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 The Pentagon Early Bird 6 Jan 2008 E A R L Y B I R D January 6, 2008 Use of these news articles does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Story numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) PAKISTAN
New York Times January 6, 2008 Pg. 1 U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan By Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt WASHINGTON — President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said. Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections. Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both Mr. Musharraf and Pakistan’s new military leadership were likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions. Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces. The Bush administration has not formally presented any new proposals to Mr. Musharraf, who gave up his military role last month, or to his successor as the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who the White House thinks will be more sympathetic to the American position than Mr. Musharraf. Early in his career, General Kayani was an aide to Ms. Bhutto while she was prime minister and later led the Pakistani intelligence service. But at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself,” one senior official said. The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources, officials said. Most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have been conducted by the C.I.A.; in Afghanistan, where military operations are under way, including some with NATO forces, the military can take the lead. The legal status would not change if the administration decided to act more aggressively. However, if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency. The United States now has about 50 soldiers in Pakistan. Any expanded operations using C.I.A. operatives or Special Operations forces, like the Navy Seals, would be small and tailored to specific missions, military officials said. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was on vacation last week and did not attend the White House meeting, said in late December that “Al Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people.” In the past, the administration has largely stayed out of the tribal areas, in part for fear that exposure of any American-led operations there would so embarrass the Musharraf government that it could further empower his critics, who have declared he was too close to Washington. Even now, officials say, some in the State Department argue that American-led military operations on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan could result in a tremendous backlash and ultimately do more harm than good. That is particularly true, they say, if Americans were captured or killed in the territory. In part, the White House discussions may be driven by a desire for another effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. Currently, C.I.A. operatives and Special Operations forces have limited authority to conduct counterterrorism missions in Pakistan based on specific intelligence about the whereabouts of those two men, who have eluded the Bush administration for more than six years, or of other members of their terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, hiding in or near the tribal areas. The C.I.A. has launched missiles from Predator aircraft in the tribal areas several times, with varying degrees of success. Intelligence officials said they believed that in January 2006 an airstrike narrowly missed killing Mr. Zawahri, who had attended a dinner in Damadola, a Pakistani village. But that apparently was the last real evidence American officials had about the whereabouts of their chief targets. Critics said more direct American military action would be ineffective, anger the Pakistani Army and increase support for the militants. “I’m not arguing that you leave Al Qaeda and the Taliban unmolested, but I’d be very, very cautious about approaches that could play into hands of enemies and be counterproductive,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. American diplomats in South Asia have also issued strong warnings against expanded direct American action, officials said. Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani military and political analyst, said raids by American troops would prompt a powerful popular backlash against Mr. Musharraf and the United States. In the wake of the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, many Pakistanis suspect that the United States is trying to dominate Pakistan as well, Mr. Rizvi said. Mr. Musharraf — who is already widely unpopular — would lose even more popular support. “At the moment when Musharraf is extremely unpopular, he will face more crisis,” Mr. Rizvi said. “This will weaken Musharraf in a Pakistani context.” He said such raids would be seen as an overall vote of no confidence in the Pakistani military, including General Kayani. The meeting on Friday, which was not publicly announced, included Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and top intelligence officials. Spokesmen for the White House, the C.I.A. and the Pentagon declined to discuss the meeting, citing a policy against doing so. But the session reflected an urgent concern that a new Qaeda haven was solidifying in parts of Pakistan and needed to be countered, one official said. Although some officials and experts have criticized Mr. Musharraf and questioned his ability to take on extremists, Mr. Bush has remained steadfast in his support, and it is unlikely any new measures, including direct American military action inside Pakistan, will be approved without Mr. Musharraf’s consent. “He understands clearly the risks of dealing with extremists and terrorists,” Mr. Bush said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. “After all, they’ve tried to kill him.” The Pakistan government has identified a militant leader with links to Al Qaeda, Baitullah Mehsud, who holds sway in tribal areas near the Afghanistan border, as the chief suspect behind the attack on Ms. Bhutto. American officials are not certain about Mr. Mehsud’s complicity but say the threat he and other militants pose is a new focus. He is considered, they said, an “Al Qaeda associate.” In an interview with foreign journalists on Thursday, Mr. Musharraf warned of the risk any counterterrorism forces — American or Pakistani — faced in confronting Mr. Mehsud in his native tribal areas. “He is in South Waziristan agency, and let me tell you, getting him in that place means battling against thousands of people, hundreds of people who are his followers, the Mehsud tribe, if you get to him, and it will mean collateral damage,” Mr. Musharraf said. The weeks before parliamentary elections — which were originally scheduled for Tuesday — are seen as critical because of threats by extremists to disrupt the vote. But it seemed unlikely that any additional American effort would be approved and put in place in that time frame. Administration aides said that Pakistani and American officials shared the concern about a resurgent Qaeda, and that American diplomats and senior military officers had been working closely with their Pakistani counterparts to help bolster Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations. Shortly after Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, Adm. William J. Fallon, who oversees American military operations in Southwest Asia, telephoned his Pakistani counterparts to ensure that counterterrorism and logistics operations remained on track. In early December, Adm. Eric T. Olson, the new leader of the Special Operations Command, paid his second visit to Pakistan in three months to meet with senior Pakistani officers, including Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Admiral Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from border tribes that the United States is planning to help train and equip. But the Pakistanis are still years away from fielding an effective counterinsurgency force. And some American officials, including Defense Secretary Gates, have said the United States may have to take direct action against militants in the tribal areas. American officials said the crisis surrounding Ms. Bhutto’s assassination had not diminished the Pakistani counterterrorism operations, and there were no signs that Mr. Musharraf had pulled out any of his 100,000 forces in the tribal areas and brought them to the cities to help control the urban unrest. Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad, and David Rohde from New York. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571538.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times January 6, 2008 Pg. 1 Musharraf Apparently Riding Out Crisis The Pakistani leader was in a precarious position even before Bhutto's death, and he has taken steps to shore up his position. By Laura King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN — Candles flicker, petals scatter and bouquets slowly wilt at the spot where Benazir Bhutto was slain. Although some passers-by still break down in tears at the sight of this makeshift shrine, the pressing question for many Pakistanis as the outpouring of grief over her assassination subsides is whether President Pervez Musharraf will manage to survive this crisis, as he has so many others. In the first days after the Dec. 27 attack, the already unpopular Musharraf's grip on power seemed to hang in the balance. Riots raged for three days in Karachi, Bhutto's hometown, and across her home province of Sindh. Much of the fury over the killing of the former prime minister and one of the most popular politicians in the country's history was aimed directly at one man: the president. In a dozen cities, demonstrators shouted slogans such as "Musharraf, dog!" and "Musharraf, killer!" But a scant week later, analysts and observers said the Pakistani leader appeared to have weathered the storm, methodically taking a series of steps aimed at shoring up his position, at least in the short term. He deferred parliamentary elections that his foes still hope will become a referendum against him. He placated Western allies by agreeing to allow Scotland Yard to assist in the investigation of Bhutto's killing. He remained largely out of sight in the first days after the assassination, then resurfaced to coolly rebuff opposition calls for his resignation and insist that no one in his government bore blame for her death. Moreover, there were no signs that Pakistan's powerful military in this nuclear-armed country was wavering in its support for the man who was its chief until five weeks ago, when he stepped down under pressure from critics at home and even supporters abroad. At a meeting of corps commanders last week, senior generals did not appear to be seeking to distance themselves from him, at least not yet, longtime observers of the military said. Still, in the eyes of some, Musharraf's authority appeared frayed as never before. "There's only so long," said analyst Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier, "that you can hang on by the skin of your teeth." "In the short term, there seems to be no immediate threat to him," said Farzana Shaikh, an analyst at Britain's Chatham House think tank. "In the longer term, I don't see him continuing in office, because he is increasingly regarded by his own allies as a liability." Much will depend on signals from Washington, Musharraf's chief backer. The Bush administration has generally supported him through months of relentless turmoil, expressing only mild criticism late last year during six weeks of emergency rule, tantamount to martial law. Putting off until Feb. 18 elections that had been set for this week has given the former general some breathing room. Bhutto's party, now led by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, acting as regent to their teenage son, wanted the poll held as scheduled, sensing the likelihood of a groundswell of sympathy votes. But with the Election Commission dominated by his supporters, Musharraf was able to easily deflect that demand. Both the major opposition parties, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N, backed down from threats to flood the street with angry protesters. Eye on the election One important indicator of Musharraf's fortunes in coming weeks will be whether signs emerge that his ruling party is seeking to engage in massive vote-rigging, as Bhutto had alleged before her death. Before the assassination, many observers expected the vote to yield a parliament not dominated by any one party. Now, for the first time since he seized power in a coup in 1999, Musharraf runs the risk of facing a legislature prepared to defy him. "If the elections are fair, there is a possibility that the Pakistan People's Party could get a clean sweep," said Adil Najam, a professor of international politics at Boston University. An assertive parliament, he and others said, could move to reverse measures taken by Musharraf during emergency rule, particularly his dismissal of senior judges and the restrictions placed on broadcast media. But Musharraf has demonstrated readiness to use harsh, authoritarian measures to hang on to power, as he did during emergency rule, when he jailed more than 5,000 political opponents and suspended the constitution. Even as a civilian president, he retains the ability to fire the prime minister and dissolve parliament. In addition, Bhutto's death left a leadership void in her party, one of her own making. In life, reluctant to yield the limelight, she had sidelined rivals such as Aitzaz Ahsan, the country's most prominent opposition lawyer, who remains under house arrest at Musharraf's behest, but wields enormous moral authority. Instead, the party is now co-chaired by Zardari, a divisive figure mistrusted by many over corruption allegations, and her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, who will not be able to run for office until he is 25. The party's likely candidate for prime minister would be Bhutto's deputy, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a soft-spoken pragmatist who many believe might forge some kind of working relationship with Musharraf. The president insists that his rural power base has been undiminished by his confrontation last year with Pakistan's urban intelligentsia: lawyers, professors, human rights activists and journalists, who were the main target during emergency rule. When asked at a news conference with foreign journalists last week whether he should resign because he had become so unpopular, Musharraf fired back: "If I agreed with you, I would step down. Your information is wrong. . . . I don't think you have the correct feel of Pakistan." Calls for his resignation, however, have come not only from opposition parties, but from independent observers who say the country risks a descent into chaos unless Musharraf leaves the scene. "Stability in Pakistan and its contribution to wider anti-terror efforts now require rapid transition to legitimate civilian government," the Brussels-based International Crisis Group wrote in a report last week. "This must involve the departure of Musharraf, whose continued efforts to retain power at all costs are incompatible with national reconciliation." If the current wave of public anger against Musharraf fails to subside, the army, now led by his handpicked successor, Gen. Ashfaq Kiani, might take matters into its own hands. Many in the ranks feel that the Pakistani public's traditional respect and even reverence for the armed forces has been tarnished by Musharraf's actions last year, including his removal of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and the imposition of emergency rule. "Gen. Kiani is very conscious of the wide gulf that exists between the people and the army at the moment, and at some point, he will want to rehabilitate that relationship," said analyst Talat Masood, a retired general. Musharraf was praised by the Bush administration for relinquishing his post as military chief of staff in late November, for setting an election date and lifting emergency rule in mid-December, and for agreeing last week to accept help from Scotland Yard in investigating Bhutto's slaying. The investigation The British team Saturday visited the scene of the attack on Bhutto by a gunman and a suicide bomber. But definitive conclusions about Bhutto's death, which Pakistan has blamed on a Taliban commander, will be hard to establish, particularly before the February vote. Especially difficult to prove or disprove will be charges by Bhutto's party that officials within Musharraf's government or the security services were complicit in the attack. Although ties between Islamic