ships'. In revenge President Lyndon Johnson ordered air raids against North Vietnamese naval facilities and Congress authorised 'all necessary steps including the use of armed force' to defend South Vietnam.... At the time, senior administration officials cited the faked paperwork in testimony before Congress. It has even been suggested that President Johnson was so keen to deploy troops that he fabricated the whole episode. More than 58,000 Americans and a million Vietnamese died in the ensuing conflict."
Spy agency faked key Vietnam War data
Daily Telegraph, 1 November 2005

"On this 40th anniversary of the Tonkin Gulf incident it is appropriate to recall an affair that has much history wound around it, a watershed in the U.S. move toward full-scale war in Vietnam. At the time, in August 1964, the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson used the incident as a pretext to seek from Congress a joint resolution approving the use of force in Southeast Asia, which it then relied upon as legal justification for all-out war. The episode opened the way for an American military commitment that ultimately peaked in March 1969 with 548,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam plus additional supporting forces in Thailand. Some 59,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese died in the conflict.... The particulars of the incidents of early August 1964, as reported by the Johnson administration, were crucial to gaining the legislative authority President Johnson sought, which came in the form of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. At the time and for some years afterward, the United States government took the position that it had done nothing to provoke a naval engagement in the Tonkin Gulf between North Vietnamese and U.S. warships. The Johnson administration also maintained that it had acted with restraint, refusing to respond to an initial North Vietnamese attack on August 2, 1964, and reacting only after North Vietnam made a second naval attack two nights later. Both of these assertions turned out to be misleading. In fact the United States at the time was carrying out a program of covert naval commando attacks against North Vietnam and had been engaged in this effort since its approval by Johnson in January 1964.... Now, forty years later, Americans for the first time have the opportunity to make up their own minds on the Tonkin Gulf intercepts. After repeated requests using the Mandatory Declassification Review process, this analyst was able to get them declassified in March 2003....This new evidence permits us to view more accurately the internal deliberations of the Johnson administration. Especially in combination with LBJ's telephone conversations with McNamara, recently made available to the public with transcriptions, the material clearly shows Washington rushing to a judgment on events in the Tonkin Gulf, which it seized upon as evidence in support of its predetermined intention to escalate the conflict in Vietnam. Those who questioned the veracity of the Johnson administration's description of the Gulf of Tonkin incident at the time were right to do so. The manipulation of this international situation for the administration's political purpose of obtaining a congressional authorization for the use of force bears considerable similarity to the manner in which the Bush administration manipulated intelligence regarding the possibility that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to gain its own legislative approval for war against that country. (Note 16) In both cases, truth became the first casualty. In both cases, the consequences far outweighed anything anticipated by the presidents involved."
Essay: 40th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident
National Security Archive, George Washington University, 4 August 2004

"The underground bunkers beneath Whitehall had been busy since July, and the 'arthritic' British war machine was already creaking into action. A top-secret meeting at S�vres between the three allies (the Israelis turning up in hats and dark glasses) to plot the final moves was foolishly recorded on paper. Eden was thrown into a panic. The French and Israelis refused to destroy their copies, but the evidence was clear: a squirming Eden was up to no good."
The long shadow
Guardian, 4 November 2006

"At the official level Eden's immediate response was refined both by Whitehall planning, lead by the Foreign Office, and by discussions with the US government..... Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6 wanted to go much, much, further. Under the American Freedom of Information Act I've obtained a CIA memorandum from April 1st 1956. Presented for the first time in a documentary, it records two days of meetings between MI6 Deputy Director, George Young, and his CIA counterparts."
Professor Scot Lucas
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

The Suez Conspiracy

"Following emerged as MI6 position. Nasser's aims are the total destruction of Israel, Egyptian domination of all Arab governments, and elimination of all western positions in the Arab area. In order to realise his ambitions Nasser has accepted full scale collaboration with the Soviets. Nasser has now taken the initiative for the extension of Soviet influence in Syria, Libya, and French North Africa. Nasser must therefore be regarded as out-and-out Soviet instrument. MI6 asserted that it is now British government view that western interests in the Middle East, particularly oil, must be preserved from Egyptian-Soviet threat at all costs."
CIA Memorandum, 1April 1956, obtained by Professor Scott Lucas under the Freedom of Information Act
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"You find that people in MI6 were conducting quite separate policies..... quite regardless of what the Foreign Office view was. I was astonished when somebody showed me some document written by an acquaintance of mine in MI6. I wouldn't have recognised it at all as being anything like British policy, but it was set out as being so. These secret people, you see, they get so above themselves, if I might say so."
Evelyn Shuckburgh, Assistant Under Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs at the Foreign Office in 1956, interviewed decades later
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"I remember that I went to see Dick White [Head of MI6] who was an old friend of mine. And he told me that MI6 had information, which he regarded as reliable, that there was a body of dissidents in Cairo who were prepared to stage a revolt and upset Nasser, if allied forces approached the capital. I remember feeling extremely sceptical about this, and in fact if there were any such dissidents prepared to do anything, Nasser had absolutely no difficulty in dealing with them.... It took me no time at all to realise that things were not being handled in the proper traditional way. Instead of the military's directors of plans making plans for a possible military operation, they were being handled by special planning staff. What surprised me enormously was that no Foreign Office adviser was sitting with these planners. I went to see the Cabinet Secretary Norman Brook in London. I said to him that I thought it was a pretty good shambles. And I remember that he smiled and made no comment. He certainly didn't deny it."
Patrick Reilly, Foreign Office Assistant Under Secretary Of State 1956, interviewed decades later
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"All the time here he [Eden] was with this personal declaration of war against Nasser, but no means of putting it into effect. Because although Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal Company he hadn't given us any casus belli, he hadn't actually stopped a ship, or arrested a British subject, or shot anybody, or done anything which would give us the opportunity to go in and invade. And then suddenly the French came up with this plan whereby the Israelis would take the initiative, they would invade Egyptian Territory, they would march to the Suez Canal, and Britain and France would then intervene in order, so the declaration would read, to separate the combatants, to put out this most dangerous fire which had started in the Middle East and to land troops between the two - well, on the Suez Canal. So we would then in effect retake possession of the Suez Canal and the Suez Canal Company, and this in its turn would be such a humiliation for President Nasser that he would be toppled from his perch. It was as if suddenly the heavens had opened, and here was the opportunity at last. I was allowed to consult two officials at the Foreign Office - Permanent Under Secretary, and the Under Secretary in charge of the Middle Eastern area. Nobody was to be told."
Anthony Nutting, Foreign Office Minister of State 1956, interviewed decades later
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"All my life I have been a man of peace, working for peace, striving for peace, negotiating for peace. I've been a League of Nations man, and a United Nations man, and I'm still the same man with the same conviction, the same devotion to peace. I couldn't be other even if I wished. But I'm utterly convinced that the action we have taken is right."
Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister, speaking in 1956
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"I was increasingly aware that people had been hiding things, in particular that you couldn't trust a damn thing that the politicians or the Foreign Office said...."
Frank Cooper, Permanent Under-secretary at the Ministry of Defence during the 1956 Suez Crisis, interviewed decades later
Suez - The Missing Dimension
'Archive Hour' Interview, BBC Radio 4, 28 October 2006

"The Suez Crisis, which occurred 50 years ago, was the full stop at the end of the British Empire......Middle Eastern oil was as essential, in 1956 as now, to the economy and security of the United States, Europe and world trade..... Only in October did Eden adopt the joint Anglo-French-Israeli plan that was indeed a disaster..... The world community had an essential interest in the free flow of oil through the canal."
Lord William Rees-Mogg
Suez: why I blame it on Ike
London Times, 24 July 2006

"The intelligence dossiers which asserted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction represented the agreed truth at the time - shared by '90% of the world', including Hans Blix - but they failed to reflect the 'thinness' of some of the sources, Lord Butler of Brockwell told MPs yesterday. Making a skilful defence of his much-criticised report into the pre-war intelligence, Lord Butler insisted that no one - neither Tony Blair nor John Scarlett, now head of M16 - could be held responsible.... The circulation of papers to cabinet ministers before their Thursday meetings - which his committee said should be improved - had been declining since 1945. Faced with the charge that the decision to go to war was the most personal by a prime minister since Sir Anthony Eden invaded Suez in 1956, Lord Butler countered that Lady Thatcher had done the same over the Falklands crisis."
'No one to blame' for flaws in Iraq dossier, Butler tells MPs
Guardian, 22 October 2004

For A Democracy To Begin Or Join A War
It Has To Convince Its Public That The Nation Or Its 'Interests' Are Under Attack Or Are About To Be

"This documentary produced by the BBC offers a revisionist look at the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it raises some tantalizing questions. It makes the incredibly serious and controversial claim that the U.S. government had definitive knowledge of the imminent Japanese attack, yet Franklin D. Roosevelt and other American leaders deliberately sacrificed Americans lives so they would have an excuse to enter World War II.... In this authoritative and suspenseful documentary, the BBC takes you inside the secret activities of the Americans, the British and the Japanese as each nation moved fatefully toward the 'date that will live in infamy'."
'Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor'
BBC Warner - VHS Release Date: April 24, 2001
Amazon.com
(For more on this Pearl Habor controversy click here)

".....on October 30, 2000... President Bill Clinton signed into law, with the support of a bipartisan Congress, the National Defense Authorization Act. Amidst its omnibus provisions, the Act reverses the findings of nine previous Pearl Harbor investigations and finds that both [Admiral] Kimmel and [Lieutenant General] Short were denied crucial military intelligence that tracked the Japanese forces toward Hawaii and obtained by the Roosevelt Administration in the weeks before the attack. Congress was specific in its finding against the 1941 White House: Kimmel and Short were cut off from the intelligence pipeline that located Japanese forces advancing on Hawaii. Then, after the successful Japanese raid, both commanders were relieved of their commands, blamed for failing to ward off the attack, and demoted in rank..... Roosevelt believed that provoking Japan into an attack on Hawaii was the only option he had in 1941 to overcome the powerful America First non-interventionist movement led by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. These anti-war views were shared by 80 percent of the American public from 1940 to 1941....... Memorialized in McCollum’s secret memo dated October 7, 1940, and recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the ONI proposal called for eight provocations aimed at Japan. Its centerpiece was keeping the might of the U.S. Fleet based in the Territory of Hawaii as a lure for a Japanese attack. President Roosevelt acted swiftly. The very next day, October 8, 1940, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet, Admiral James O. Richardson, was summoned to the Oval Office and told of the provocative plan by the President. In a heated argument with FDR, the admiral objected to placing his sailors and ships in harm’s way. Richardson was then fired and in his place FDR selected an obscure naval officer, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, to command the fleet in Hawaii."
Robert B. Stinnett, Research Fellow at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
and the author of Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941: A Setup from the Beginning
Honolulu Advertiser, 7 December 2000

"With support for the war in Iraq ebbing away in America, the appetite for military action against Iran has also been receding."
Iran laughs at Easter 'gift' of humiliation
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat. The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades."
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Independent, 3 April 2007

"The US is to continue holding five Iranians captured in Iraq despite protests from Tehran, US media said. The fate of the five sparked disagreement, with the White House overruling the State Department on the issue, the Washington Post reported. Administration officials have not commented on the report. The US says the men seized in a January raid on Iran's consulate in Irbil are linked to the Revolutionary Guard. Iran says they are diplomats. The US accuses the Revolutionary Guard of providing support to insurgents. The issue has further raised tension between the US and Iran, which has demanded that the men be released. The decision was made at a high-level meeting on Tuesday, the Washington Post said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly argued that the five Iranians be released because they were 'no longer useful'. But Vice President Dick Cheney's office said their capture signalled that Iranian activities were monitored and their operatives at risk of detention, the daily said."
US 'will keep Iranian detainees'
BBC Online, 14 April 2007

"The question of why or how such painfully young, insufficiently armed recruits were deemed suitable for the front line in a global war remains in the air. The Royal Navy will have to answer a lot of questions in due course."
Deal or no hostage deal, Tehran shows it has the West taped
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"The waters of the northern Gulf have been full of naval activity for months - at least four exercises by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in as many months, exercises by local navies and now manoeuvres by two big US aircraft carrier groups. Given the heightened activity, why weren't Cornwall and her crew on their guard? The Navy's explanation that since the beginning of March the boat crews had searched 66 vessels and four in roughly the same spot that the kidnap took place, and that 'nothing happened' seems odd. Even odder is that the Cornwall and her helicopters did not spot the Iranian 'swarm' boats approaching, at least not in time to warn the marines and sailors."
A tangled web of cock-up and conspiracy
Daily Mail, 3 April 2007

"It was during the boarding that we noticed the helicopter had returned to 'Mother,' and we started calling the ship on VHF to find out why. A short while later two speed boats were spotted approaching rapidly about 400 meters away. I ordered everyone to make their weapons ready and ordered the boarding party to return to the boats. By the time all were back on board, two Iranian boats had come alongside ...... Another six boats were closing in on us. We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down. It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won with consequences that would have had major strategic impact......"
British sailors' statement: Full text
CNN, 6 April 2007

