Drumbeat For Action Against Syria's Assad Grows Louder

The ongoing civil war in Syria has led to more than 100,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees situated in grim camps in Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and the entire region is in turmoil, especially after the latest reports indicating that chemical weapons of some kind were used against civilian populations in a Damascus suburb.

It's the latest in a string of scattered incidents involving chemical weapons in the civil war that have pushed the US, France, and others to warn that they may seek military action against Bashar Assad's regime for their violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Russia, along with China, continues working their stalling tactics at the UN as Assad continues his brutal crackdown against rebel forces, meaning that there's little chance of an immediate military response to the chemical weapons attack that may have killed anywhere from 130 to 1,300 people.

The British are putting forth a UN resolution at the Security Council, but Assad isn't going to stop fighting his enemies on the basis of a UN resolution. Efforts by UN inspectors to figure out what actually happened were hampered by a delay in getting access to the site, coming under sniper fire, and the fact that Assad's forces had laid siege to the area with conventional artillery for days before the inspectors could get on the ground there.

With the drumbeat of war growing louder, and the possibility that airstrikes may commence tomorrow, the Jerusalem Post is warning that the Israeli homefront is not prepared for an unconventional conflict - referring to chemical weapons. There’s also reports indicating that if the UN/NATO/US hit Assad targets in Syria, that Syria would retaliate against Israel. Some Israelis aren’t sure that Assad would or wouldn’t attack.

It doesn’t matter that Israel has Iron Dome, Patriot and other missile defense systems available to it; Syria going after Israel if hit by airstrikes would open up a can of worms not seen since the 1991 Gulf War. Back then, Israel withstood the brunt of dozens of scud launches that slammed into Israel without retaliation, but would Israel do the same once again?

I’m not so sure. There are reasons that Assad wouldn’t want to enlarge the fight to include Israel out of practical reasons - if his military can barely scratch out a stalemate against rebel forces, it would suffer badly in a fight against the IDF. And Israel may well respond not only with airstrikes of its own, but could send in its Sayeret Matkal and other special forces to go after specific targets - missions that it might not have considered unless Israel was directly attacked. That’s not to say that Israel hasn’t gone after Syrian targets of opportunity before - the airstrike against the nuclear facility a few years back shows that they’ll act preemptively and with force if necessary.

But there are also reasons Assad would go after Israel - make a muddled mess and further complicate things for the rebels and the West - since affiliations/backing for various groups arrayed against Assad have different motivations and sometimes run counter to each other.

Still, airstrikes will hurt Assad, but they’ll end up having unpredictable outcomes not only for Israel, but for Lebanon, which is where Syria still exerts influence and where Assad’s proxies in Hizbullah continue to hold sway. Hizbullah is a wildcard in this, and they could again make a mess of Lebanon, to say nothing of Northern Israel.

If there’s a callup of Israeli forces, it may also be out of a concern that Hizbullah may well be planning to take the pressure off Assad by launching attacks against Israel to take media pressure off Assad and put the spotlight again on Israel.

Syria's Chemical Weapons Problem and Ours

Jane's Defense Weekly, a highly respected military affairs center, has reported that Syria is furiously working to build a chemical weapons plant. As per the Jane's report:

Satellite images from several commercial sources gathered from 2005 to 2008 have shed light on activity at the chemical weapons facility identified as Al Safir in northwest Syria. Imagery obtained by DigitalGlobe's WorldView-1 satellite indicates that the site contains not only a number of the defining features of a chemical weapons facility, but that significant levels of construction have taken place at the facility's production plant and adjacent missile base.

Image: A newly constructed possible missile loading building at the adjacent missile support facility.

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That's a map of the general location in question and is believed to be a command and control facility and the missile testing grounds. The chemical weapons facility is just to the northwest. This is an area Syria uses to test its Scud missiles, so the development of chemical weapons facilities next door brings ominous signs. Syria is believed to have three locations dedicated to developing chemical weapons, including near Damascus, Hama, and Safira (the facility in question).

That comes just a day after Syria's Bashar Assad stated that he wanted President Obama to consider doing business with Syria and to let go of its ties to Israel in the name of peace. The AP phrases this as Assad seeking better relations with the US, including reposting an ambassador and full diplomatic relations, but ignores that Assad wants the US to hang Israel out to dry. What exactly does the US get out of this? US Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) was in Syria to hear the latest spewage from Assad, and I doubt he asked any tough questions about Syria's support for Hamas and Hizbullah, including the provision of comfortable residences in Damascus where Hamas and Hizbullah thugs can sip tea and take visitors such as Iranian officials to discuss their war aims against Israel and the West, or the longtime support for the insurgency in Iraq that resulted in dead Americans.

Where's the mutual respect? There isn't any. Syria sees the incoming administration as weak and one that can be bullied and engage in appeasement rather than stand for freedom, liberty, and standing against those regimes that perpetuate terrorism.

Syria may want people to believe that he's a moderate state and open to negotiation, but the fact is that he supports and condones Islamic terrorism and jihad, and such support may lead to his own downfall as the Islamists grow tired of his inability to seal the deal.