militants and Pakistan's intelligence services during the 1990s are well documented, those links are far more tangled and murky today. "Whatever the suspicions against elements in his government, I'm not sure we're going to see a smoking gun here," said a Western diplomat. Bhutto's party says that at the very least, Musharraf's government bears responsibility for failing to safeguard her security. But even some of the late leader's admirers quietly concede that she acted recklessly by poking her head and shoulders out of her armored SUV's sunroof to wave to the crowd as she left a rally in Rawalpindi, the seat of the Pakistani military. Musharraf on Saturday acknowledged that Bhutto may have been shot, something the government initially denied, but said she exposed herself to danger and bore responsibility for her death, echoing comments he made last week. Musharraf made those comments during an interview on the CBS "60 Minutes" program scheduled to air tonight, and said that his government did everything it could to provide security for Bhutto. "For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers," Musharraf said. Some observers believe that Musharraf, if prodded by his generals and the Bush administration, might realize that staying in power has become untenable. If convinced of that, the leader who once proudly billed himself as an enlightened moderate could seek to salvage his legacy. "If he chose -- if -- we could have an orderly transition to a post-Musharraf era," said Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, the executive director of the nonprofit Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency in Islamabad. "Right now, that is the contribution he could make." http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571494.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post January 6, 2008 Pg. 17 U.S. Relying On Two In People's Party To Help Stabilize Pakistan By Robin Wright and Griff Witte, Washington Post Staff Writers With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Bush administration is now depending on two politicians -- one accused in the 1990s of being a crook and the other still viewed as almost powerless -- to help prop up President Pervez Musharraf and stabilize volatile Pakistan, according to U.S. officials, regional experts and Pakistanis. Asif Ali Zardari, who has assumed the regency of his wife's Pakistan People's Party, is nicknamed "Mr. 10 Percent" for alleged corruption by profiting off government contracts when Bhutto was prime minister in the 1990s, charges for which he spent 11 years in prison. He will remain caretaker of Pakistan's largest opposition movement until their 19-year-old son finishes studies at Oxford and is ready to assume party control -- potentially many years away. "He represents the old, entrenched faction of the PPP that resisted modernization of politics and sees parties as an extension of family politics, which is connected to the aura of corruption around him," said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who led the party during Bhutto's eight-year exile, is the party candidate to become prime minister if the PPP wins the largest vote in the Feb. 18 elections and forms a coalition government. First elected to parliament in 1970, he lacks both charisma and clout, according to U.S. officials and Pakistani experts. "Fahim is unknown and not a strong player. As a feudal landlord, he represents the Pakistani elite in a party dependent on the poor for the majority of its membership. As long as he is tied to Zardari, it will also be difficult for him to gain leverage with Musharraf or pressure him into reform," said Farhana Ali of the Rand Corp. Although the United States has contact with an array of politicians, Washington is still hoping that the deal it tried to broker between Bhutto and Musharraf last fall -- to forge a new moderate center and work together after elections -- remains the way to salvage Musharraf's government. But the personality and political dynamics have changed dramatically with Bhutto gone, especially within the PPP, U.S. officials said. "Not only are the individuals weak and vulnerable, but the party is less coherent than it was under Bhutto as the standard-bearer and disciplinarian," acknowledged a senior U.S. official involved in Pakistan policy. The biggest unknown is which way the PPP will lean. For the Bush administration, the worst-case scenario is the PPP aligning with the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a coalition to try to change the constitution and oust Musharraf, said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution. A political alliance between the PPP and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N Party was once as unlikely as a Democratic-Republican coalition in the United States, said Lawrence K. Robinson, a former U.S. diplomat in Pakistan who knows all the current players. But both parties now share more common views of Musharraf. Sharif will not rest until Musharraf, who toppled him in a 1999 military coup, is ousted, Robinson said. "And there's such a strong feeling now in the PPP that Musharraf is just like Zia ul-Haq, just another Islamist-loving military dictator who had a role in the death of a Bhutto," he added. Former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, was hanged during Mohammed Zia ul-Haq's rule. Zardari and Musharraf also have a history of hostility. Zardari was in prison under Musharraf and has been an outspoken critic of Musharraf since his release. After Bhutto's death, he accused Musharraf of criminal negligence, and referred repeatedly to a party allied with the president as "the killer league." U.S. officials counter that no two parties are likely to win enough votes to be able to change the constitution, noting that an International Republican Institute poll in November gave the PPP about 35 percent support and Sharif's party about 25 percent. The poll was taken before Bhutto's death, however, and does not factor in potential sympathy or anger votes. But the direction and leadership of the PPP, the most organized political party in Pakistan, are in doubt. "The party is adrift without a strong Bhutto at the top, and it has to grow up, which will take time," Robinson said. Although he served in the national assembly in the 1990s, Zardari is disliked by many in the PPP and is expected to struggle to keep its three major factions together. His claim to control rests on Bhutto's will, in which she reportedly named her husband as her successor. He also comes to the job with significant baggage, including a reputation for lavish living on the taxpayer's dime. Supporters dispute the image, saying he matured in prison and could be a serious political actor. "Most of the charges were never proven. The government filed a plethora of cases, and they dragged on for 11 years. He served more time awaiting trial than he would have gotten if he had been tried and convicted of any crimes," said Husain Haqqani, a Boston University professor whose wife is running for parliament on the PPP ticket. Others note that Swiss authorities also indicted Zardari in 1998 for money laundering. "It may have been exaggerated, but the reputation is not inaccurate," said Frederic Grare of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Fahim also has no national following, a key reason Bhutto selected him to lead the party in her absence. Haqqani compared him to Gerald Ford, "meaning a mild consensus builder who moves cautiously." If he should become prime minister, other experts caution that he may be easily manipulated by Zardari or Musharraf and would not be a strong voice for a moderate center -- the U.S. goal for Pakistan. Witte reported from Islamabad. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571567.