"The US president, George Bush, waded into the row, accusing Iran of 'inexcusable behaviour', adding: 'Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent, they did nothing wrong and they were summarily plucked out of waters.' .... Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, accused Tony Blair of being too cavalier in his insistence that the British were in Iraqi territory at the time of their kidnap at gunpoint..... Hundreds of students threw rocks and fireworks at the British Embassy in Tehran yesterday, calling for the expulsion of the ambassador amid the stand-off over Iran's detention of 15 British sailors and marines. Several dozen policemen prevented the protesters from entering the compound, although a few briefly scaled a fence outside the embassy's walls before being pushed back. The protesters chanted 'death to Britain' and 'death to America' as they hurled stones into the courtyard of the embassy. They also shouted 'the British spies should be tried'.... One demonstrator warned that the British Embassy could face a similar fate to that of the US mission in Tehran - stormed with hostages taken in 1980 - if 'Britain keeps on speaking nonsense'."
Iran makes �55 million from hostage crisis as oil prices soar
The Scotsman, 2 April 2007

UN, EU, And Russia Unwilling
To Offer Anglo-Americans A Casus Belli Over Incident

"Threatening to ratchet up the pressure, the Prime Minister sought the support of international institutions to isolate Iran. This proved to be a tightrope walk. The United Nations Security Council expressed 'grave concern' but watered down a British draft which called for the detainees’ immediate release and would have acknowledged that they were seized outside Iran’s waters. President Putin of Russia twisted the knife, cynically suggesting a UN investigation into where the Navy had really been — a bureaucratic move that could have lengthened their detention. European Union leaders volunteered outraged noises. They blanched at immediate economic sanctions suggested by Britain."
The diplomatic tightrope walk that led the 15 from captivity
London Times, 5 April 2007

"As the crisis dragged on, government sources acknowledged that Iran's intransigence was exposing Britain's comparative impotence. It had failed to secure a strong denunciation of Iran's actions from the U.N. Security Council... '"
Who Got the British Sailors Released?
TIME, 4 April 2007

"Since Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized the Britons 11 days ago, the price of oil has soared 10 per cent, reaching six-month highs of $66 per barrel in New York last week.... Attempts have backfired in recent days to 'shame' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime into admitting it was in the wrong after the Ministry of Defence released co-ordinates of where the UK team were picked up. Neither the UN nor the EU would fully back tough statements from Britain.... "
Iran makes �55 million from hostage crisis as oil prices soar
The Scotsman, 2 April 2007

"[Translated from French language original by 'Babel Fish'] The Russian military experts estimate that the planning of the American military attack against Iran passed the point of nonreturn on February 20, when the director of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei, recognized, in his report/ratio, the incapacity of the Agency 'to confirm the peaceful character of the nuclear program of Iran'. According to the Russian weekly magazine Argoumenty nedeli, a military action will proceed during the first week of April, before Easter catholic and orthodoxe (this year they are celebrated the 8), when the 'Western opinion' is on leave. It may be also that Iran is struck Friday 6, public holiday in the Moslem countries. According to the American diagram, it will be a striking of only one day which will last 12 hours, 4 hours of morning to 16 hours of afternoon. ...... A score of Iranian installations should be touched. With their number, centrifugal machines of uranium enrichment, centers of studies and laboratories. But the first block of the nuclear thermal power station of Bouchehr will not be touched. On the other hand, the Americans will neutralize the DCA, will run several Iranian buildings of war in the Gulf and will destroy the key positions of command of the armed forces."
Iran would be tackled at the beginning of April (Russian military experts)
RIA Novosti, 19 March 2007
(For French language original click here)

"Russian intelligence believes that the U.S. Armed Forces have nearly completed preparations for a possible military operation against Iran, and will be ready to strike in early April, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported on Friday quoting an unnamed source in the Russian security services. The source said the U.S. had already compiled a list of possible targets on Iranian territory and practiced the operation during recent exercises in the Persian Gulf. 'Russian intelligence has information that the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory,' the source said. American commanders will be ready to carry out the attack in early April, but it will be up to the country’s political leadership to decide if and when to attack, the source said. Official data says America’s military presence in the region has reached the level of March 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq."
Russian Intelligence Predicts U.S. Missile Strike on Iran in Early April
MosNews, 30 March 2007

"Tony Blair’s remarks today in Scotland were very candid. In essence he said that we have a window of 48 hour to conclude a deal."
Analysis: Iran deal 'all a matter of wording'
London Times, 3 April 2007

On 4 April Iran Adroitly Defuses The Escalation That Risked All Out War
And Hands Back The British Captives In A Thoroughly Staged Managed Propaganda Coup

"Observers in Britain don't doubt that the release of the detainees was in Iran's best interest. 'If the saga had dragged on, it would have led to an escalation of international opinion against Iran,' says Chris Rundle, a former British diplomat in Iran, noting that it took Iran 13 days to coordinate its policy. Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to the U.S., describes the decision as 'a shrewd move. The detainees were a wasting asset.'... In his press conference, Ahmadinejad said the captives would have been let go sooner but that the 'British government behaved badly, and so it took a little while.'..... The Iranian leadership — including Larijani, Ahmadinejad and certainly Khamenei — believes that Tehran's popularity among the world's Muslims, particularly for its face-off against America, gives it leverage in dealing with the West. 'Iranians had bruised egos because of international pressure over their nuclear program and the detentions of their personnel by the U.S. in Iraq,' says Ansari. 'What we've seen is a public relations exercise to take command of the Arab street once again.' Says Shahid Malik, one of the first Muslims elected to Britain's parliament: 'This was yet another example of how adept Ahmadinejad is at communications in the way he targets the Muslim and non-Muslim world.... He [Armedinejad] then accused Britain of involvement in a series of bombings in Iran's ethnic minority provinces in the past two years, while saying he would avoid going into detail lest the session 'turn bitter.'... "
Who Got the British Sailors Released?
TIME, 4 April 2007

"When the Iranian leader suddenly announced that he was letting the British sailors and marines go, no one was more surprised than the officials involved in securing their freedom at Downing Street, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence.... The Iranians did not reveal what had prompted them to make such a dramatic public climbdown....Britain’s allies in the Middle East, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq, also weighed in on its behalf, warning the Iranians that their actions could provide the pretext for American military action. President Bush referred to the British captives as 'hostages' and ruled out any swap for their release.... The dispute with Britain threatened to drag on for weeks and might precipitate a military confrontation with American forces massing in the Gulf..... Extremists rejected any talk of a compromise and arranged a public demonstration on Sunday outside the British Embassy in Tehran... Then a press conference scheduled by President Ahmadinejad for Tuesday was mysteriously postponed without explanation. The first sign of a breakthrough came that night when Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Tony Blair’s foreign affairs adviser, spoke to Mr Larijani for 40 minutes. The talks were positive, but Downing Street did not expect that the captives would be freed in less than 24 hours. "
Sudden decision owes more to tension in Tehran than to Britain’s diplomacy
London Times, 5 April 2007

The Timing Of The Incident Couldn't Have Been Worse
(Or Better For Those Wanting War)

"The timing of the stand-off could not be worse as the sailors' fate risks getting caught up in the showdown over Iran's refusal to curb its suspected nuclear weapons programme. The 15 members of the UN Security Council, were set to vote unanimously last night on a resolution ordering the expansion of sanctions on Iran to force Tehran to halt sensitive activities that could lead to production of a nuclear bomb. The session took place without President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who sent a deputy foreign minister to address the council after accusing the Americans of delays in issuing visas. The hostage-taking looks increasingly like a deliberate act by Iran's Revolutionary Guards who have now reportedly transferred their hostages to Tehran. There are suspicions that the seizure was ordered in retaliation for the kidnapping of Iranians by US forces in Iraq.... Yesterday morning, reporters on board the F99 frigate, including from The Independent, were ordered off and flown to Bahrain as the diplomatic row intensified."
Marines 'confess' to Iranian captors
Terri Judd, the only newspaper journalist on HMS 'Cornwall', reports
Independent, 25 March 2007

"In the first few days of the crisis, it was difficult to establish meaningful contact with Tehran because of the new year holiday in Iran."
Iran laughs at Easter 'gift' of humiliation
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"....once the crisis had been triggered it took nearly two weeks to untangle, because their release had to be agreed by all the key players in the perpetual poker game that passes for government in Tehran. But those players could not be reached because they were scattered around the country for the No Rouz (new year) holiday. 'Nobody who counted was answering the phone,' said one senior British official. 'By the time the Iranian leaders got back from the holiday [on Tuesday] the phone was ringing off the hook, including from people they didn't expect, calling on them to release the captives quickly.' Among those unexpected callers were their closest allies, the Syrians.... The crucial decision for release was taken on Tuesday by the supreme national security council. It includes representatives of the presidency, the armed forces and the Revolutionary Guard, and Tuesday was the first day they could all be brought together following the No Rouz holiday. 'I think they realised pretty quickly the game was not worth the candle,' a senior British government source said."
Americans offered 'aggressive patrols' in Iranian airspace
Guardian, 7 April 2007

".... The Fleet policy document arrived in Whitehall via email at 4pm on Thursday April 5 - just a couple of hours after the MoD, in common with other Whitehall departments, effectively shut down for the Easter weekend. It is not known exactly what time Mr Browne left the MoD, though he was certainly gone by Thursday lunchtime. It seems incredible that, in the middle of what had become one of the biggest military-related crises for years, the MoD was pretty much empty, but that is what happened. The day before Good Friday is officially adopted as a half day for civil servants and policy advisers in Whitehall. Only a skeleton staff of junior 'duty officers' is retained, while ministers and officials head for home...."
Whitehall farce that's beyond a joke
Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2007

Did The White House Really Want The Crisis Solved?
No US Concessions To Iraqi Pleas

"It was a dramatic performance: a president whose radical rhetoric usually sends shudders around the world presenting himself as the sensitive leader, pardoning the British sailors’ supposed intrusion into Iranian waters and sending them back home for Easter and Passover. But Wednesday’s well-choreographed speech by Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian president, was designed to deliver a diplomatic and propaganda coup for Iran after 13 days of tension with Britain. Iran was no doubt hoping that in the country and across the Middle East, people would compare Iran’s decision to free the Britons for the holidays and the US refusal to release the five Iranian officials seized in northern Iraq in January. The Iraqi government had pleaded with the US military to free the Iranians before the Iranian new year holiday, which began on March 21 – but to no avail. In Tehran and in London, everyone was looking for Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s address to provide hints about the fate of the prisoners, but few expected the announcement of the surprise 'gift to the British people'. Building up the suspense, the pardon came towards the end of an address that reminded Iranians of the world’s injustice towards the Islamic republic, taking them back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, in which the great powers, Britain and the US included, had helped Saddam Hussein’s regime.... Iran did not obtain an apology from Britain for the sailors’ alleged entry into Iranian territorial waters – a claim the UK government continues to dispute. But it had scored enough points in the first days of the crisis, leaving it with little to gain from the continued detention of the sailors, and probably more to lose from escalation..... such are the historical suspicions about Britain that many Iranians apparently believed London had deliberately provoked Tehran into capturing the sailors and marines."
Theatre in Tehran as Iran releases sailors
Financial Times, 4 April 2007

"Dramatic new evidence that Cabinet rebel Jack Straw was sacked as Foreign Secretary as a result of pressure from George W. Bush has been revealed. Senior sources close to the US Government told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Straw's outspoken opposition to America's policies on the Middle East was discussed by White House aides weeks before his shock dismissal by Tony Blair in May.... He angered the White House by saying that threats to bomb Iran to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons - a course of action which Mr Bush and Mr Blair have refused to rule out - were 'nuts'. A US source told The Mail on Sunday: 'Mr Straw's views did not find favour in the White House and its concerns were passed on to the British Government.... Some Foreign Office insiders say it could be part of an American plan to pave the way for an attack on Iran next year."
U.S. 'told Blair to sack Straw after Condi's Blackburn trip'
Mail On Sunday, 6 August 2006

"A rift has opened up between Downing Street and the Foreign Office over Israel's continued bombing of Lebanon and the high civilian death toll.... Margaret Beckett, who only became foreign secretary three months ago, is trying to straddle the divide between Downing Street and her department..... her junior minister, Kim Howells - due to travel to the region today - was more openly critical of the Israelis, as well as Hizbullah, reflecting the mood among many British diplomats and most Labour MPs. Mr Howells revealed the Foreign Office 'had repeatedly urged Israel to act proportionately, to conform with international law and to avoid the appalling civilian deaths and suffering we are witnessing on our television screens'....No 10 has given no sign that it is shifting from its support of the US position of giving Israel time to reduce Hizbullah's military capacity. In private, the Foreign Office, which has a reputation as being traditionally pro-Arabist, is sceptical about the Israeli strategy and its impact on the wider Middle East...."
Downing St and Foreign Office at odds on Lebanon
Guardian, 21 July 2006

"The next 48 hours will be crucial to securing the release of the 15 British sailors and Marines held by Iran, Tony Blair said yesterday. But Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, cautioned against expecting 'a swift resolution' to the crisis, which enters its thirteenth day today. And British officials said that the state of dialogue between London and Tehran was 'confused'.... Mr Blair, visiting Glasgow yesterday, said: 'The next 48 hours will be fairly critical.' He did not elaborate, but Mrs Beckett gave a warning against expecting a swift resolution... British officials emphasised yesterday that the Prime Minister was not referring to a possible military option.... President Ahmadinejad of Iran had been expected to give a press conference yesterday about the dispute, but postponed it until today."
Iran softens stance over captured crew but Beckett calls for caution
London Times, 4 April 2007

"The United States offered to mount aggressive air patrols over Revolutionary Guards bases during Iran's stand-off with Britain but was rebuffed by London, The Guardian newspaper reported Saturday. Citing unnamed diplomatic sources, the daily said that Pentagon officials offered a series of military options, but Britain told them to keep out of the affair and instead tone down armed forces activity in the Gulf.... "
US offered to scare Iran; sailors were 'stripped, blindfolded'
Agence France Presse, 7 April 2007

