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Deputy Defense Minister: Israel must be ready to stop Iranian nuclear program 'at all costs'
Last update - 01:16 11/11/2006
By Haaretz Service and the Associated Press

Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh suggested in comments published Friday that Israel must be ready to prevent Iran's nuclear program "at all costs," and might be forced to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program - the clearest statement yet of this possibility from a high-ranking Israeli official.

"I am not advocating an Israeli pre-emptive military action against Iran and I am aware of its possible repercussions," Sneh told The Jerusalem Post daily. "I consider it a last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort," he said.

Sneh's tough talk is the boldest to date by a high-ranking Israeli official. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other leaders frequently discuss the Iranian threat in grave terms, but stop short of discussing military action against Tehran.
The former Israel Defense Forces brigadier general told the paper that Israel cannot afford "living under a dark cloud of fear from a leader committed to its destruction." Under such a threat, he said, "most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with their families; and Israelis who can live abroad will."

"People are not enthusiastic about being scorched," he said.

Sneh said Israel's greatest possible danger could be Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ability "to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button. That's why we must prevent this regime from obtaining nuclear capability at all costs."

Ahmadinejad has previously called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," and has expressed doubts that the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, took place.

The deputy minister said that while he hopes that efficient sanctions would be imposed by the international community against Iran, "the chances are not high... My working assumption is that they won't succeed."

Government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Sneh's comments did not necessarily reflect the view of the government or Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Israel crippled Iraq's nuclear program 25 years ago with an airstrike on its unfinished nuclear reactor at Osiraq. Experts say Iran has learned from Iraq's mistakes, scattering its nuclear facilities and building some underground.
http://tinyurl.com/ycd2rp

Robert Gates and a ‘Fresh Perspective’
November 9, 2006
Prepared by:
Robert McMahon

The announcement of Robert M. Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary has brought a great gust of anticipation in Washington about a new approach on Iraq. President Bush said after announcing Gates’ nomination that a “fresh perspective” on Iraq was important, and his choice was immediately lauded by a number of erstwhile administration critics. Newsweek’s Howard Fineman said the arrival of Gates, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the administration of Bush’s father, coupled with the role of former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III in the Iraq Study Group “means the pragmatists have won the battle for the president’s attention.” Slate analyst Fred Kaplan sharply contrasted Gates with Rumsfeld, calling him an “utterly uncontroversial figure to calm nerves, settle bureaucratic hostilities, and reestablish credibility on Capitol Hill.”

But others cautioned against expecting too much in the change of congressional power and one cabinet post. CFR Senior Fellow Charles A. Kupchan and University of Texas professor Peter L. Trubowitz stress that Bush still holds the foreign policy reins and “there will be more continuity than change (LAT); the ideological excesses of the Bush era are not yet behind us.” As for Gates himself, some reports recalled his tough Senate confirmation hearing for the CIA post in 1991. He was grilled about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair, in which some Reagan administration officials arranged for the sale of weapons to Iran and sent the funds to Nicaraguan rebels. Gary G. Sick, a former National Security Council expert on Iran who applauds Gates’ choice to lead the Pentagon, says Gates was aware of the arms deals to Iran aimed at helping the Contras. “He made it clear that he was aware of it, though there was some dispute about when he learned about it,” Sick tells CFR.org’s Bernard Gwertzman. Gates rose through the ranks of the CIA as a Soviet analyst but has been criticized as being incapable of speaking “truth to power” during the Reagan administration and having exaggerated some of the threats (NYT) posed by the Soviet Union at the time. Gates has said that from the 1970s on, the CIA was under steady criticism from the left and right in America about how it gauged the Soviet threat and has called the agency’s failures during the Cold War “remarkably few and far between” (NPR).

News reports following the announcement were filled with praise for Gates’ managerial ability and skill as a consensus builder at a pivotal time for the administration’s Iraq campaign. Fritz W. Ermath, who chaired the National Intelligence Council when Gates headed the CIA, said he will be especially good at working with the sprawling U.S. intelligence system, adding, “Frankly, if he’d have been secretary of defense in 2003, I guarantee you there’d have been a backup plan that would have avoided or certainly minimized the problems that we’ve had since” (National Interest Online).

Of particular interest is Gates’ role as cochair of the CFR Task Force on Iran, which in 2004 called for selective engagement with Iranian leaders and dropping the rhetoric of regime change. The report calls for Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons programs and support for terrorists but adds, “These demands should not constitute preconditions for dialogue.” Commentaries through the years emphasize Gates’ views as a pragmatist, although he’d probably like a do-over on a 2003 interview with CNN in which he described the replacement of Saddam as a “manageable task” (WSJ). In 2004, Gates had a more nuanced view of Iraq, telling CFR.org’s Gwertzman the outcome there was a mystery.
http://tinyurl.com/y8e3d9

THINK TANK WATCH: Jihadists Watch the History Channel, too
Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Yesterday’s mid-term 2006 elections have attracted the interest of many Americans we suspect because a change is needed in our policy toward Iraq. But the elections’ outcomes are not merely anticipated by the citizens of this country. As many observers outside the United States would argue – rightly, of course - the results will have implications on international politics as well. A certain group, however, is looking forward to election results for a different purpose. This group includes jihadi extremists who, according to Abdul Hameed Bakier, a terrorism analyst for the Jamestown Foundation, “by using the West’s free press, [are] able to find out what the ‘enemy’ knows about their capabilities.” This informative piece is featured in today’s Global Security Updates’ series entitled, “THINK TANK WATCH.”