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP San Diego Union-Tribune January 6, 2008 Musharraf Says Bhutto To Blame For Her Death By Reuters WASHINGTON – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf concedes that a gunman may have shot Benazir Bhutto, but said the opposition leader exposed herself to danger and bore responsibility for her own death, CBS News said yesterday. Musharraf also was quoted as telling the CBS “60 Minutes” program to be broadcast tonight that his government did everything it could to provide security for Bhutto, assassinated Dec. 27 in a gun-and-suicide-bomb attack after a political rally. “For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers,” Musharraf said in the interview, taped yesterday morning. Pakistan's government has said Bhutto died when she struck her head on a handle on her vehicle's sunroof – a contention widely derided in Pakistan, where many people suspect Musharraf's government of complicity. The government also has blamed al-Qaeda for the attack. Musharraf was asked by CBS whether a gunshot could have caused Bhutto's head injury. He replied, “Yes, absolutely, yes. Possibility.” Elections in Pakistan were postponed from Tuesday until Feb. 18 as a result of the assassination. Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, called yesterday for a U.N. investigation of the killing and accused members of Pakistan's ruling regime of involvement. His remarks were made in an op-ed article in The Washington Post. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571529.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Philadelphia Inquirer January 6, 2008 Bhutto's Husband Seeks A U.N. Probe Of Killing By Ravi Nessman, Associated Press ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto's widower accused members of Pakistan's regime of involvement in his wife's killing and called yesterday for a U.N. investigation as British officers aiding Pakistan's own probe pored over the crime scene. "An investigation conducted by the government of Pakistan will have no credibility, in my country or anywhere else," Asif Ali Zardari, the effective leader of Bhutto's opposition party, said in a commentary published in the Washington Post. "One does not put the fox in charge of the hen house." Calls for an independent international investigation have intensified since the former prime minister was killed Dec. 27 in a shooting and bombing attack after a campaign rally. Opposition activists denounced the government's initial assessment that an Islamic militant was behind the attack and that Bhutto died not from gunshot wounds, but from the force of the blast. President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that investigators may have drawn conclusions too quickly and mishandled evidence, including hosing down the site hours after the attack. But he insisted the government was competent to run the investigation with the help of forensic experts from Britain's Scotland Yard. The British investigators arrived at the site of the attack in Rawalpindi under heavy police guard. They spoke to local security officials and repeatedly walked from the park where Bhutto held her final campaign rally to the spot outside where her departing vehicle was attacked. Local police parked a truck where Bhutto's had been, and the British investigators photographed and filmed it from different angles, including from a nearby rooftop. Zardari said no government investigation would satisfy him. He reiterated his demand for a U.N. probe and urged "friends of democracy in the West, in particular the United States and Britain, to endorse the call for such an independent investigation." Also yesterday, the government accused a leading international think tank of "promoting sedition" for urging Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, to resign. The report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group called Musharraf "a serious liability, seen as complicit" in Bhutto's death. In a statement, the government said that the report "amounts to promoting sedition" and that the group "neither has the credentials nor the credibility" to comment on Pakistan. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571493.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Washington Post January 6, 2008 Pg. 17 Democracy Gets Small Portion Of U.S. Aid Documents Show Much of the Money Helps Entity Controlled by Musharraf By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer Two years before Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while leading her Pakistan People's Party in its campaign against the rule of President Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration devoted this much new aid money to strengthen political parties in Pakistan: $0. The entire U.S. budget for democracy programs in Pakistan in 2006 amounted to about $22 million, according to State Department documents, much of it reserved for aiding the Election Commission -- an entity largely controlled by Musharraf. That $22 million was just a small fraction of the $1.6 billion in aid the United States gave Pakistan that year, and it was equivalent to the value of jet engine and helicopter spare parts that Pakistan purchased in 2006 with the help of U.S. funds. In the past year, as Musharraf's grip on power became increasingly fragile, the Bush administration has scrambled to build contacts with the opposition and to provide expertise to opposition parties. The money devoted to democracy programs in the 165 million-person country was almost doubled in the fiscal 2008 budget, to $41 million, but that is still less than the $43 million set aside for such efforts in Kosovo, the former Albanian enclave of Serbia with a population of 2 million. In the region, U.S. democracy programs aimed at Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Egypt are all larger than the effort in Pakistan. Former and current U.S. officials said the administration shied away from building a robust democracy program in Pakistan because it did not want to offend Musharraf, who after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was considered an ally against al-Qaeda. Now, the administration is seeking to persuade Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, to free democratic activists and lawyers and lift media restrictions to help make the legislative elections, currently scheduled for next month, appear credible. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month described Musharraf as "a good ally," adding: "I hope that he is going to oversee the return of Pakistan to a civilian-led democratic state. They need to have free and fair elections." A recent study of aid to Pakistan by the Center for Strategic and International Studies calculated that, excluding covert funds, the United States has provided more than $10 billion to Pakistan since 2001, about half of that through poorly accounted "reimbursement" of expenses incurred in the war against al-Qaeda and Taliban. Lorne W. Craner repeatedly lost battles over democracy aid for Pakistan when he was assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights during President Bush's first term. "There was no interest in a broad and deep democratization program in Pakistan that might have given the United States more policy alternatives now," said Craner, now president of the International Republican Institute, a democracy advocacy group. "A decision was made to channel the limited funding in a way that avoided a risk of conflict with the government," acknowledged a State Department official who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing internal decision-making. He said that the administration chose to focus on health care and education assistance, such as building clinics and classrooms, which he said have a quicker impact on people's lives. "I would argue we did not make bad choices," he said. When the administration submitted its budget request to Congress last year, it made clear that the main goal of aid to Pakistan was building "a stable, long-term relationship." The notion of creating what the document called a "moderate, democratic and civilian government" was a lower priority, signified by the fact that the democracy aid amounted to 5 percent of the total $785 million request. "What is amazing to me about our policy is that Pakistan is brimming with a smart, educated, moderate center," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the foreign assistance subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "As long as we are pumping our money into security assistance and putting all our eggs in the basket with Musharraf, we are making a critical mistake." Challenged last month at a hearing chaired by Menendez on the administration's aid priorities for Pakistan, James R. Kunder, acting deputy administrator of USAID, said, "We looked at what we thought were the underlying elements of fragility in the democracy and tried to design the