"The London-based brother of the Iranian general who personally ordered the kidnapping of the 15 servicemen in the Shatt al-Arab waterway condemned Britain’s ingratitude after their release last week.... The Sunday Times revealed last week that the general had told Iran’s Supreme National Security Council that the hostage crisis was getting out of hand and warned its members that the Britons should be freed to defuse tension in the Gulf. They were released six days later. A source confirmed this weekend: 'It was General Safavi who recommended to the supreme religious leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] that the captives should be released. Even though he was the one who gave the order to grab the guys, he believed that the timing wasn’t good for Iran to keep them longer than necessary.”
Say thank you, says hostage taker’s brother
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"Iranian intelligence officers told the 15 British captives they first became suspicious about their activities after watching an interview with one of them on British television. Families of the hostages said that their loved ones had told them the Iranians had made the claim soon after capturing them. The revelation is likely to raise questions about the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow the media to accompany Cornwall, the ship on which the service personnel were based, and report on its activities. On 13 March - 10 days before the 15 were seized - Channel 5 broadcast an interview with Captain Chris Air, one of the captured Royal Marines, in which he stated that his crew's role was to liaise with Iraqi vessels to 'let them know we are here to protect them, protect their fishing and to stop any terrorism or any piracy in the area'. The Iranian interrogators told their captives, who were seized while travelling in two dinghies during a patrol, that this had alerted them to Cornwall's role. ..... The MoD confirmed last night that the Iranians had made the claim that they had become interested in Cornwall's activities after learning about it on British television, but denied the decision to allow the ship's crew to be interviewed while on active duty had jeopardised the mission.... The MoD's decision to allow media access to Cornwall had been welcomed by newspapers and broadcasters keen to tell the story of the navy's role in patrolling the seas off Iraq. Also on board the frigate was a BBC film crew and a journalist from the Independent. But as attention now turns to the MoD's role in handling the affair, questions are likely to be asked as to whether lessons will have to be learnt regarding the media's relationship with the armed forces."
TV interview 'tipped off' Iran about ship's intelligence role
Observer, 8 April 2007

"As a former Defence Secretary, I feel nothing but despair over an episode that could permanently damage the morale of our services... At every step of the saga, the political and military leaders have looked inept, from failing to protect properly the Royal Navy boarding party in the first place to sanctioning the sale of the captives' stories.....the Royal Navy's exercise appears to have been conducted without proper equipment or support, making it easy for Tehran's Revolutionary Guards to seize the unit without a fight. Good communications, armament and helicopter back-up all seem to have been lacking, even though the Iranians had made it obvious that they were looking for a chance to interfere.... We are told that by agreeing to allow Press interviews the Ministry kept some degree of control. Really! Why did they need it? What were they fearful the hostages might say?.... Given the extent of this mess, we must have a public inquiry into what has happened. Such an inquiry would have to examine three fundamental issues. First, it should look into the exact circumstances of the detention of the Royal Navy party, studying in particular the alleged lack of support from the nearby task force headed by HMS Cornwall. We need to know why the raiding party was so pitifully armed and seemed to have no cover from any helicopter.... Second, we have to find out who actually took the decision to allow the personnel to sell their stories. At what level was it made in the MoD? Was the Defence Secretary consulted, or indeed the Prime Minister? What was the reasoning behind this radical departure from official policy?"
[Michael] Heseltine: 'Humiliating and inept, and only one man is to blame'
Daily Mail, 10 April 2007

"Iraqi militia groups have drawn up detailed plans to seize Prince Harry as a hostage when he arrives in Iraq next month, The Observer can reveal. Some of the most notorious paramilitary factions in southern Iraq claim they have informants placed inside British military barracks in Iraq monitoring the third in line to the throne. The claims call into question the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow Harry to serve in Iraq where he and his unit will be seen as a valuable target. Last night an MoD spokesman said: 'We have not concealed the fact that he [Harry] is going out there and the bad guys know that he's coming, and we expect that they will consider him a high-profile scalp.' Despite the threats, Whitehall officials ruled out the possibility that the prince might not be sent to Maysan, the most volatile province in southern Iraq, where British casualties are mounting. Harry will serve with the Blues and Royals for a six-month tour of duty. He is trained as a troop leader to take command of four Scimitars and will be deployed in Iraq alongside 11 men who will serve under him. Militia leaders claim that photographs of Harry have already been downloaded from the internet and disseminated to insurgent groups."
Harry is militia target in Iraq, admits army
Observer, 22 April 2007

'Rumours Of War'
From Mid March Russia Had Been Publicly Predicting A Possible Strike On Iran 6 April

"Les experts militaires russes estiment que la planification de l'attaque militaire am�ricaine contre l'Iran a pass� le point de non retour le 20 f�vrier, lorsque le directeur de l'AIEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, a reconnu, dans son rapport, l'incapacit� de l'Agence de 'confirmer le caract�re pacifique du programme nucl�aire de l'Iran'. Selon l'hebdomadaire russe Argoumenty nedeli, une action militaire se d�roulera au cours de la premi�re semaine d'avril, avant les P�ques catholique et orthodoxe (cette ann�e elles sont c�l�br�es le 8), lorsque l' 'opinion occidentale' sera en cong�. Il se peut aussi que l'Iran soit frapp� le vendredi 6, jour f�ri� dans les pays musulmans. D'apr�s le sch�ma am�ricain, ce sera une frappe d'un seul jour qui durera 12 heures, de 4 heures de matin � 16 heures d'apr�s-midi. Le nom de code de l'op�ration est � ce jour 'Bite' en anglais."
L'Iran serait attaqu� d�but avril (experts militaires russes)
RIA Novosti, 19 March 2007
(English translation by 'Babel Fish' - Click Here)

"RIA (Russian Information Agency) Novosti is a Russian press agency based in Moscow. The agency's clients include the presidential administration, Russian government, Federation Council, State Duma, leading ministries and government departments, administrations of Russian regions, representatives of Russian and foreign business communities, diplomatic missions, and public organizations.... The Russian Information Agency Novosti was created in September 1991 on the basis of IAN and the Russian Information Agency. By a decree of the Russian president dated August 22, 1991, RIA Novosti was placed within the competence of the Press and Information Ministry. RIA Novosti had about 80 bureaus and news offices abroad, over 1,500 subscribers in CIS countries and about a hundred in non-CIS countries. In 1993, by a decree of the Russian president of September 15, 1993 'On the Russian Information Agency Novosti,' RIA Novosti became a state news-analytical agency. RIA Novosti’s radio channel - RIA-Radio worked in 1996. In August 1997, the TV channel Kultura was set up on the basis of the RIA TV channel under the sponsorship of the VGTRK TV and radio broadcasting company. By a decree of the Russian president, 'On Improving the Work of the State Electronic Media,' the VGTRK information holding was created in May 1998, which RIA Novosti joined. In May 1998, the Agency was renamed the Russian Information Agency Vesti. As a mass media body, it retained the name of RIA Novosti. "
RIA Novosti - Wikipedia

No U.S. attack on Iran, oil price hits $70 in expectation
Novosti, 6 April 2007

TEHRAN, April 6 (RIA Novosti) - Washington did not launch air strikes against Iran early Friday despite recent media reports, but expectations of the attack have driven Brent price to $70 per barrel.

Russian and foreign media have recently reported the U.S. could launch an operation, codenamed Bite, against Iran at 4:00 a.m. local time April 6. The operation was expected to deliver air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over a 12-hour period to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.

"We are used to this situation. The Americans have been threatening us for many years, and they keep introducing sanctions against Iran," Majid, a salesman, told RIA Novosti. "But nothing has changed. We continue living and working as usual."

"I do not think the U.S. will take the risk - Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan," he said, echoing the opinion of many fellow countrymen.

Iran's Defense Ministry declined to comment on possible U.S. strikes Thursday night, saying it was closed for Thursday and Friday, which are days off in the republic.

Israel's DEBKAfile Web site quoted intelligence sources in Moscow in late March as saying a U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear sites had been scheduled for April 6 and aimed at setting Tehran's nuclear program back several years.

The air strikes were expected to hit a uranium enrichment center in Natanz, about 1,000 miles from the Israeli border, a nuclear research center in Isfahan about 210 miles south of Tehran, a nearby heavy water plant in Arak, and military command centers.

Israel, which destroyed nuclear facilities in Iraq in 1981, took charge of the first of 25 U.S.-made F-15I multi-role fighters in 1998. The fighters have a range of about 2,700 miles without refueling and have a load capacity, including air-to-ground missiles, of up to 11 tons.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said Thursday contacts between Moscow and Washington gave no reason to expect U.S. strikes at Iran in the next few days.

"I am more than certain that no strikes will be delivered tomorrow, and therefore there is no reason to panic," he said.

The U.S. has not excluded the military option in negotiations on Iran over its refusal to abandon uranium enrichment. The UN Security Council passed a new resolution on Iran March 24 toughening economic sanctions against the country and accepting the possibility of a military solution to the crisis.

A source in Russian security structures quoted Russian intelligence March 30 as saying the U.S. Armed Forces had nearly completed preparations for a possible military operation against Iran, and would be ready to strike in early April.

"Russian intelligence has information that the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory," the source said, adding, though, that the final decision would be up to the country's political leadership.

Russian Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week the Pentagon was planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.

"I have no doubt there will be an operation, or rather an aggressive action against Iran," Ivashov said.

A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf. The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed, U.S. Fifth Fleet Lieutenant-Commander Charlie Brown said March 21.

Russia's leading business daily Kommersant said Friday Brent prices had soared to $70 per barrel, a record for the past seven months, in anticipation of the U.S. attack, despite the release of British sailors and marines detained by Iran on suspicion of trespassing.

"The world is waiting for April 6, when the United States supposedly plans to launch Operation Bite against Iran. Washington has accumulated the required forces in the region: two task groups in the Persian Gulf, including the aircraft carriers USS Dwight Eisenhower and USS John Stennis, four nuclear submarines, two dozen cruisers, and more than 400 sea- and ground-based aircraft, including Stealth planes that will allegedly carry out the greater part of the task. The approved targets are the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, the Isfahan nuclear research center, the Araq heavy-water plant, the Bushehr nuclear power plant, air force and naval bases, air defense centers, and command and control headquarters. The plans for a sneak attack are said to include a deceptive maneuver: the nuclear-powered carrier USS Nimitz left San Diego last Monday and is heading for the Gulf, where it is expected to replace the Dwight Eisenhower in mid-May. According to the logic of a lightning war, everyone will be waiting for the arrival of the third carrier, and so the attack, when it comes, will be a surprise. On the other hand, the operation may not begin on April 6, despite the 'telling signs' detected mainly by Russian military experts and the General Staff. One of the reasons is that there is no time left for the U.S. to speak about the 'inevitability' of confrontation and warn Iran of the impending doom. I am referring to the requisite 'demoralization stage,' which is not part of the rules accepted in the civilized world. The Pentagon usually carries out pre-war demoralization preparations because they can reduce potential casualties. So, will there be a war, and if so, when will it begin?"
Who will bite first, the U.S. or Iran?
Novosti, 5 April 2007

"[Translated from French language original by 'Babel Fish'] The Pentagon projects to conduct soon a massive attack against the Iranian military infrastructure, estimates the General Leonid Ivachov, vice-president of the Academy of geopolitical sciences. 'I do not have any doubt as for the reality of this operation or, more precisely, of this aggression against Iran', the General Russian in a maintenance with RIA Novosti Wednesday declared. According to him, testify to it in particular the conference at the beginning of March in Washington to the Committee am�ricano-Israeli (AIPAC), which decided to support the Bush administration, as well as the fact that a few days after the US Congress revoked his own amendment prohibiting to the president to attack Iran without its downstream. 'We drew from it the conclusion which this operation would have well place. In other words, the Israeli community of the United States and the Israeli direction - represented with this conference by the Foreign Minister of the Hebrew State - formulated the directive to attack Iran', noted the expert. But the United States does not project a terrestrial operation. 'According to any obviousness, there will be no terrestrial invasion. It will be strike air massive and of wear, with an aim of destroying the military potential of resistance, the centers of administrative direction, the economic installations key and, if possible, a part of the Iranian direction', the expert underlined. The Ivachov General did not draw aside the possibility of strike by means of tactical nuclear weapons against the Iranian nuclear sites. _ 'It himself be that one call appel upon some load nuclear of low power', have it suppose. The action of the Pentagon will be able to paralyse the life in the country, to sow panic there and, generally, to found a climate of chaos and uncertainty', the expert affirmed. 'That could revive the fights to be able it inside Iran. A mission of peace will have to follow to put at the capacity to Teheran a government pro-American', estimated the Ivachov General. The purpose of all that will be to regild the blazon of the republican administration which will be able to thus declare that the Iranian nuclear potential was destroyed, it added."
The Pentagon will attack Iranian military targets (Russian expert)
Novosti, 21 March 2007
(For French language original click here)