Bakier goes further and states, “some jihadi forum participants are cooperating by translating videotapes released by the History television channel in the United States and by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. To demonstrate their intentions, they provided a video for download that included a program from the History Channel that outlined the capabilities of the U.S. Navy. Information included in the video could be used by al-Qaeda and like-minded militants to improve their capabilities against naval forces.”

This trend reveals that the jihadists are becoming increasingly adaptive in taking advantage of any resources available and these include the well-known the History Channel.

The piece is part of Jamestown’s Global Terrorism Analysis. As a whole, the piece is worth-reading, but the questions posed in the conclusion represent serious concerns regarding our strategy to win “the war on terror”.
Jihadi Forums Tune into History Channel for Counter-Terrorism Intelligence

By Abdul Hameed Bakier

Recent chatter on jihadi websites has focused on monitoring the counter-terrorism strategies of the United States and its allies in the global war on terrorism. Jihadi websites and forums are studying and translating the texts of Western analysts who assess current counter-terrorism efforts. The jihadis use these self-critiques by Western analysts to find areas of weakness and tension in U.S.-led counter-terrorism strategy; through this information, they are better able to devise physical and psychological operations to exploit these weaknesses. Additionally, their monitoring of U.S.-led counter-terrorism efforts is an attempt to lift the morale of jihadis by: showing that vulnerable points in the U.S.-led terrorism coalition exist; disseminating false analysis on the plans and intentions of those states allied against the mujahideen; and publicizing artificial casualty accounts of these states, especially those of the U.S. military.

By translating and posting reports about casualties from the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, jihadi websites are enhancing the mujahideen's arguments of their righteousness; this encourages more fighters to take up the jihad. These individuals are monitoring U.S. military casualty reports on the internet and reposting them in Arabic for their forum participants. One casualty report about an attack by Iraq's Islamic Army on the U.S. military's Falcon Base in Iraq on October 10 listed the names and ranks of 300 American soldiers who were allegedly killed in the attack (http://www.tajdeed.org.uk/forums, October 26). The U.S. casualty report, posted by a user nicknamed Fata al-Jazeera, was received victoriously by the internet jihadis, who expressed their joy with victory phrases such as "Allah Akbar." Another forum translated and posted the U.S. president's skeptical comments about Washington's performance in Iraq published in the National Review Online on October 27. The forum considered Bush's comments a confession of the U.S. defeat in Iraq (http://202.75.35.74/vb/index.php). In the same context, another jihadi website posted an article entitled "America Loses Control in Afghanistan and European Forces Refuse to Fight." The article highlighted the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann's frustration over British forces' uncoordinated withdrawal from Qala district in southern Afghanistan and the warning released by the supreme commander of NATO over the intention of Taliban fighters to use booby-trapped vehicles against coalition troops (http://www.muslm.net, October 27).

On the jihadi website al-Tajdeed, a translator by the nickname of "Morsi" translated an article entitled "How al-Qaeda Views a Long War in Iraq" by Dan Murphy, a journalist for the Christian Science Monitor. Murphy's article analyzed al-Qaeda's plans for a long war against the United States in Iraq. The analysis is based on a letter, confiscated by U.S. forces in Iraq, presumably sent to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and signed by the alias name "Atiyah." In the same context, some jihadi forum participants are cooperating by translating videotapes released by the History television channel in the United States and by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. To demonstrate their intentions, they provided a video for download that included a program from the History Channel that outlined the capabilities of the U.S. Navy. Information included in the video could be used by al-Qaeda and like-minded militants to improve their capabilities against naval forces. Additionally, the jihadis are always interested in Western articles and television shows that analyze al-Qaeda; by using the West's free press, they are able to find out what the "enemy" knows about their capabilities.

Commenting on a Washington Post article entitled "Letter Gives Glimpse of al-Qaeda's Leadership" from October 2, jihadis accused the "Zionist media" of disseminating false propaganda insinuating that al-Qaeda's leaders are in Pakistan's tribal Waziristan agencies. They argued that this "faulty" information about al-Qaeda's whereabouts is a pretext for "crusader aggression" on the Pakistani people to punish them for their support of the mujahideen. The jihadis argue that it is illogical for any al-Qaeda leader to reveal the whereabouts of al-Qaeda and that al-Zarqawi would never leave such an important letter behind. A forum participant nicknamed the "Hamburg Cell" warns that this press campaign against al-Qaeda's leaders is very suspicious and that "vicious" plans might be underway against those leaders.

Although irregular and non-systematic, the monitoring of Western media analysis helps jihadis learn from the enemy and to better prepare defensive counter-measures. The question, however, can be asked: what makes these forum comments significant, and are these participants actually operational? It is likely that many participants have been in contact with jihadi ideologues and field commanders since these leaders use the forums to communicate with each other and to post training manuals and other jihadi documents—such as in the recent cases of Muhammed al-Hakaima and his controversial book, the "Myth of Delusion"; Abu Yahia al-Libi, a leading member in al-Qaeda; and Yusuf al-Uyayri, ex-leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and a renown ideologue of Salafi-Jihadis. Forum participants are constantly interested in subjects related to military tactics and terrorism, a fascination that non-violent individuals do not dwell on each time they log onto the internet.
http://tinyurl.com/yy8yx5