programs around strengthening democracy in the long run." A USAID official provided statistics showing that the agency has devoted nearly $24 million to democracy programs for Pakistan since 2004, but almost 80 percent of that -- $19 million -- was earmarked for assisting the Election Commission, such as helping update nationwide voter rolls. Reports from Pakistan say the effort has been deeply troubled, with the new voter list believed to be highly inaccurate and missing the names of tens of millions of Pakistanis. "I found it troubling that there was virtually no money until recently for any work other than the Election Commission, which was controlled by the president," said Peter M. Manikas, director of the Asia programs of the National Democratic Institute, a pro-democracy group. He said the organization in June received a $1.5 million project from the State Department to train poll watchers and has received $2.6 million since 2002 from USAID for political party training. "It is a relatively small amount of money, given the size of the country," Manikas said, adding that the NDI has also raised about $1.5 million for Pakistan programs since 2003 from the Dutch, British, Canadians and the National Endowment for Democracy. "All of the eggs were put in the president's basket, but the entire international community" was backing Musharraf. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571507.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP New York Times January 6, 2008 Officials Say Iraqi Soldier Killed 2 U.S. Soldiers By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Stephen Farrell BAGHDAD — Two American soldiers killed last month during an operation in the northern city of Mosul appear to have been deliberately shot to death by an Iraqi soldier on patrol with them, senior Iraqi officers said on Saturday. The killings occurred Dec. 26 as a joint American-Iraqi patrol was setting up a combat outpost in a dangerous neighborhood of western Mosul. Gunmen hiding in a building and in a car opened fire on the patrol, the senior Iraqi officers said. During the brief firefight, one of the Iraqi soldiers turned his weapon on unsuspecting Americans, they said. The Iraqi soldier is suspected of killing Capt. Rowdy J. Inman and Sgt. Benjamin B. Portell, and wounding three other American soldiers and one civilian interpreter, according to American military officials. No Iraqi soldiers were killed or wounded, according to one Iraqi commander. The Iraqi soldier tried to flee, but he was apprehended after being identified by other Iraqi soldiers, American military officials said. Another Iraqi soldier has also been detained in connection with the shootings, the military said, suggesting that there might have been at least one accomplice. The soldier who shot the Americans was tied to the insurgency, said Brig. Gen. Mutaa Habib al-Khazraji, a commander in the Iraqi Army’s Second Division in Mosul. During the firefight, he “seized the opportunity” and fired on the American soldiers, killing two of them, the general said in a telephone interview on Saturday, adding that the Iraqi “was an infiltrator.” The American military said the motives for the shooting “are as yet unknown.” Maj. Gary Dangerfield, an American military spokesman in Mosul, confirmed that two Iraqi soldiers were being held at an undisclosed location in Iraq and that investigators were examining possible insurgent links. “From everything we have right now, we feel pretty confident that we have the right guy,” Major Dangerfield said, based on statements from other Iraqi and American soldiers who were witnesses. “The motive behind what he did or how close he was to any insurgent activity is still unclear. We continue to look into every nook and cranny of this investigation.” He said the Iraqi commander of the Second Army Division ordered an “immediate stand-down of the unit” and cooperated with the investigation. “We will not let this tragic, isolated incident hinder our partnership with the Iraqi Security Forces and keep us from establishing security in our area of operation,” he said. The investigation, by American and Iraqi authorities, may renew longstanding questions about the loyalties of Iraqi forces, who are supposed to assume control as American troops withdraw. The Iraqi Army remains dominated by Shiites and Kurds, many of whom are suspicious of the allegiances of Sunni Arab soldiers. Many Sunnis, in turn, fear that the Kurds and Shiites are faithful only to their factions and are habitually hostile to Sunni Arabs. The American military did not disclose the circumstances of the shootings until Saturday afternoon, shortly after Reuters reported that Iraqi commanders had said that the American troops had been deliberately shot by an Iraqi soldier. Previously, the American military had said only that Captain Inman, 38, of Panorama Village, Tex., and Sergeant Portell, 27, of Bakersfield, Calif., died from “small arms fire during dismounted combat operations.” Both men were members of the Third Squadron of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Hood, Tex. “The shooting was deliberate,” another Iraqi Army commander in Mosul, Brig. Gen. Noor al-Din Hussein, told Reuters. “It was not an accident.” He said the Iraqi soldier had been in the army for a year and was an Arab from the Jubouri tribe, which in Mosul is mostly Sunni. “There is some penetration” by insurgents, he said, “and we want to purify the Iraqi Army.” Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Muhammad al-Askari, said it was too early to know whether the shootings were deliberate. “Maybe this man is mad,” Mr. Askari said. “Maybe he is suffering psychological problems.” While violence has fallen off in western and central Iraq, Mosul and other parts of northern Iraq remain volatile, and many areas still are under the sway of extremist Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence agencies say has foreign leadership. In Diyala Province, perhaps Iraq’s most troubled region, insurgents planted a bomb north of Muqdadiya that exploded on Saturday, killing six civilians and wounding four others, an Iraqi police official in Diyala said. The American military reported that a United States soldier was also killed in Diyala on Saturday, when an improvised bomb exploded near his vehicle. In the provincial capital of Baquba, another improvised bomb wounded three civilians, the police said. Gunmen killed a truck driver in northeast Diyala. Reporting was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Mudhafer al-Husaini and Abeer Mohammed from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Mosul. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571540.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Los Angeles Times January 6, 2008 Iraq's Middle Class Is Languishing Many skilled professionals have fled, but those who remain find few suitable jobs that pay a living wage. By Tina Susman and Raheem Salman BAGHDAD — Night after night, hour after hour, Hussein Ali Mohammed sits alone in the medical clinic that employs him as a guard. It is not the job the 26-year-old envisioned when he earned his teaching degree, but it's the best he can do for now in a country teeming with educated, ambitious people -- but sorely lacking in suitable jobs that pay living wages. Years of political turmoil, U.S.