"The release of the 15 Britons was a 'gift' to the British people to celebrate the birth of the prophet Muhammad and Easter, according to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It also came two hours after an American general revealed the US might allow Iranian diplomats to visit five countrymen arrested in Iraq three months ago. The timing has fuelled speculation of a deal to free the British sailors and marines seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In a further coincidence, yesterday's unexpected announcement came a day after the mysterious release of another Iranian diplomat, Jalal Sharafi, kidnapped in Baghdad at the beginning of the year by gunmen in Iraqi government uniforms. The 13-day crisis was enveloped in a fog of secret diplomacy and informal talks. The Syrians claim to have played a leading role in persuading Iran of the foolishness in detaining the Britons any longer. Iran's decision may have been the culmination of many reasons, but observers say Tehran must have been convinced it was in its interests to give up its bargaining chips. The existence of a deal was denied by all involved. George Bush insisted there would be no 'quid pro quo'. British officials said they had Iranian assurances a prisoner swap was not on the agenda, and President Ahmadinejad was adamant the release was for 'humanitarian reasons'. Yesterday the Iraqi foreign minister, who appears to have played a critical go-between role, added his voice to the chorus of denial. 'The British media are linking it as if it is part of bargain with Iran to release the British sailors and marines. It has no connection whatsoever', Hoshyar Zebari told The Guardian yesterday. Mr Zebari said he had asked the US military to grant consular access to the Iranian diplomats (known as the 'Irbil five' after the town in which they were arrested) in a bid to 'ease the atmosphere' between Iran and the US at the time of last month's Baghdad security conference."
Diplomacy or a Deal - How the Standoff Ended
The Guardian, 4 April 2007

"Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah warned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he should not underestimate the US military threat on Iran. Ahmadinejad met with King Abdullah on March 4 in Riyadh, and publicly the two leaders agreed to fight growing Sunni-Shiite strife in the region. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said that the king meanwhile warned Ahmadinejad to take seriously threats of US military strikes over Iran's refusal to halts its uranium enrichment program. 'On the nuclear issue, we warned him: 'Don't play with fire. Don't think the threat [of an American attack on Iran] is a nonexistent threat; think that it's a real threat, maybe even a palpable threat,'' Faisal said in the interview posted on the Newsweek website Friday."
Saudi Arabia warns Iran not to underestimate US threat
Pakistan Times, 31 March 2007

"The London-based brother of the Iranian general who personally ordered the kidnapping of the 15 servicemen in the Shatt al-Arab waterway condemned Britain’s ingratitude after their release last week.... The Sunday Times revealed last week that the general had told Iran’s Supreme National Security Council that the hostage crisis was getting out of hand and warned its members that the Britons should be freed to defuse tension in the Gulf. They were released six days later. A source confirmed this weekend: 'It was General Safavi who recommended to the supreme religious leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] that the captives should be released. Even though he was the one who gave the order to grab the guys, he believed that the timing wasn’t good for Iran to keep them longer than necessary.”
Say thank you, says hostage taker’s brother
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Iran on Tuesday of a 'different phase if it does not free 15 British military personnel captured in the Gulf four days ago. The sailors' capture and new U.N. sanctions imposed on Tehran on Saturday over its disputed nuclear programme have stoked tensions between the West and Iran and pushed oil prices to a 2007 high.... 'They have to release them. If not, then this will move into a different phase,' he told GMTV television."
Blair warns Iran of 'different phase'.
Reuters, 28 March (Wednesday) 2007

"Iran held 15 British sailors for the fifth straight day yesterday with no indication of where they were or when they might be released. An angry Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that the showdown was moving to a 'different phase.' He refused to elaborate."
Angry Blair eyes 'different phase'
Ottawa Sun, 28 March 2007

Why Did Blair Say 48 Hrs Was Critical To This Crisis?
What Did He Know That Margaret Beckett Didn't?

"British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett on Tuesday urged caution over expecting a swift resolution to the crisis involving 15 detained naval personnel, hours after British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the next 48-hours would be critical to quickly resolving the standoff.... Beckett said Britain still had not been granted consular access to the captive sailors and marines, who have been held by Iran since March 23. Earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that Britain would 'take an increasingly tougher position' if diplomatic moves did not yield results."
Next 2 Days 'Fairly Critical' in Standoff With Iran, British Prime Minister Blair Says
Associated Press, 3 April 2007

"Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, sought to play down the chances of an early end to the crisis after Mr Blair said that the next 48 hours will be crucial to securing the release of the 15 British sailors and Marines."
Hopes rise for early end to hostage ordeal
London Times, 4 April 2007

"The next 48 hours will be crucial to securing the release of the 15 British sailors and Marines held by Iran, Tony Blair said yesterday. But Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, cautioned against expecting 'a swift resolution' to the crisis, which enters its thirteenth day today. And British officials said that the state of dialogue between London and Tehran was 'confused'.... Mr Blair, visiting Glasgow yesterday, said: 'The next 48 hours will be fairly critical.' He did not elaborate, but Mrs Beckett gave a warning against expecting a swift resolution... British officials emphasised yesterday that the Prime Minister was not referring to a possible military option.... President Ahmadinejad of Iran had been expected to give a press conference yesterday about the dispute, but postponed it until today."
Iran softens stance over captured crew but Beckett calls for caution
London Times, 4 April 2007

What Was The Real Significance Of Blair's 48 Hrs Timescale?
Did He Know The Americans Were Planning To Strike In April?

"It is a highly-charged atmosphere in the Middle East and although there is a purely British-Iranian dimension to the tensions, the British are also caught up in the ongoing US-Iranian animosity and sabre-rattling. An issue like this could be hijacked by Americans or Iranians wishing to grandstand and we know there are people at both ends of the US-Iran spectrum, as well as some Arabs and Israelis, who would like a casus belli."
Rosemary Hollis, director of research at the London-based foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House
The experts - 'There is a lot to be learned here'
Guardian, 5 April 2007

"Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony, he said, 'after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.' Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the 'Left Behind' series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow. I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.' A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - 'The Road to Environmental Apocalypse.' Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: 'The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land.' He seemed to be relishing the thought. And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, 'to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?' Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, 'America's Providential History.' You'll find there these words: 'The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece.' However, '[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people.' No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics."
Bill Moyers former host of the weekly public affairs series 'NOW with Bill Moyers' on PBS
Are We Doomed? Insanity Now Mainstream. There Is No Tomorrow
The Star Tribune, 1 February 2005

"In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its "biblical lands" (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth. What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is that before the big battle begins, all "true believers" (ie those who believe what they believe) will be lifted out of their clothes and wafted up to heaven during an event called the Rapture. Not only do the worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, but they will be able to watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs, during the seven years of Tribulation which follow. The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about. This means staging confrontations at the old temple site (in 2000, three US Christians were deported for trying to blow up the mosques there), sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding ever more US support for Israel, and seeking to provoke a final battle with the Muslim world/Axis of Evil/United Nations/ European Union/France or whoever the legions of the antichrist turn out to be. The believers are convinced that they will soon be rewarded for their efforts. The antichrist is apparently walking among us, in the guise of Kofi Annan, Javier Solana, Yasser Arafat or, more plausibly, Silvio Berlusconi. The Wal-Mart corporation is also a candidate (in my view a very good one), because it wants to radio-tag its stock, thereby exposing humankind to the Mark of the Beast. By clicking on www.raptureready.com, you can discover how close you might be to flying out of your pyjamas. The infidels among us should take note that the Rapture Index currently stands at 144, just one point below the critical threshold....We can laugh at these people, but we should not dismiss them. That their beliefs are bonkers does not mean they are marginal. American pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans. The best-selling contemporary books in the US are the 12 volumes of the Left Behind series, which provide what is usually described as a "fictionalised" account of the Rapture (this, apparently, distinguishes it from the other one), with plenty of dripping details about what will happen to the rest of us. The people who believe all this don't believe it just a little; for them it is a matter of life eternal and death. And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. John Ashcroft, the attorney general, is a true believer, so are several prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. Mr DeLay (who is also the co-author of the marvellously named DeLay-Doolittle Amendment, postponing campaign finance reforms) travelled to Israel last year to tell the Knesset that 'there is no middle ground, no moderate position worth taking'. So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates' will be released 'to slay the third part of men'. They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again. The electoral calculation, crazy as it appears, works like this. Governments stand or fall on domestic issues. For 85% of the US electorate, the Middle East is a foreign issue, and therefore of secondary interest when they enter the polling booth. For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it's a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God. Bush, in other words, stands to lose fewer votes by encouraging Israeli aggression than he stands to lose by restraining it. He would be mad to listen to these people. He would also be mad not to."
Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
Guardian, 20 April 2007

Letter From President Ahmadinejad Of Iran
To President Bush Of America
Guardian, Comment Is Free, 11 May 2006

Those in power do not rule for ever: history will judge our presidencies
How can US global policy be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus and other prophets of the monotheistic religions?

[Extract]

[PBUH = 'Praise Be Unto Him']

"To George Bush, president of the United States of America

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America,
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena - which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hope that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make 'War on Terror' his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked.....

.....Mr. President,
According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine Prophets.

'To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases.' 'The Lord which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds.'

'The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court' 'planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins' 'He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors' 'He is the Compassionate, the Merciful' 'He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness' 'He is witness to the actions of His servants' 'He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast' 'Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds' 'A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants' and 'A good end and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves.

We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvation. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (PBUH) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.

We also believe that Jesus Christ (PBUH) was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus (PBUH) has been quoted in Koran as well: [19.36] And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serve Him; this is the right path. Marium
Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers.

The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans.

We again read in the Holy Book: 'The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purify them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious'.

All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well.

Divine prophets have promised: The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Heaven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by our actions.

All prophets, speak of peace and tranquility for man - based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity.

Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world - that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets - and improve our performance? Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice? Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected? Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?...."

"Israel will be at war by summer, a prominent opposition member of the Israeli Knesset told NewsMax in an exclusive interview this week.... Like most Israeli leaders, Dr. Eldad would prefer that the United States and its partners take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites, if for no other reason than the vastly superior conventional firepower the U.S. could bring to bear."
Israel Will be at War by Summer, Politician Says
Newsmax, 31 March 2007

"When Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, published his memoirs DC Confidential 18 months ago, Tony Blair reportedly called him 'a complete pr**k'. A turnaround: in 1997, No 10 sent Meyer to the US with instructions to 'get up the arse of the White House and stay there'. And for the most part, the ex-diplomat's book protected Blair's reputation: although the PM had little appetite for detail, he said, and a penchant for 'ball-crushingly tight trousers', criticisms were saved for other ministers. So Downing Street residents are unlikely to be tossing ticker tape over an interview that Sir Christopher's wife, Lady Catherine Meyer has granted Whitehall and Westminster World magazine, in which she mentions the famously testy subject of Blair and George Bush's shared Christianity. 'They are both very religious and I believe that they both feel that what they are doing - especially Blair - is what God wants them to do and that God has chosen their way,' says Lady Meyer, a Conservative who (regardless of the Meyers' pillow talk) had opportunity to observe both leaders closely. 'This is why they bonded immediately.' She adds: 'Blair started talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein way before September 11 ... in 1998. So I think that on Iraq he was more ready than Bush, who only really came into this conversation after 9/11.' Lady Meyer goes on to accuse Blair's government of 'astounding hypocrisy'. One senses the end of a special relationship."
Lady Catherine Meyer, wife of former British US Ambassador, Christopher Meyer
Independent, 20 March 2007

"By Blair's blind support for George Bush even into the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he has identified Britain with defeat as well as with disrepute. It will take years to repair the damage which he has inflicted on our reputation for prudence and honest dealing.”
The Iran Crisis Is Blair’s True Legacy
Mail On Sunday

"Washington did not launch air strikes against Iran early Friday despite recent media reports, but expectations of the attack have driven Brent price to $70 per barrel. Russian and foreign media have recently reported the U.S. could launch an operation, codenamed Bite, against Iran at 4:00 a.m. local time April 6. The operation was expected to deliver air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over a 12-hour period to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.....Israel's DEBKAfile Web site quoted intelligence sources in Moscow in late March as saying a U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear sites had been scheduled for April 6 and aimed at setting Tehran's nuclear program back several years."
No U.S. attack on Iran, oil price hits $70 in expectation
Novosti, 6 April 2007

"Asked whether he admired President Ahmadinejad’s presentation of the release as an Easter 'gift', one senior official said: 'I don’t do admiration. I’ve been in this job too long.' But if he admitted to a flicker of that sentiment, he said, it would be for Ahmadinejad’s inclusion of the Jewish celebration of Passover in the list of reasons for the release. He offered, with what counts for effusiveness in the British Civil Service, that 'that was quite good'."
International pressure, not bargaining, won the day
London Times, 6 April 2007

"Dumb All Over" [Lyric Extracts, From Frank Zappa's 'You Are What You Is' Album, 1981]
Nurds on the left Nurds on the right Religous fanatics On the air every night Sayin' the Bible Tells the story Makes the details Sound real gory 'Bout what to do If the geeks over there Don't believe in the book We got over here You cant run a race Without no feet n pretty soon There wont be no street For dummies to jog on Or doggies to dog on Religous fanatics Can make it be all gone (I mean it wont blow up n disappear It'll just look ugly For a thousand years...)...	It says in the book: "Burn 'n destroy... 'N repent, 'n redeem 'N revenge, 'n deploy 'N rumble thee forth To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side 'Cause they don't go for what's in the book 'N that makes 'em BAD So verily we must choppeth them up And stompeth them down Or rent a nice French bomb To poof them out of existance While leaving their real estate just where we need it To use again For temples in which to praise OUR GOD ('Cause he can really take care of business!')	...[If we're told] God says It's okay to do this stuff Then we gotta do it, 'Cause if we don't do it, We ain't gwine up to hebbin! (Depending on which book you're using at the time...Can't use theirs... it don't work ...it's all lies...Gotta use mine...)..... Hey, we can't really be dumb If we're just following God's Orders Hey, let's get serious... God knows what he's doin' He wrote this book here An' the book says: 'He made us all to be just like Him,' so... If we're dumb... Then God is dumb... (An' maybe even a little ugly on the side)

"The British hostage crisis was a byproduct of a game of brinkmanship, which could ultimately make war more likely. For now, perhaps, a sense of relief is justified. But for how long? As Massey heads off for 'a couple of days with my girlfriend', the next crisis may already be brewing."
Iran laughs at Easter 'gift' of humiliation
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"Des Browne could have been forgiven for breathing a deep sigh of relief at 12.02pm on Wednesday, April 4. British Airways flight 6634 from Teheran, carrying the 15 naval personnel who had been held hostage in Iran, touched down at Heathrow Airport.... The story of how it all went so wrong reveals both a classic Whitehall cock-up and a tired administration playing out its final days in power.... A media plan had already been drawn up by the MoD press office in London and it was immediately accepted that the sailors should be allowed to speak to the media when they were released. It was clear to everyone in the department that the Iranians could not be allowed to win the propaganda battle. It has also been suggested that allowing the freed sailors to speak publicly would take the spotlight off the still unanswered questions about how the crisis occurred in the first place..."
Whitehall farce that's beyond a joke
Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2007

"Royal Navy commanders are furious that the Ministry of Defence and senior Fleet officers have failed to order a full inquiry into the debacle surrounding the capture by Iranians of 15 servicemen. There is a growing belief that the furore over the media payments story is acting as a smokescreen to the 'national scandal' of the mistakes made that have substantially undermined Britain's international standing, Fleet sources said. Officers believe a board of inquiry would reveal what led to the decision to allow 15 troops so close to the Iranian border without support.... According to Navy regulations, a board of inquiry should automatically be ordered when boats are lost or crew taken prisoner, but the MoD and Navy chiefs have decided that only an investigation to discover 'lessons learned' will go ahead.... Navy sources have said an investigation is not enough. While a board of inquiry does not apportion blame it is an official inquest in which the facts are fully established. Its findings can also be used to bring courts martial against officers or ratings. 'This incident caused enormous strategic damage to both the nation and to the Fleet I cannot see how you can have anything other than a board of inquiry and subsequent courts martial,' a Navy officer said."
Officers fear furore hides real 'scandal'
Daily Telegraph, 13 April 2007

"Days before the British hostages were freed by Iran, the Defence Ministry was already planning how their stories could be sold. Officials devised a detailed strategy on how to deal with media bids even as Faye Turney and her fellow captors were languishing in cells in Tehran, a senior Whitehall source has told the Daily Mail. The revelation severely undermines claims by Defence Secretary Des Browne that he did not know in advance about the controversial decision to allow the accounts to be sold. Insiders said it was inconceivable that he - and in turn Tony Blair - would not have been aware of the plan. It also shows how, far from being pressured by the media, the MoD took an active part in controlling events.... At the same time Foreign Office officials expressed their 'distaste' at the way there appeared to have been an 'overt' strategy to encourage Faye Turner and Arthur Batchelor to hawk accounts of their 13-day imprisonment for large sums.....It was previously thought that the decision to allow the sailors to cash in was made by the Royal Navy within hours of their arrival at Heathrow last week. At the time, Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral Adrian Johns said the Navy had been forced to give in to pressure from the media 'waving big chequebooks around in front of them' and added: 'The decision was taken by the Royal Navy and then referred up the chain to the Ministry of Defence.' Mr Browne has claimed he had only 'noted' the decision on Friday April 6, two days after the captives were released, and suggested the Navy were to blame. Mr Blair has insisted he knew of the move on Sunday April 8. But the Whitehall source said a 'media strategy' had been in place for days because the MoD had already started to receive media bids. Whitehall documents further undermined Mr Browne's claim that the Royal Navy took the key decision to allow the stories to be sold. Orders issued two years ago insist that any media interviews must be cleared by the head of news management at the Ministry of Defence before a decision is taken - suggesting Mr Browne's officials endorsed the move. The rules were introduced after the inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly, who had been accused of talking out of turn to the BBC. Lord Ramsbotham, a former director of public relations for the Army, said: 'My experience, certainly during the Falklands War and during the Beirut experience, was that everything was referred to Number 10 of some magnitude like this.' Downing Street, however, continues flatly to deny being involved at any stage."
MoD plotted story sale while hostages were still in cells
Daily Mail, 13 Apirl 2007

"Tony Blair attacked a campaign for heads to roll over the Iran captives fiasco as a 'witch-hunt'. But he was immediately undermined as evidence emerged implicating Defence Secretary Des Browne in the debacle.Documents show officials broke Navy rules by failing to get Mr Browne's explicit approval to allow the sailors to sell their stories. The Queen's Regulations show serving personnel must not profit unless there are exceptional circumstances - but only with 'prior approval' of the Defence Secretary. Mr Browne has claimed he only 'noted' the decision allowing the stories to be sold, meaning he has been misled or the rules were broken.... Suspicions that ministers were bent on allowing the captives' accounts to be told were fuelled when it emerged the Ministry of Defence ignored warnings from military officers not to allow the Iran hostages to cash in on their ordeal. Colonel Bob Stewart, who led British troops in Bosnia, telephoned the MoD two days before the stories were published telling them it would be a 'grave mistake' and that the decision would backfire. An MoD official said they would 'get back to him' but the call never came, Colonel Stewart has told friends. An offer by the Press Complaints Commission to intervene during media negotiations for the stories was similarly rebuffed. A PCC spokesman said: 'On April 5 we approached the MoD to offer our services through them to the hostages and their families in case problems arose with media interest.' He said they had no reply."
Blair attacks the 'witch-hunt' over Iran hostage fiasco
Daily Mail, 13 April 2007

"General Sir Michael Rose, [is] former head of the SAS, ex-commander of UN forces in Bosnia, and formerly in charge of standards in the Army as Adjutant General..... Blazing with moral outrage, Rose wants Tony Blair - before he leaves office - to be held to account for Iraq...The Iraq war, he goes on, has broken the military chain of command because generals and chiefs are no longer trusted by their men. It has also disorientated soldiers and destroyed the trust between civilian society and its armed forces. .' The overall system should have responded in some way,' he says, referring to the mother ship, the heavily armed HMS Cornwall which was nearby when the hostages were taken. He also criticises the ship’s crew for not detecting the Iranian approach on their radar screens..... 'I am amazed that the Navy hasn’t had a Board of Inquiry about what happened. Who put them in that situation? They should be held responsible. 'But then, they have made it impossible to do so by treating the returnees as heroes and innocents. Who put them in that situation? They should be held responsible. It is difficult to do once you have had a hero’s return.'... Rose’s thoughts on the idea of the hostages facing possible charges are a far cry from the rapturous tabloid reception at the start of the week. 'Yes, there should indeed have been charges, and the senior officers should have been asked how come they allowed this situation to occur. '..."
J'Accuse! Top General lambasts 'moral cowardice' of government and military chiefs
Dail Mail, 12 April 2007

"Sir Menzies Campbell, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, warned: 'We must not divert attention from the fundamental question of how our sailors and marines found themselves in Iranian captivity."
Paper rounded on minister after bid to buy stories
Guardian, 13 April 2007

"The Tories have raised 14 questions they want answered by the Government. They include: ....on the issue of the capture of the 15 sailors and Marines by the Iranians in the Gulf:
- Was it safe to conduct [boarding] operations so far from HMS Cornwall, [the warship involved in the incident]? - Why did HMS Cornwall’s radar not detect the six boats coming from Iranian waters?- Why did the Royal Navy Lynx helicopter on board not stay with the vessel during the boarding of the merchant ship in the Gulf?......"
Safe pair of hands says he dropped a clanger allowing stories to be sold
London Times, 12 April 2007

"Nick Harvey, defense spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said the coverage of the crisis was 'a national embarrassment.' 'The judgment that it would be right to allow them to tell their stories had hardly been vindicated by the sort of reports we have seen,' Harvey said. He referred to an interview given by Arthur Batchelor, 20, who sold his story to the Daily Mirror. He said Batchelor had complained that he had his iPod taken away and that his captors called him Mr. Bean, referring to a comic character. 'This is not something that has covered the nation in glory,' Harvey said."
Britain Plans Inquiries in Sailor Crisis
Associated Press, 16 April 2007

"None of the captives appears to have been beaten up or seriously mishandled. When you compare that with people who were captured during previous conflicts and who were treated so horribly it is not easy to understand why they were so compliant. They were PlastiCuffed, hooded and put in isolation but otherwise they were treated courteously. I am sure that given the reverse circumstances we are likely to have dealt with prisoners in the same way under Geneva Convention rules."
Colonel Bob Stewart is the former British UN Commander in Bosnia
Our Forces will pay with a worldwide loss of reputation
London Times, 9 April 2007

".... the Ministry of Defence has now reignited the debate about what happened by giving them [the British captives] permission to sell their stories.....Already their accounts at the press conference do not really tally. Some refer to being terrified as the guards cocked their rifles while others say that they were just playing with their weapons. When you get these contradictory stories, just imagine how this is going to seem abroad. It is hardly the Nelson touch. Already commentators in the United States are asking why these people were so quick to attack their own country. And, in the Middle East and Far East, it is the Iranian account that people will probably believe..... But the reputation of the Royal Navy and the British Armed Forces is going to suffer in the United States and around the world. In the international PR battle it is Iran nine out of ten and Britain two. That is the real cost of selling these stories."
Colonel Bob Stewart is the former British UN Commander in Bosnia
Our Forces will pay with a worldwide loss of reputation
London Times, 9 April 2007

"The head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannat, is understood to have banned all soldiers from selling their stories to the media.... Maj Gen Cordingley, commander of the Desert Rats during the 1991 Gulf War, said it was 'unfortunate' that the MoD was 'using' the Royal Navy personnel as 'a propaganda tool'.... The father of Lance Corporal Thomas Keys - a British military policeman killed in Iraq in 2003 - said he found it 'offensive' that the MoD allowed the Royal Navy crew to speak out, but prevented his son's colleagues from talking. Reg Keys said: 'When my son died, his colleagues were not allowed to speak to their families about it, let alone the press. It seems to me that it is selective. If the story aids the government in their propaganda against the Iranians, they will allow people to speak, but if it is embarrassing to the government or the Ministry of Defence, you are not allowed to.' He accused the government of using the crew 'for spin'. 'I find that offensive,' he added."
Iran stories sale criticism grows
BBC Online, 9 April 2007

".... there were fears that the move was only taken to trump Iran in the propaganda war, and that it was undignified for the sailors to profit from their experience so soon.... Max Clifford, the publicist, claimed that the MoD had encouraged the captured personnel to sell their stories, which he claimed could earn a total of at least �250,000. 'The MoD almost insisted on it,' he said. 'It is all a propaganda war. They hope that the accounts in the newspapers will convince the British public that we are right.'"
Heseltine joins furore over sailors' stories
Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2007

"Tony Blair was being dragged into the 'cash for stories' fiasco last night as former military chiefs and ex-ministers blamed Number 10 for allowing the freed British hostages to strike lucrative deals with the press. As the Government tried to palm off responsibility for the debacle on to the Royal Navy, Downing Street imposed a virtual news blackout on the story, refusing to say anything about the Prime Minister's role. Gen Sir Michael Rose, a former Army Adjutant General and director of UK special forces, said that the treatment of the hostages after their return from Iran had clearly been masterminded from Downing Street. 'In my view the decision to treat the hostages as heroes from the outset can only have come from Downing Street for I cannot believe that any Service chief would have signed up to a policy that is so ultimately damaging to the military ethos,' Sir Michael told the London Evening Standard.... Downing Street, which claimed at the weekend that Mr Blair was 'informed but did not give explicit approval' of the sale of stories, backtracked, saying that it would not answer questions about the Prime Minister's role, or lack of one, in the affair."
Blair drawn into blame game over payments
Daily Telegraph, 11 April 2007

"[Defence Minister Des Browne] acknowledged that he had taken no action to overturn the decision made by Vice-Admiral Adrian Johns, the Second Sea Lord, but then confessed he had not been 'content' with the reasoning behind the plan to let two of the released captives sell their stories for significant sums to the media.... Mr Browne said: 'People need to understand that as these young people who had come back safely were being debriefed, the view was taken by the Navy that it was in their interests to have an opportunity to counteract the propaganda the Iranians had put out.'"
Safe pair of hands says he dropped a clanger allowing stories to be sold
London Times, 12 April 2007

With The Prospect Of Immediate War Receding
In An Unprecedented Move How Whitehall Tried To Recapture The Propaganda Initiative From Iran

"The 15 British military hostages released by Iran were accused last night of cashing in on the ordeal by selling their stories in a string of lucrative media deals. The sailors, who spent 13 days in captivity and at times feared for their lives, have been given permission by the Ministry of Defence to give exclusive interviews. The MoD justified lifting the ban on military personnel selling their stories while in service because of the 'exceptional circumstances' involved....Colonel Bob Stewart, a British commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia, told the Sunday Times that the MoD had turned a military disaster into a media circus. 'The released hostages are behaving like reality TV stars,' he said. 'I am appalled that the MoD is encouraging them to profit in this way.' Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed by a bomb in Iraq, said: 'This is wrong and I don't think it should be allowed by the MoD. None of the parents who have lost loved ones in Iraq have sold their stories.'....The father of one of the hostages said the MoD had suggested the servicemen 'Go out there, tell the truth and make the money.'"
Anger as hostages sell stories to highest bidders
Observer, 8 April 2007

"Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, faces uproar in the Commons after approving the decision to let detained sailors and Marines make money by selling their stories to the media.... The MoD said: 'Queen’s Regulations for the Royal Navy allow personnel to retain fees paid to them for broadcasting, lecturing or writing for publication under certain circumstances and the Navy’s judgement was that in this particular instance this was such a case. It is a fact that the media have been making direct contact with the families and offering them significant sums of money – this is not something that the Navy and the MoD have any control over. It was therefore decided to grant permission to speak to the media to those who sought it, in order to ensure that the Navy and the MoD had sight of what they were going to say – as well as providing proper media support.”
The exception that broke all the rules
London Times, 9 April 2007

"Colonel Bob Stewart, a former commander of British United Nations forces in Bosnia, said the official sanctioning of the media stories risked handing a propaganda victory to Iran. Warning that contradictory stories could emerge, Col Stewart said: 'The Iranians must be saying, ‘We are very glad we released them because actually the British are going to self-destruct on this one’.' There was speculation yesterday that the government might be happy for the sailors to promote their stories, as a way of countering Iranian propaganda over the televised 'confessions' broadcast while they were held captive. Sceptics also suggested ministers might be happy to have media attention diverted from the operational circumstances of the capture on to the actions of the individuals concerned."
MoD row over Iran captives’ media deals
Financial Times, 9 April 2007

"For the whole time that they were held captive in Iran, the saga of the 15 sailors and marines was primarily one of a battle over public relations. It is astonishing that on their return this battle has continued and that it has been the Ministry of Defence which has inflicted a defeat upon itself, and in the absence of any enemy."
All at Sea
London Times, 9 April 2009

"With hindsight it's clear that Eden was already committed to military action. Approaching the problem through the United Nations was unlikely to work, since in international law Nasser probably was within his rights to nationalise the Suez Canal Company. With the likelihood of armed conflict in mind, in fact Eden would ultimately engage in an illegal secret pact with France and Israel to provide a pretext to start it..... no one outside of a very few close confidants knew of Eden's single minded commitment to a military solution, and still less about the very secret plan hatched with the French and Israelis to provide a pretext for that military action to start.... Government preparations for war went largely unreported in detail having been the subject of two 'D' notices. That's the system by which press and broadcasters agree voluntarily to restrict reporting of matters relating to national security. Meanwhile unknown to any but his closest inner circle the plan for the Israelis to invade Egypt, thus allowing Britain and France to intervene on the pretext of keeping the waring sides apart, was ready to be put into action."
'A Comfort to the Enemy'
BBC Archive Hour, Saturday 4 November 2006 20:00-21:00 (Radio 4 FM)

"Lord Heseltine, the Conservative former defence secretary, is the latest to criticise the selling of stories by 15 former Iranian hostages, declaring he is 'appalled' by the Government decision to allow it.... Speaking on the Today programme this morning, he said: 'What an extraordinary story that people who every day take calculated risks with their lives are expected to earn relatively small sums of money whilst people who get themselves taken hostage, in circumstances which are worth exploring, can make a killing.'..... Des Browne, the Defence Secretary who is understood to have signed off the decision, was even facing claims that hostages could have been encouraged to 'tell all' to deflect attention from the circumstances of their capture and their 'confessions' while in Iran.....According to the Ministry of Defence, the decision was taken by the Royal Navy in consultation with the MoD. But Labour will be unable to avoid responsibility after officials privately admitted that it involved ministers 'at the highest level' - code for the Defence Secretary himself. Tony Blair was informed, said No 10."
Heseltine joins furore over sailors' stories
Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2007

"As a former Defence Secretary, I feel nothing but despair over an episode that could permanently damage the morale of our services... At every step of the saga, the political and military leaders have looked inept, from failing to protect properly the Royal Navy boarding party in the first place to sanctioning the sale of the captives' stories.....the Royal Navy's exercise appears to have been conducted without proper equipment or support, making it easy for Tehran's Revolutionary Guards to seize the unit without a fight. Good communications, armament and helicopter back-up all seem to have been lacking, even though the Iranians had made it obvious that they were looking for a chance to interfere.... We are told that by agreeing to allow Press interviews the Ministry kept some degree of control. Really! Why did they need it? What were they fearful the hostages might say?.... Given the extent of this mess, we must have a public inquiry into what has happened. Such an inquiry would have to examine three fundamental issues. First, it should look into the exact circumstances of the detention of the Royal Navy party, studying in particular the alleged lack of support from the nearby task force headed by HMS Cornwall. We need to know why the raiding party was so pitifully armed and seemed to have no cover from any helicopter.... Second, we have to find out who actually took the decision to allow the personnel to sell their stories. At what level was it made in the MoD? Was the Defence Secretary consulted, or indeed the Prime Minister? What was the reasoning behind this radical departure from official policy?"
Heseltine: 'Humiliating and inept, and only one man is to blame'
Daily Mail, 10 April 2007

IRAN CAPTIVES TIMELINE

"A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines. Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds. In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment. Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. "
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Independent, 3 April 2007

Iran captives: Timeline - 84 days
London Times, April 5, 2007

January 11 Five Iranians at the Iranian Consulate in Arbil detained by Iraqi and American forces

February 4 Jalal Sharafi, second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, is kidnapped by men wearing Iraqi uniforms

February 7 Ali Resa Asgari, former Iranian Deputy Defence Minister and Revolutionary Guard general, goes missing while on holiday in Turkey

February 20 Second US aircraft carrier arrives in the Gulf, backed by 6,500 sailors and Marines and minesweeping ships

March 23 Eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines seized by Iranian forces close to mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway

March 24 Britain demands the immediate release of the boarding party. Iran says Britons have confessed to entering Iranian waters illegally and gives the coordinates. In New York, the United Nations Security Council imposes sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment

March 25 Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, informs the Iranian Foreign Minister that his compass position shows a point outside Iran’s waters

March 26 Iran changes the coordinates

March 27 Tony Blair threatens a “different phase” unless Iran frees the detainees. Off the Iranian coast, the United States begins the biggest military exercise in the Gulf since the invasion of Iraq in 2003

March 28 Iran broadcasts footage of Leading Seaman Faye Turney, confessing that she crossed the border

March 29 Tehran suspends the release of Leading Seaman Turney

April 2 Ali Larijani, the head of the Iranian National Security Council, becomes the first senior official to say there is no need to put the Britons on trial

April 3 Jalal Sharafi, the Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Baghdad, is freed and returned to Tehran

April 4 Iran is told it can at last have access to the five detainees from Arbil. President Ahmadinejad says he will free the Britons

Iraqi Government Tried To Diffuse The Crisis By Getting The Arbil Five Released
But The US Refused (What Kind Of Iraqi Sovereignty Is That?)
Only Consular Access Was Provided

"The Iraqi government also played a critical role, pushing for consular access to five Iranians who had been arrested by US forces in Irbil and had been in custody since January, and helping organise the mysterious release of an Iranian diplomat who had been in captivity since February...."
Americans offered 'aggressive patrols' in Iranian airspace
Guardian, 7 April 2007

"Although President Bush said that he, like Mr Blair, opposed any 'quid pro quos', Iran began to enjoy some pleasant surprises. An Iranian diplomat who vanished after being kidnapped in Baghdad by men wearing Iraqi uniforms was suddenly found, freed and returned to Tehran. A news agency reported that Iran was being granted access to five Iranians detained for three months by America after being removed from a consulate in Iraq. The Iranian new year is a traditional time for prisoners to be granted amnesty."
The diplomatic tightrope walk that led the 15 from captivity
London Times, 5 April 2007

".....although both Iran and Britain deny any link between the sailors’ case and that of the Iranians seized in Iraq, the crisis brought the issue of the Iranian captives to the surface. In an attempt to help Britain the Iraqi government stepped up its calls on the US to act. An Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Baghdad by what Iraqi officials say was 'a lone security agency' – which Iran had alleged was under US authority – was suddenly released on Tuesday. And Wednesday, Iran’s official news agency said Tehran would for the first time be given access to the five Iranians held by US forces since January although the US military said it was only 'assessing' the request."
Theatre in Tehran as Iran releases sailors
Financial Times, 4 April 2007

"President George W. Bush said on Tuesday his administration was consulting with Britain on Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines but that there would be no swap of the Britons for Iranians held in Iraq. The Iraqi government is trying to secure the release of five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in northern Iraq in January, as the British government seeks freedom for the British military personnel seized by Iran March 20 on charges of being in Iranian waters....McCormack declined to comment on the status of the five Iranians held by U.S. forces in Iraq. Washington says they were detained because they were providing improvised explosives to Iraqi militants for use against U.S. troops and Iraqis. Asked about reports that Iraq was pushing for the United States to release the five Iranians in Baghdad in the hope of encouraging Iran to free the 15 British sailors and Marines held by Iran, McCormack said the cases were not linked. 'We reject out of hand any attempt to link the two,' he said. 'To do so only creates a set of incentives that would encourage more such behavior either by the Iranian government or others in unjustly seizing individuals.'"
Bush sees no swap for British sailors in Iran
Reuters, 3 April 2007

"Iran has warned neighbouring Iraq that its failure to secure the release of five Iranians detained there by U.S. forces could impair Tehran's cooperation with Baghdad, a senior official was quoted on Sunday as saying. 'We are serious about the way we will confront those behind the arrest of the Iranian diplomats in Iraq,' the semi-official Fars news agency, seen as close to the Revolutionary Guards, quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying. 'On Friday I sent a letter to the Iraqi foreign minister and other officials in Iraq and pointed out that their efforts over the release of the diplomats have had no results and I emphasised that if this situation continues we will have problems in taking other steps to help Iraq,' he said. Earlier on Sunday, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iran had refused to allow a plane carrying the Iraqi leader on a trip to Asia to cross its air space overnight.... Mottaki, whose comments were originally made to an Iranian television channel, added that Iran had requested the help of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over the arrested Iranians. The U.S. military has said it is considering an Iranian request to visit the men. An International Committee of the Red Cross team has visited the detained Iranians twice, a U.S. military official said on Friday."
Iran warns Iraq over Iranians held by U.S. forces
Reuters, 8 April 2007

"Iran refused to allow a plane carrying Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on a trip to Asia to cross its airspace overnight, a senior adviser to the Iraqi leader said. Sadiq al-Rikabi, who is accompanying Maliki on the trip to Japan and South Korea, said the prime minister's plane entered Iranian airspace about 8.30pm on Saturday. 'Suddenly the Iranian aviation authorities ordered the pilot to go back,' Rikabi said.... Rikabi said it was unclear why Iran had barred Maliki's plane from crossing its territory. Other Iraqi officials could not be reached to see if Iran was aware Maliki's plane would be crossing its airspace. No immediate comment was available from Iranian officials. Iraq's US-backed government has often had to tread a delicate path in trying to maintain good relations with both Iran, its neighbour to the east, and the United States.... Iraq's foreign minister said last week the Iraqi government was trying to secure the release of the five Iranians, who were detained by US forces during a raid on an Iranian government office in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on January 11. An Iranian diplomat freed two months after being kidnapped in Baghdad by gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms has said he was tortured by US forces while in captivity, Iran's Fars News Agency reported on Saturday. Iran has previously blamed the US military for his abduction but US officials had denied any role. On Saturday the US military again denied playing any part in kidnapping the diplomat, or in his alleged torture. Iraq has said it did not know who had snatched the diplomat."
Iran bars Iraq PM from its airspace - Iraq official
Reuters, 9 April 2007

"The Times understands that appeals for more firepower to protect Britain’s UN-mandated patrols in the Gulf were repeatedly turned down by Whitehall."
Deaths fuel Iran row
London Times, 6 April 2007

"Iranian intelligence officers told the 15 British captives they first became suspicious about their activities after watching an interview with one of them on British television. Families of the hostages said that their loved ones had told them the Iranians had made the claim soon after capturing them. The revelation is likely to raise questions about the Ministry of Defence's decision to allow the media to accompany Cornwall, the ship on which the service personnel were based, and report on its activities. On 13 March - 10 days before the 15 were seized - Channel 5 broadcast an interview with Captain Chris Air, one of the captured Royal Marines, in which he stated that his crew's role was to liaise with Iraqi vessels to 'let them know we are here to protect them, protect their fishing and to stop any terrorism or any piracy in the area'. The Iranian interrogators told their captives, who were seized while travelling in two dinghies during a patrol, that this had alerted them to Cornwall's role. However, Channel 5 said it had taken care to edit the footage so as not to jeopardise the frigate's activities or the safety of the hostages once they had been taken by the Iranians. The full footage of the interview with Air was not released to the media until after the hostages had been released. In the footage that was held back, Air confirmed the ship was engaged in collecting information on the Iranians from passing shipping traffic. 'It's partly a hearts and minds type patrol,' Air said. 'Secondly, it's to gather int [intelligence] if they do have any information, because they're here for days at a time. They can share it with us whether it's about piracy or any sort of Iranian activity in the area, because obviously we're right by the buffer zone with Iran.' The MoD confirmed last night that the Iranians had made the claim that they had become interested in Cornwall's activities after learning about it on British television, but denied the decision to allow the ship's crew to be interviewed while on active duty had jeopardised the mission.... The MoD's decision to allow media access to Cornwall had been welcomed by newspapers and broadcasters keen to tell the story of the navy's role in patrolling the seas off Iraq. Also on board the frigate was a BBC film crew and a journalist from the Independent But as attention now turns to the MoD's role in handling the affair, questions are likely to be asked as to whether lessons will have to be learnt regarding the media's relationship with the armed forces."
TV interview 'tipped off' Iran about ship's intelligence role
Observer, 8 April 2007