-imposed sanctions and war have devastated Iraq's workforce. Hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals have left the country. Businesses have closed. Insurgents and thugs have targeted professors, doctors and businesspeople, killing them, abducting them or driving them out of their jobs and out of Iraq. Even as sectarian violence subsides, the options are limited for those who remain. Shiite Muslims, who say they were held back from good jobs under Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim-led regime, complain that corruption and violence now limit their opportunities. Sunni Arabs say they are discriminated against as payback for Hussein's mistreatment of Shiites, who now dominate the government. "I feel this job doesn't suit my dignity or personality, being a guard in a clinic, passing the night between four walls talking to nobody," said Mohammed, who lives in Hillah, a city about 60 miles south of Baghdad. "I think it is difficult to find the job I would like in Iraq, under the current circumstances. I wish I could leave Iraq, but it is not that easy." Iraq's government estimates unemployment at 17.6% and underemployment at 38%, but those are considered conservative figures. The problem is seen as one of the major threats to the country's long-term recovery. To make matters more precarious, about 60% of the population is younger than 30 -- and many young people are ripe for recruitment into criminal life if the money is right. "A lot of these people are pretty much stagnant, with low-income wages," said Col. Gabe Lifschitz of the U.S. military's Gulf Region Division, comprised of military and civilian personnel working on reconstruction projects in Iraq. Without middle-class people creating job opportunities for low-wage earners to move up the economic ladder, Lifschitz said, Iraq's economy would flat-line, breeding anger and discontent. "The way to go in and turn that around is, you want to have somebody who is employed. That person who is employed will have less likelihood of becoming an insurgent." U.S. officials are funding programs to provide vocational training, but those do little for educated middle-class Iraqis such as Mohammed, who say their job-seeking efforts are stymied by political nepotism and corruption in the institutions that might hire them. Akeel Mohsin Sharif, 29, graduated from Baghdad University four years ago with a degree in computer sciences. Recently, he said, a medical college invited him to apply for a job as a teacher's assistant. "After three months of pushing and pulling and doing interviews for the job, they kept coming up with excuses for not hiring me," Sharif said. "At the end, they asked me for $400 in exchange for the job." Sharif refused. "Why should I pay them? Our lives have become all bribes. Everyone has to bribe someone to get anything done," said Sharif, whose previous job overseeing computer maintenance ended when the business closed because of security concerns. Now he installs computers for individuals or small businesses on an on-call basis, earning $200 to $300 a month, not nearly enough to consider marrying, having children and buying a home. Several other young men said they had put off marriage and family because of their dim job prospects, a sign of the shredding of the social fabric in a country where men and women were expected to marry young and produce children. Men are expected to be the breadwinners. Some leave Iraq in hopes of finding lucrative employment, only to return with their morale further diminished. Saad Naeem, 29, went to Lebanon hoping to obtain a master's degree after graduating in 2005 from Baghdad University's college of sciences, but it was too expensive there. Now he drives a taxi in the southern city of Najaf. "I am shocked by the reality, but I feel I have to get used to this job as a fait accompli," said Naeem, who won't consider marriage until he finds a better job. "Almost all Iraqis feel that their country is not yet able to offer the jobs they want," he said. "We were dreaming when we were students, but the dreams are something, and the reality is something else." Broken dreams are everywhere. After the fall of Hussein, Ali Qittan, an aspiring history teacher, imagined dressing in a suit and tie each day and standing at a chalkboard before eager students. Instead, Qittan, 29, loads and unloads trucks in Baghdad. Like many would-be state employees, he discovered that he could make more money doing day labor than working in a government institution. And like Sharif, he discovered that getting a teaching job required knowing someone in a high place or paying a hefty bribe. "I have to either find a parliament member or an influential official in the Ministry of Education. The last choice is to pay hundreds of dollars to someone," Qittan said. "I feel I deserve something higher than this job, as a porter," he said. "I am frustrated and bored, but what can I do? I have no option. I have to earn a living." Qittan said two of his college-educated brothers also worked as porters. In Hillah, 30-year-old Omer Nima Mosawi, an aspiring mechanic who graduated with a technology degree in 2003, works in the cafeteria of his former college. Like virtually everyone interviewed for this article, he found the job because he had a personal connection with the person in charge of hiring. Hayder Nouri, 27, works in a women's clothing store. Last year he was offered a job teaching Arabic, but it would have required him to travel from his neighborhood in west Baghdad to the east side of the city, via an area notorious for abductions and killings. He turned it down and found work in a cookie factory until a friend rented the clothing store and offered him work. "I feel this is not my calling, but what can I do?" Nouri said. "I'm not being choosy. I just want something that pays well and is close to home." It is not only the young who are finding it difficult. Older workers also are struggling. Many said they were shut out of good jobs under Hussein's regime because they refused to join the ruling Baath Party. Now, they say, their age works against them. Ahmed Mehdi, 45, has an advanced degree in banking and finance but says his refusal to be a Baathist held him back for years. He has worked a variety of jobs, including delivering pizzas and using his family's 1980 Toyota to run a limousine service. Now he works in a shop selling electronics. At first he was embarrassed, Mehdi said. "But then I began noticing that others with degrees were doing the same thing." At 41, Haqqi Ismail finds himself in similar circumstances. He laughed when asked what year he graduated from college. It was 17 years ago, with a degree in geography. All he wanted was a job in a government institute, where he could sit in an office, have a desk and a chair, collect a salary, and provide for his wife and five children. It never happened, so Ismail, who lives in the southern city of Basra, did other things. He ran a small shop for a while. Now, he is self-employed, handling paperwork for people purchasing homes or land. His attempts to find work have been thwarted by his age, he said. "One time I am older than the wanted age. Other times they only want people who graduated after 2000," said Ismail, who said if things didn't change soon, he would do what so many of Iraq's educated citizens had done: leave the country. "I will join my brother, who is living in Germany," he said hopefully. "I think I can find a job there." Times staff writers Usama Redha and Wail Alhafith contributed to this report. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571568.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP San Diego Union-Tribune January 6, 2008 Baghdad's Book Market Perseveres Bombing in March didn't stop vendors By Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press BAGHDAD – Dusty books lie on flattened cardboard boxes on a sidewalk buried in litter and building debris. Their vendors hunch their shoulders and sip black tea to fend off the cold. What matters is that they're here. The revival of the Mutanabi Street book market is a microcosm of today's Baghdad. The titles on display reflect a live-and-let-live mentality shared by Sunni and Shiite vendors. The wreckage, the deserted buildings and the devastated Shahbandar coffeehouse are the scars from years of violence. The ambitious face-lift under way on Mutanabi Street attests to a hope for better things now that violence in Baghdad is noticeably down. Through Saddam Hussein's oppression, the bite of Western sanctions, the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 and the bombings and shootings that followed, the Mutanabi market, named after a 10th-century Baghdad poet, never ceased to be a favorite Friday hangout for intellectuals, artists and students. On March 5, many thought its days were over. A car bomb blamed on al-Qaeda militants ripped the market apart, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 100. The bombing wiped out dozens of bookstores, stationery shops and presses. Nevertheless, it did not stop Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish vendors from continuing to work here in harmony. “The bomb did not change the way we feel about each other in the market,” said Atta Zeidan, who runs a secondhand bookstore. “What it did is make us all afraid for our lives.” In response, authorities banned vehicular traffic from Mutanabi Street, put