"With hindsight it's clear that Eden was already committed to military action. Approaching the problem through the United Nations was unlikely to work, since in international law Nasser probably was within his rights to nationalise the Suez Canal Company. With the likelihood of armed conflict in mind, in fact Eden would ultimately engage in an illegal secret pact with France and Israel to provide a pretext to start it..... no one outside of a very few close confidants knew of Eden's single minded commitment to a military solution, and still less about the very secret plan hatched with the French and Israelis to provide a pretext for that military action to start.... Government preparations for war went largely unreported in detail having been the subject of two 'D' notices. That's the system by which press and broadcasters agree voluntarily to restrict reporting of matters relating to national security. Meanwhile unknown to any but his closest inner circle the plan for the Israelis to invade Egypt, thus allowing Britain and France to intervene on the pretext of keeping the waring sides apart, was ready to be put into action."
'A Comfort to the Enemy'
BBC Archive Hour, Saturday 4 November 2006 20:00-21:00 (Radio 4 FM)

"To mark the 50th anniversary of the Suez Crisis of 1956, Professor Scott Lucas uses new evidence to uncover the key role played by British intelligence services in 'creating' the war with Egypt. To tell this story for the first time, Professor Lucas presents a number of interviews which he conducted with British officials in the late Eighties. These interviews have never been aired and many were 'classified' until the deaths of the interviewees. They include the recollections of [Conservative MP] Julian Amery, who met the anti-Nasser plotters in Geneva and Athens up to the end of August 1956. He reveals the details of the conversations and only drew the line at revealing the identities of his Egyptian conspirators. For many years, the blame for Suez has been placed on Prime Minister Anthony Eden and his lack of judgement. This documentary will contend, however, that British intelligence was plotting for the downfall of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser long before Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company in July 1956 and even before Eden's expressed wish in March that year to get rid of the Egyptian leader."
Archive Hour – Suez: The Missing Dimension
BBC Press Office, October 2006

"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library, Texas
10 Downing St, 7 April 2002

"Tony Blair has said his foreign policy is 'controversial' but his approach of military intervention must continue."
Blair defends intervention policy
BBC Online, 12 January 2007

"A Knighthood for the MI6 chief behind the sexed-up 'dodgy dossier' that helped take Britain into the Iraq war was branded an abuse of the honours system last night.... No reason for the award is given except for his 'diplomatic service'.... At the time of the dodgy dossier Scarlett was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.... Scarlett has spent more than 30 years working for MI6 ..."
SIR SEX-UP
Daily Mirror, 30 December 2006

"Tony Blair provoked an unprecedented political storm last night by surprisingly appointing the man who helped to clear him in the Hutton inquiry as Britain’s top spymaster. Risking charges of cronyism, the Prime Minister made John Scarlett, whose high-profile evidence countered charges that Downing Street had 'sexed up' the dossier on Iraqi weapons, the head of MI6. It was a break with tradition because deputies of MI6 usually succeed to the top job and the current holder of that post, Nigel Inkster, had been groomed to take over. Last night Mr Inkster’s future was in doubt.... The Times has confirmed that Mr Blair approved without question the recommendation of Mr Scarlett that came from a selection panel chaired by Sir David Omand, the intelligence and security coordinator. The panel found that Mr Scarlett was 'on merit' the top candidate. The only other candidate on the shortlist was Mr Inkster, the current deputy to Sir Richard Dearlove. Sir Richard had appointed him to the No 2 slot with the understanding that he was the chosen insider to take over. Previous assistant chiefs had all moved up to become the head of MI6. This was the case with Sir Richard himself."
Cronyism row over new MI6 spymaster
London Times, 7 May 2004

The 'Intelligence Failures'
The Persian Gulf Is The Most Sensitive Military Location In The World
How Many 'Errors' In This Situation Are Required Before The Story Is No Longer Credible?

"The shambles also relates to how and why these people were picked up in the first place. The Royal Navy appears to have been inept."
Lt-Gen Sir Michael Gray, former commander of 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment
Tied up, blindfolded, waiting to die: the truth about the hostages' ordeal
Independent, 8 April 2007

"'The Royal Navy have got some questions to answer,' said Charles Heyman, a former defense studies lecturer at the Royal Air Force College who also served as a general staff officer in the British army. 'Why did that boarding party not have proper air cover? Why did they board the ship on the blind side? I don't think that crew was properly trained,' he said.... 'The prime minister will want to know — and I think it is that serious — what the rules of engagement were to deal with this situation. He'll want to know why the captain of the [Royal Navy frigate Cornwall] didn't know what was going on, why his helicopter wasn't there, why they didn't know there were [Iranian Revolutionary] Guard Corps people in the area... 'I have to say, there are lots of former naval people I've talked to in the last two weeks who are very disappointed in the whole course of events, and they think it makes the whole Royal Navy look completely ineffective."
With British naval crew's return, the questions begin
Los Angeles Times, 6 April 2007

"Intelligence failures are also being blamed for the incident. British troops in southern Iraq had been warned of the dangers of being taken hostage, after Iran openly threatened to capture American or British soldiers. They had been authorised to use 'maximum force' to protect themselves. And yet, on the eve of a UN Security Council vote on a British resolution to impose sanctions against Iran, no warning was given to the boarding party about the dangers to which they were being exposed."
Deaths fuel Iran row
London Times, 6 April 2007

"The Iranians made it clear more than three weeks ago that they were looking to capture 'blond-haired and blue-eyed officers'."
Patrick Mercer, Conservative MP for Newark, and a former Army colonel
We showed weakness and will pay the price
Sunday Telegraph, 8 April 2007

"The party of eight sailors and seven Marines were already exhausted when they set off to inspect a suspicious Indian vessel in the Gulf on the morning of Friday, March 23. They had just completed a draining day visiting local fishing craft to hunt for drugs and weapons in the perilous waters near the Iran-Iraq border. Arthur Batchelor, the baby of the group at 20, had e-mailed his girlfriend the previous night: 'Sorry I never wrote back sooner, was kinda busy, 17-hour days yesterday but today will be better . . .' Before going to bed Dean Harris, a Marine, had checked his messages on Myspace and e-mailed a friend: 'Let’s go away for a lads’ holiday when I get back.' He did not know Iran’s Revolutionary Guards already had a more arduous foreign break planned for him. The party set out in two rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) for what seemed like a routine mission, the 67th such boarding by the Royal Navy since early March. Britain is leading the patrolling of the waters on behalf of the United Nations. The coxswain of one of the boats was Faye Turney, mother of three-year-old Molly and a Wren proud to say she could do her job as well as any man. At 7.39am, the team boarded the vessel. A Lynx helicopter overhead saw that the master was friendly and returned to HMS Cornwall. The patrol’s only link to the ship was via a satellite device beaming coordinates. At 9.10am, as the boarding was completed, the signal went dead. By the time the helicopter was airborne all the crew could see was the two little boats being escorted in Iranian waters by Revolutionary Guard patrols. The British, lightly armed with rifles and pistols, were hopelessly outgunned and had no choice but to go quietly. One burst of machinegun fire from the Iranians and the inflatables would have been sunk."
The diplomatic tightrope walk that led the 15 from captivity
London Times, 5 April 2007

What About The People Who Brought You The Iraq Dodgy Dossier?
Did MI6 Bother To Brief The Navy Properly On The Threat?

"There are also concerns that Royal Navy commanders had inadequate intelligence that may have made them complacent. Iranian military commanders had been giving warning publicly for weeks that they intended to capture American or British forces in Iraq in retaliation for the arrest in January of five Iranian officials by US troops. British servicemen were particularly at risk on March 23 since Britain was pushing through a UN Security Council resolution the next day, imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme."
Inquiry begins into errors that led to crew’s ambush
London Times, 6 April 2007

"July 2006: Hezbollah militants cross into Israel, kill three Israeli soldiers and kidnap two others in a bid to negotiate a prisoner exchange, a demand rebuffed by Israel. Another five Israeli soldiers are killed after the ambush. Israel responds with a naval blockade and by bombing hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including Beirut's airport and Hezbollah's headquarters in southern Beirut. Hezbollah responds with rocket attacks targeting northern Israeli cities. Fighting leaves dozens of Lebanese civilians dead and coincides with a two-week-old Israeli military campaign in Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants."
Timeline: Decades of conflict in Lebanon, Israel
CNN, 14 July 2006

In Response To The Release Of The British Captives
Blair's Claim About The Deaths Of British Servicemen In Iraq May, Or May Not, Be True
But If He Acknowledges That It Is Too Early To Know Then Why Mention It?
Blair Sounds Like A Man Who Wants To 'Get' Iran Whatever The Circumstances

" Tony Blair today warned that 'elements of the Iranian regime' were arming insurgents in Iraq after it was confirmed four British troops were killed in Basra last night. As the BA flight carrying the 15 Royal Navy personnel freed by Iran yesterday landed at Heathrow, Mr Blair emerged from No 10 and welcomed their return but said it came as 'grieving' began over the four fatalities in Basra.... Mr Blair said it was 'too early' to know if there was a direct link to Iran in the latest British fatalities but repeated claims he has made before of general Iranian involvement in arming insurgents. He said: 'Now it is far too early to say that the particular terrorist act that killed our forces was an act committed by terrorists that were backed by any elements of the Iranian regime, so I make no allegation in respect of that particular incident. 'But the general picture, as I have said before, is that there are elements of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming and supporting terrorism in Iraq.'.... Mr Blair first warned in October 2005 of concerns over improvised explosive device technology and weaponry coming from Iran..... However, no incontrovertible proof of links to Iran has been presented by the US or UK."
Blair suspects Iran's hand in Iraq attacks
Guardian, 5 April 2007

Blair Seems To Have Been Running A Different Strategy (Escalation) To The Foreign Office
As Was The Case Over The 2006 War In Lebanon

"The London-based brother of the Iranian general who personally ordered the kidnapping of the 15 servicemen in the Shatt al-Arab waterway condemned Britain’s ingratitude after their release last week.... Safavi, who is in close contact with his brother in Iran, warned that the Tehran leadership has been angry about British reaction since the hostages arrived home and hinted at a tougher response in future. He said in his first interview: 'Tony Blair is unfair. Only a day after we released his soldiers Blair denounced Iran and described us as a country that supports terrorism. This is unacceptable. 'Blair is just like George W Bush. After we cooperated with America in Afghanistan against the Taliban, Bush called us part of the axis of evil.' His closeness to the thinking of the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards makes his remarks significant. General Safavi is regarded as a strongman and a key player in Tehran. His brother, who has lived in London for several years, alleged that there had been several recent unreported incursions by the Royal Navy into waters that Iran regards as its territory. 'It was not the first time your navy entered our territory,' he said. 'It has happened three times in the past and when it happened for the fourth time, we said enough is enough. It is not a joke.' ”
Say thank you, says hostage taker’s brother
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"A rift has opened up between Downing Street and the Foreign Office over Israel's continued bombing of Lebanon and the high civilian death toll. Tony Blair is publicly highly supportive of Israel and has declined to call for an immediate ceasefire. But some in the Foreign Office are now privately urging greater restraint by Israel amid concern that the scale of the bombardment is counter-productive, disproportionate, and undermining the political stability of the Lebanese government. Margaret Beckett, who only became foreign secretary three months ago, is trying to straddle the divide between Downing Street and her department..... her junior minister, Kim Howells - due to travel to the region today - was more openly critical of the Israelis, as well as Hizbullah, reflecting the mood among many British diplomats and most Labour MPs. Mr Howells revealed the Foreign Office 'had repeatedly urged Israel to act proportionately, to conform with international law and to avoid the appalling civilian deaths and suffering we are witnessing on our television screens'....No 10 has given no sign that it is shifting from its support of the US position of giving Israel time to reduce Hizbullah's military capacity. In private, the Foreign Office, which has a reputation as being traditionally pro-Arabist, is sceptical about the Israeli strategy and its impact on the wider Middle East...."
Downing St and Foreign Office at odds on Lebanon
Guardian, 21 July 2006

"Dramatic new evidence that Cabinet rebel Jack Straw was sacked as Foreign Secretary as a result of pressure from George W. Bush has been revealed. Senior sources close to the US Government told The Mail on Sunday that Mr Straw's outspoken opposition to America's policies on the Middle East was discussed by White House aides weeks before his shock dismissal by Tony Blair in May.... He angered the White House by saying that threats to bomb Iran to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons - a course of action which Mr Bush and Mr Blair have refused to rule out - were 'nuts'. A US source told The Mail on Sunday: 'Mr Straw's views did not find favour in the White House and its concerns were passed on to the British Government.... Some Foreign Office insiders say it could be part of an American plan to pave the way for an attack on Iran next year."
U.S. 'told Blair to sack Straw after Condi's Blackburn trip'
Mail On Sunday, 6 August 2006

"When Jack Straw was replaced by Margaret Beckett as Foreign Secretary, it seemed an almost inexplicable event. Mr Straw had been very competent — experienced, serious, moderate and always well briefed. Margaret Beckett is embarrassingly inexperienced. I made inquiries in Washington and was told that Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had taken exception to Mr Straw’s statement that it would be 'nuts' to bomb Iran. The United States, it was said, had put pressure on Tony Blair to change his Foreign Secretary. Mr Straw had been fired at the request of the Bush Administration, particularly at the Pentagon.....Yesterday the Mail on Sunday went back for a second look at the story in the light of subsequent events, particularly the Israeli counter-attack on Lebanon. A US source told them that 'Mr Straw’s views did not find favour in the White House and its concerns were passed on to the British Government'. That confirms that the Foreign Secretary was effectively dismissed by an American President...... Mr Straw was in a relatively strong political position at the time that he was moved to the job of Leader of the House of Commons. His statement on Iran must have been calculated. He was probably right to think that it would be 'nuts' to bomb Iran, because that might have led to a critical rise in the oil price — experts talk of a price of between $100 and $150 a barrel. It could also have led to a Shia revolt in Iraq. If Iran had been attacked, by the US or by Israel, Mr Straw might have resigned rather than give Britain’s support. It is also possible that Mr Straw was moved sideways because Mr Blair already had preliminary information that Israel planned to hit back hard at any aggression by Hezbollah. When the Hezbollah kidnapping and the Israeli counter-attack took place, the United States and Britain jointly refused to call for an immediate ceasefire. The fighting, with its terrible impact on Lebanon, has now continued for four weeks. There is an allegation that Israel’s plans for the counter-strike were given to the Americans, and that information was passed to the Prime Minister. These questions will be pressed if Parliament is recalled. Obviously Mr Straw’s potential resignation in these circumstances would have been very difficult for the Prime Minister.... The American neocons, including Donald Rumsfeld and the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, still take a more messianic view on the possibility of democratising the Middle East. The Bush-Blair partnership is still poised uneasily between the hawks of the Pentagon and the doves of the State Department. It was a bad mistake for Tony Blair to sack Jack Straw, who was handling this divergence rather well. It was also an insult to our national independence."
Lord Rees-Mogg - How the US fired Jack Straw
London Times, 7 August 2007

Psyops Injected From The White House
Pushing The 'Hostages' Button In The Collective Psyche
It Is Not Possible For A Democracy To Go To War Unless Its Population Is Sufficiently Frightened Or Outraged

"With support for the war in Iraq ebbing away in America, the appetite for military action against Iran has also been receding."
Iran laughs at Easter 'gift' of humiliation
Sunday Times, 8 April 2007

"On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than sixty Americans hostage. 'From the moment the hostages were seized until they were released minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as president 444 days later,' wrote historian Gaddis Smith, 'the crisis absorbed more concentrated effort by American officials and had more extensive coverage on television and in the press than any other event since World War II.'.... For the first few months, the American public rallied around Carter, who had clearly made freeing the hostages his number one priority. 'Having a crisis, where you have to stay in Washington and deal with this crisis all the time, and be a statesman, can work to your advantage -- rally around the president in a crisis,' says political scientist Betty Glad. 'What Carter didn't foresee is, this enormous investment means you have to have a resolution to the issue.'"
People & Events: The Iranian Hostage Crisis, November 1979 - January 1981
Public Broadcasting Service, USA (Undated)

"President Bush, when finally invited to speak by Tony Blair, called the 15 sailors and Marines 'hostages', but that cast the dispute in the terms of a bargain, as if Iran were seeking a specified reward. Had that been its prime motive, then a few Iraqi gestures over detained diplomats would have been too flimsy to warrant the release (and in any case, Iraq is defying international obligations in withholding access, as Iran was in the last fortnight)."
Showman keeps everyone in dark to the last flourish
London Times, 6 April 2007

"The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid..... The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: 'Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.' He identified Iran and Syria as America's main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. 'So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?' he asked. 'Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries.' It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House's new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials. For more than a year the US and its allies have been trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat. The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades."
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Independent, 3 April 2007

"... the Iranians are convinced that separatist guerrilla attacks in Khuzestan and Baluchistan provinces are the work of British and US intelligence respectively. Earlier this week, ABC television news reported that a Baluchi group, Jundullah, based in Pakistan and carrying out raids inside Iran, had been receiving advice and encouragement from American officials since 2005..."
Americans offered 'aggressive patrols' in Iranian airspace
Guardian, 7 April 2007

"A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News. The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran. It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or 'finding' as well as congressional oversight. Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states. Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan. The leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians.... Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February. A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context. Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s."
The Secret War Against Iran
ABC News, 3 April 2007

"As Americans honor those 2403 men, women, and children killed—and 1178 wounded—in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, recently released government documents concerning that 'surprise' raid compel us to revisit some troubling questions. At issue is American foreknowledge of Japanese military plans to attack Hawaii by a submarine and carrier force 59 years ago. There are two questions at the top of the foreknowledge list: (1) whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his top military chieftains provoked Japan into an 'overt act of war' directed at Hawaii, and (2) whether Japan’s military plans were obtained in advance by the United States but concealed from the Hawaiian military commanders, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short so they would not interfere with the overt act. The latter question was answered in the affirmative on October 30, 2000, when President Bill Clinton signed into law, with the support of a bipartisan Congress, the National Defense Authorization Act. Amidst its omnibus provisions, the Act reverses the findings of nine previous Pearl Harbor investigations and finds that both Kimmel and Short were denied crucial military intelligence that tracked the Japanese forces toward Hawaii and obtained by the Roosevelt Administration in the weeks before the attack. Congress was specific in its finding against the 1941 White House: Kimmel and Short were cut off from the intelligence pipeline that located Japanese forces advancing on Hawaii. Then, after the successful Japanese raid, both commanders were relieved of their commands, blamed for failing to ward off the attack, and demoted in rank..... Roosevelt believed that provoking Japan into an attack on Hawaii was the only option he had in 1941 to overcome the powerful America First non-interventionist movement led by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. These anti-war views were shared by 80 percent of the American public from 1940 to 1941. Though Germany had conquered most of Europe, and her U-Boats were sinking American ships in the Atlantic Ocean—including warships—Americans wanted nothing to do with 'Europe’s War.'.... Memorialized in McCollum’s secret memo dated October 7, 1940, and recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the ONI proposal called for eight provocations aimed at Japan. Its centerpiece was keeping the might of the U.S. Fleet based in the Territory of Hawaii as a lure for a Japanese attack. President Roosevelt acted swiftly. The very next day, October 8, 1940, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet, Admiral James O. Richardson, was summoned to the Oval Office and told of the provocative plan by the President. In a heated argument with FDR, the admiral objected to placing his sailors and ships in harm’s way. Richardson was then fired and in his place FDR selected an obscure naval officer, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, to command the fleet in Hawaii. Kimmel was promoted to a four-star admiral and took command on February 1, 1941. In a related appointment, Walter Short was promoted from Major General to a three-star Lieutenant General and given command of U.S. Army troops in Hawaii. Throughout 1941, FDR implemented the remaining seven provocations. He then gauged Japanese reaction through intercepted and decoded communications intelligence originated by Japan’s diplomatic and military leaders....As I explained to a policy forum audience at The Independent Institute in Oakland, California, which was videotaped and telecast nationwide over the Fourth of July holiday earlier this year, my research of U.S. naval records shows that not only were Kimmel and Short cut off from the Japanese communications intelligence pipeline, so were the American people. It is a coverup that has lasted for nearly 59 years."
Robert B. Stinnett, Research Fellow at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. and the author of Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941: A Setup from the Beginning
Honolulu Advertiser, 7 December 2000

"Britain is ready to discuss with Iran the whole question of territorial waters in the northern Gulf, the issue which was ostensibly the cause of the crisis, military officials said yesterday. 'Who claims what waters needs to be resolved; there's no legal binding agreement,' observed a senior defence source. But before that the 15 sailors and marines seized by Iranian revolutionary guards will be debriefed, the navy will conduct a postmortem and a board of inquiry will be set up. They will address a host of questions, not least about training and the rules of engagement, defence officials admitted...... They will look again at Iran's claims that the crew of two British boats which boarded the Indian-flagged merchant vessel 13 days ago were in Iranian waters. 'If the incident occurred where the MoD claims, the British position appears strong but there are sufficient uncertainties over boundary definition to make it inadvisable to state categorically that the vessel was in Iraqi waters at the time of the arrest,' said Martin Pratt, of Durham University's International Boundaries Research Unit."
Bilateral talks on disputed Gulf waters on agenda
Guardian, 5 April 2007

".... HMS Cornwall remained at sea off the coast of Iraq last night, those on board all too painfully aware that 15 of their crew had not come back that night and were being held prisoner just miles away across the border by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. Only hours before I had been out on patrol with the group as they chatted to local fishermen as part of a 'hearts-and-minds' operation instigated by the British when they took over command of the coalition force off the coast of Iraq three weeks ago.... ... The hearts-and-minds operation was instigated by the British Commodore, Nick Lambert.... Last night, Commodore Lambert denied his men had strayed into Iranian waters, insisting they were half a mile inside Iraq around Marakkat Abd Allah."
Iran kidnaps Marines at gunpoint
By Terri Judd, aboard HMS Cornwall in the Persian Gulf
Independent, 24 March 2007

"....minutes later, half a dozen large Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy fast-attack speedboats mounted with machine guns suddenly appeared and ambushed the British sailors as they returned to their two small rhibs. Soon as many as 15 to 20 boats encircled the trapped team. Frequently the odd IRGCN patrol boat has been spotted dipping across the often disputed water border but polite, firm negotiations has always seen them depart. They have, according to Commodore Nick Lambert, the head of the coalition task force in the area, maintained 'a healthy professional respect'. This time, however, he insisted, the Iranians were clearly half a mile into Iraqi waters around Marakkat Abd Allah and in vast numbers.... Yesterday morning, reporters on board the F99 frigate, including from The Independent, were ordered off and flown to Bahrain as the diplomatic row intensified. "
Marines 'confess' to Iranian captors
Terri Judd, the only newspaper journalist on HMS 'Cornwall', reports
Independent, 25 March 2007

"Friday began the same way as the day before. The helicopter took off and the two black inflatable boats and their crew were put to sea, on the same routine patrols we had seen. We were on the deck of the Cornwall with the crew on hand with logistical support, cups of tea and large doses of banter. Then everything changed. Friday began the same way as the day before. The helicopter took off and the two black inflatable boats and their crew were put to sea, on the same routine patrols we had seen. We were on the deck of the Cornwall with the crew on hand with logistical support, cups of tea and large doses of banter. Then everything changed. I stepped onto the bridge of the Cornwall, but the path was suddenly barred by a junior officer who held up his hand and asked me to wait outside. No-one wanted to talk or make eye contact. Our ever-cheerful minder was hauled off while we stood in a corridor waiting, trying to deconstruct what was happening. We were called in to talk to Commodore Nick Lambert, the coalition task force commander. A genial host, he had already given us the kind of welcome and insight that is rare among the often starched diffidence of military men. But now he was tense. 'We have lost 15 people,' he said. He explained how the 15 sailors and marines had been surrounded and captured at gunpoint. They were already being held at a small Iranian naval base across the border. For the moment, we were sworn to secrecy while the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office were alerted and the families contacted."
Concern and hope on HMS Cornwall
BBC Online, 25 March 2007

"Like most senior Royal Navy officers, Commodore Nick Lambert has great reserves of professional expertise and common sense. The Coalition task force commander was aboard HMS Cornwall when 15 Royal Navy personnel serving on the frigate were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces on March 23. few hours after the 15 were seized, Cdre Lambert said: 'There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated. And his predecessor in command of the task force, Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal Australian Navy, said last October: 'No maritime border has been agreed upon by the countries.' Both officers told the truth. It is the burial of this truth by No 10 spin doctors, and Tony Blair's remark that he is 'utterly certain' the incident took place within Iraqi territorial limits, that has escalated this from an incident to a crisis. Blair is being fatuous."
CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section
How I Know Blair Faked Iran Map
Mail On Sunday, 1 April 2007'

"Changing co-ordinates on a map to show that your enemy has strayed into your own waters is not just an Iranian trick. Twenty-five years ago, in the midst of the Falklands war, the British did it fairly effectively as well. Indeed, the way that the Ministry of Defence manipulated the information it gave out in the course of the conflict was to become a model of its kind, to be developed and used later in the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq. It was all done in a very British way, of course, justified and defended on the ground that it helped to deceive the enemy. But it was propaganda all the same, so no one quite knew what to believe..... When SAS troops crash-landed on occupied South Georgia, the news was withheld, despite widespread rumours that the task force had made a landing. MacDonald, asked to confirm the news, denied it. After all, he reasoned later, the SAS men were special forces, not part of the main task force, and in any event they had crashed, not landed.... Famously, the Belgrano was attacked by the nuclear submarine Conqueror when it was heading away from the task force, a fact concealed in the House of Commons, but emerged, almost unnoticed, when a Sunday Times reporter, George Rosie, interviewed one of Conqueror’s petty officers, Billy Guinea, on his return to base. Guinea gave a riveting account of how he had established the exclusion zone by drawing an arbitrary circle on his map, which justified the subsequent decision by the war Cabinet to sink the Argentine battleship.... ”
25 years on, the art of military propaganda is not dead
London Times, 4 April 2007

"On a crisp spring morning in 1973 a pale and emaciated man made his way slowly across the Lo Wu bridge from China into Hong Kong. A British soldier at the frontier post saluted him as he approached. This was, the man later reflected, 'the first act of dignity shown to him in 20 years'. His name was Jack Downey. He was a CIA agent, and since 1952 he and a colleague, Richard Fect

Iran captives: Timeline - 84 days London Times, April 5, 2007

Iran captives: Timeline - 84 days
London Times, April 5, 2007