up blast barriers and checkpoints, and sent in U.S. troops in an effort to calm the panicked traders and assure them of reconstruction funds. The shoppers who initially stayed away have since drifted back, though their numbers are still down. “People must eat, so they will still shop at food markets that have repeatedly been hit by attacks,” said Zein al-Naqshabandi, a bookseller in his mid-30s. “But people postpone buying books or go without altogether if they sense danger or are generally uncomfortable with security,” said the father of four and author of a “History of Coffeehouses in Old Baghdad.” On the other hand, vendor Mohammed Hanash Abbas said sales have been improving. His main income is from lending textbooks to students for a fee. Hazem al-Sheikhli, who owns a stationery shop, defines the resilient spirit of Mutanabi Street. He lost four brothers and a nephew in the March 5 bombing. His father, Mohammed al-Sheikhli, was dragged alive from the rubble in the Shahbandar coffeehouse he had run for 45 years. “People were still searching for bodies when some of the booksellers returned to the sidewalks in search of business,” said al-Sheikhli, a 50-year-old father of three. “Death has become a part of our daily life,” he said. His mother died that week. “The loss of four sons and a grandson took its toll on her,” al-Sheikhli said. Mutanabi vendors say at least 10 booksellers were killed in sectarian violence during a burst of Sunni-Shiite vengeance killings in 2006. However, they say interfaith relations on the street remain good, largely because the killers were generally viewed as outsiders, not market workers, and because those killed were known extremists. Still, things remain unpredictable. Just a few weeks ago, an exchange of fire between army troops and members of a U.S.-backed neighborhood watch group sent shoppers scurrying for cover, according to witnesses. The ouster of Hussein in 2003 was keenly felt. Shiite books, long banned by Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, poured in from Iran and went on sale at discount prices next to books on Sunni Muslims. Bookseller Shaalan Zeidan said the “bookstores selling religious books belong to two camps.” “Some have 90 percent of their books on the Shiite faith, while others have 90 percent of their books about Sunni Islam,” he said with a chuckle. But the market for books with titles such as “Saddam the Criminal” still sell well on both sides of the divide. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571433.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Charleston (SC) Post and Courier January 4, 2008 Pg. 1 Military Striving To Fix Health Care Ills System's 2nd in command maps 2008 plans By Jill Coley, The Post and Courier Negative press dogged the Department of Defense's health affairs in 2007. Reports of neglect came out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Stories followed of bureaucratic nightmares, and concerns for troops returning with mental disorders made headlines. Stephen L. Jones, second in command of the Military Health System, recently sat down with The Post and Courier to discuss work done to address the problems. The Isle of Palms resident headed federal relations and economic development at Medical University of South Carolina for about 20 years before moving to the Pentagon. After the last year of critical press, Jones wants to share what the Defense Department has done to right the scandal. "We haven't told that story very well as to how we responded to the wounded warrior criticisms," he said. The Defense Department's Military Health System comprises the health and medical services of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and includes TRICARE insurance. The system is responsible for more than 9 million beneficiaries and accounted for 8 percent of the Defense Department's $532 billion budget for fiscal 2007, or about $42 billion. If the high-cost health care trend continues, Jones said that by 2015, Military Health System will reach 12 percent. Year 2008, Jones said, will see advances in the following three areas: *Research in post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and reducing stigmatization of mental disorders. *Streamlining case work to prevent troops from falling through the cracks when they transition from military to VA hospitals. *Sharing information with the Department of Veterans Affairs. On the legislative front, however, President Bush vetoed Dec. 28 the defense authorization bill, which included the Wounded Warrior Act. The act was designed to improve the management of medical care, personnel actions and quality-of-life issues for outpatient troops. Bush vetoed the legislation because of a provision that would permit plaintiffs' lawyers to freeze Iraqi funds, exposing Iraq to massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime, according to White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel. Meanwhile, the Wounded, Ill and Injured Senior Oversight Committee continues its work. The committee was formed to handle the influx of recommendations coming out of numerous task forces designed to look critically at the system and can make changes immediately whenever possible within the law, Jones said. The Defense Department's funding is in place, passing separately in an appropriations bill. "We're spending and planning those programs under way," Jones said. Among the changes already in place is the December creation of the Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. The concept is to network expertise and build a blueprint for treatment and research, Jones said. Another emphasis of the committee's work is a close partnership between the Defense Department and VA, both of which are represented on the committee. The departments are piloting a program that would eliminate duplicate processes in the departments' disability evaluation systems. Troops would only need to undergo a single physical exam from the VA, not one from both departments. The VA/Defense partnership has local reach, as the departments are pooling their resources for a super clinic in Goose Creek, set to open in spring or summer of 2009. Services available at the Naval Weapons Station and at the Navy's former North Charleston hospital, now called Naval Health Clinic Charleston, will be handled at the new facility. The new clinic will also have an outpatient center run by the VA. In another program designed to ease transition from the Defense Department to the VA, especially for the severely wounded, nine federal recovery coordinators have been hired to oversee care before, during and after the handover. "It hit us head-on because all of a sudden we have the severely wounded who don't need to be in the hospital but need all the treatments," Jones said. In making that transition easier, information sharing between the Defense Department and VA becomes critical. The Defense Department already shares data reaching back to 1989 for separated service members, shared patients and new veterans receiving care from VA. While those medical records are viewable by the VA, they are not truly joint records because the departments use different systems and cannot modify each other's files. A study on creating a joint Defense/VA inpatient electronic health record is expected to be complete this year. "The goal is not to waste a lot of money on having one record," he said. "The goal is to have the information there so the provider can diagnose you and give you the best treatment." Another fiscal responsibility measure may mean an increase in TRICARE fees, which have remained frozen since 1996. Last month, a task force reported the need for increasing fees for retirees. Congress may consider the recommendation this year. "There's no doubt those who've served should get the best health care available, but we need to ensure some reasonable balance," Jones said. http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20080106571521.html <A href="http://68.142.200.12/us.f318.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_1315486_AEf PjkQAANkZR4Ea2wQbbnLy5HA&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename= e20080106aaindex_concat.html&cred=de6xlyaekeCEkTxR eTF2uGs3_JTnp3jF6eKtLgUxquHRFTg6RJVZSSiRd1P54UVW#T OP">RETURN TO TOP Arizona Republic (Phoenix) January 6, 2008 Pg. 1 Blurring Of U.S. Interrogation Policy Complicates Challenge By Dennis Wagner, Arizona Republic FORT HUACHUCA - A squad of U.S. soldiers enters a small "Iraqi village" in the southern Arizona foothills, automatic weapons ready. Their eyes nervously scan the civilians in Middle Eastern garb, watching for enemy combatants. Later, in a shack near the center of town, two interrogators question a bearded man caught with a video camera with footage of missile attacks launched by insurgents. One of the soldiers peppers the captive with questions to no avail. "Can I go?" the man finally asks in a thick Arabic accent. "Or actually, perhaps you can answer some questions for me?" Asked about the images on the camera, he smiles. "It is happenstance, yes?" he says. "Coincidence." The intelligence collectors press ahead with the give and take. They are in a mock village with paid actors - a field exercise at the Fort Huachuca Military Intelligence Center and School, the nation's largest center for interrogation training. As in Iraq, there is no guarantee that the terrorist suspect will talk. But there is one certainty: No one here will contemplate using torture as an interrogation technique. The Army, which runs Fort Huachuca, insists it will not tolerate abuse or coercion in interrogations and is instilling that philosophy in its trainees. In exercises at Fort Huachuca, interrogators instead are taught "persuasive methods," such as psychological ploys and ruses to coax or pressure suspects into divulging information in the war on terror. "You can torture someone all day long, and it's not a reliable way to get information," says Lt. Col. Jeff Jennings, commander of the 309th Military Intelligence Battalion. Torture often elicits bogus intelligence, he said. Most experts seem aligned with the Army position, yet a national debate continues over the value of coercive questioning. In the presidential campaign, for example, Sen. John McCain, who was brutalized as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, condemns torture, including waterboarding, or simulated drowning, saying it produces false intelligence and sabotages America's stand for righteousness. By contrast, Rudy Giuliani refuses to label waterboarding as unlawful, saying: "It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it." The challenge for hundreds of men and women at Fort Huachuca's HUMINT school is to navigate the gray area between torture and tough questioning. Use of coercion Interrogations are difficult in any war, but since 9/11, the challenge has been compounded by a blurring of U.S. law and policy covering detainee treatment. Public records describe how the Bush administration used new legal interpretations and executive orders to sanction increased levels of duress in seeking intelligence. In a few instances, the CIA even resorted to waterboarding, historically treated as a war crime by international law and the United States. Public records and congressional testimony explain how America's embrace of coercive methods evolved: In 2002, President Bush relied on a Justice Department opinion to assert that Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan were not prisoners of war and had no right to Geneva Conventions protections. The government then adopted a secret memo from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which redefined torture as life-threatening pain equivalent to sensations of organ failure, impairment of bodily function or death. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, dietary harassment, religious humiliation and the exploitation of phobias. Over time, public disclosures unveiled results of the new approach: *Internet video revealed physical abuse and sexual humiliation of detainees at the Army's Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003. The abuse was attributed primarily to guards at the prison, military intelligence officers, CIA agents and civilian contractors. Guards appeared to take sadistic pleasure in pouring cold water on naked detainees, sexually taunting them and using military dogs to threaten attack. *A federal rendition program shuttled detainees to hidden sites in Europe and the Middle East for intensive questioning at the hands of non-American inquisitors. *Accounts of waterboarding emerged at the Guantanamo detainee camp in Cuba. The technique, which places a bound prisoner upside down in water, was employed by CIA agents who later destroyed the video evidence. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey last week ordered a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes. Despite the controversies, some experts insist that coercion should remain an option for interrogators as it could save American lives. Retired CIA agent John Kiriakou claims that when interrogators at Guantanamo were unable to crack a key al-Qaida suspect, Abu Zubaydah, they finally resorted to waterboarding. Kiriakou said in interviews that Zubaydah broke down within 35 seconds, divulging information on "maybe dozens of attacks." Because videotape was destroyed and records are classified, Kiriakou's claim cannot be verified. Frank Gaffney Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy, says he has been told that two key al-Qaida figures gave up critical intelligence when confronted with so-called "enhanced interrogation." He argues that "aggressive" methods are "absolutely essential and should not be ruled out," adding: "War is an evil. . . . It requires us to do evil things." At Fort Huachuca, Lt. Col. Jennings insists there is no uncertainty among his instructors and students: The Army does not condone torture or train its interrogators to use such practices. A new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, written at Fort Huachuca, has passages designed to prevent a repeat of Abu Ghraib. Interrogation requires soldiers to abide by the Geneva Conventions, general laws of war, federal statutes and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, all of which prohibit torture. The manual expressly forbids waterboarding and many other coercive methods employed during the war on terror. "There is no debate (in the military)," Jennings says. "If you don't follow the rules, or you step outside the rules, you get your toes cut off. "Abu Ghraib was a lack of oversight. That was a leadership failure. And people have been punished for it." The accepted methods Fort Huachuca is where select soldiers learn the art and science of extracting information from enemies, a job that is more problematic amid the U.S. government's redefinition of torture in its global war on terror. During 2007 at the Military Intelligence School, about 1,650 enlisted soldiers, National Guard members and Army Reservists were taught to become human-intelligence collectors, known as 97Es. That is more than five times the number trained in 2003. Hundreds more Navy and Air Force personnel completed similar courses in the fort's Human Intelligence Training program. The demand is so great in Iraq and Afghanistan that commanders have been forced to hire civilian contractors, mostly former military, as instructors. The intelligence collectors go through a 93-day course that includes cultural awareness, warrior tasks, live-fire exercises and interrogation methods. There are 12 hours of class spent with lawyers covering legal and ethical lessons. "We spend a lot of time in the classroom and then out here talking about where that line is - what coercion is, what torture is, what they can and cannot do," said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Daniel Moree, HUMINT training supervisor. "Let's say he (a soldier) steps over that line and uses coercion. He'll be counseled on the spot," Moree says. "We'll treat it as a crime and even conduct a mock trial." Trainees at Fort Huachuca learn 19 ways to exploit a captive's weaknesses during interrogations. They offer incentives such as money or family contact. They play on emotions of hate, pride, fear and love. They use the silent treatment, deceptive ruses, rapid-fire questions and the old "good cop, bad cop" technique. The accepted methods are all geared to gain intelligence through cooperation rather than coercion. Moree says field exercises help soldiers learn to deal with stress, and they are taught to ask senior interrogators if an interrogation method seems questionable. Christopher M. Anderson, now a civilian instructor at the fort, served as the non-commission |