Our problem is that the Obama administration looks like they're going to engage in appeasement rather than stand firm against these regimes, and the dictators are rushing to press forward with their agendas, including expanding their chemical weapons and missile development programs. They're busy testing Obama, and he isn't even in office six months.

Crazy As a Loon

So, we've got a bunch of people who continue to believe that President Bush lied about the presence of WMD in Iraq, despite the fact that there was more than a decade of intel stating precisely that. Democrats and Republicans alike for more than a decade were claiming that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had WMD and was a persistent threat.

Only after the 2003 invasion did those intel reports turn out to be incorrect. That doesn't make them lies.

There were lies spun, however. Lies were spun not by the United States or President Bush, but by Saddam Hussein himself.

He lied about his possession of WMD in order to ward off a possible attack by Iran. That's what one of his chief interrogators says.

Saddam Hussein didn't believe the United States would attack Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction - so he concealed the fact that he didn't have any to prevent an Iranian invasion, his chief American interrogator has revealed in a bombshell interview.

"He told me he initially miscalculated . . . President Bush's intentions," FBI agent George Piro says in an upcoming "60 Minutes" broadcast on Sunday.

"He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 . . . a four-day aerial attack."

Piro, a Lebanese-American and one of the few FBI agents who spoke Arabic, was assigned to debrief Saddam after his December 2003 capture. He ended up spending seven months in the interviews, winning the dictator's confidence along the way.

When it became clear that the US military was about to come marching in, Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the coalition off for two weeks, "and at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war" - a reference to the insurgency.

Even then, the Butcher of Baghdad still wouldn't admit that he had no WMDs.

"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong and defiant Saddam," said Piro. "He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq."

Piro also notes that Saddam did maintain the infrastructure necessary to reconstitute a WMD program as soon as sanctions were lifted.

Thus, we have Iraq purposefully seeking to portray itself as in possession of WMD and intel agencies around the world - not just those in the US - coming to the same conclusion.

Imagine That

The Associated Press breathlessly ran a press release from a George Soros funded interest group claiming that they've proven that President Bush and other members of his administration lied about WMD in Iraq.

Wow. Color me shocked. Well, no.

I'm not shocked that George Soros backed groups still push the nonsense that Bush lied, or that the AP ran the study press release as though it was hard news.

It's the only thing that keeps them warm at night.

Let's keep this in mind. The Administration based its statements on CIA information that both parties in the United States relied upon for more than a decade. Don't believe me? Well, explain this then (ht: killian bundy):



After all, how many of these so-called lies were repeated ad nauseum by the likes of President Bill Clinton, First Lady/Senator Hillary Clinton, Sec. State Albright, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards, and all the rest of the Democrats during the 1990s? It only came after 2003 that people realized that the CIA intel about the Iraqi WMD programs was found to be incorrect.

That's not a lie. That's bad intel, which was only discovered after Saddam Hussein was ousted.

UPDATE:
Others weighing in on the latest attempt to push opinion as hard news: James Joyner, and Texas Rainmaker.

UPDATE:
Doug Ross has still more on Democrats who made the same statements, and yet aren't considered by the study.

UPDATE:
Still others weighing in: Michelle Malkin and Flopping Aces.

Random Hits

Ace links to an interesting rethink of the 2001 anthrax attacks. The FBI has been unable to solve the case, and maybe there's an explanation that brings together key details.

The basic premise is that the anthrax attacks were part and parcel of the al Qaeda attacks on the country in 2001, and that they used weapons grade anthrax obtained from a foreign country, who upon seeing what had been wrought, realized that if the links could be traced all the way back to them, that it would mean their doom. So, that foreign country embarked on a program to destroy their anthrax stocks and all other similar evidence.

The foreign nation involved? Iraq.

I know, that sounds way too convenient and Occam's Razor might have a few questions for this theory. It has all the makings of a conspiracy theory all to its own. Still, there has been quite a bit of evidence over the years that various terrorist attacks against the US have not been as thoroughly investigated as they should have been, including following up on possible foreign assistance - see the 1993 WTC bombing and the OKC bombing.

Al Qaeda's Chemical Weapons Campaign

These aren't the kind of chemical weapons that the West was most worried about when the 2003 invasion of Iraq took place, but the use of very common and easily accessible chemicals that, when inhaled, cause suffocation, burns, and death. The latest attack using chlorine gas killed 15. Bill Roggio has more:

“The attack began at 6:33 a.m. with mortar fire, followed by two truck bombs and small arms fire. Iraqi Police identified the first suicide attacker and fired on the truck, causing it to detonate before reaching the compound,” according to the Multinational Forces West press release. “Iraqi Army soldiers spotted the second suicide truck approaching the gate and engaged it with small arms fire, causing it to also detonate near the entrance of the compound.”

Fifteen Iraqi soldiers, police and U.S. advisers stationed at the government center were injured in the blast, while “numerous Iraqi Soldiers and Policemen are being treated for symptoms such as labored breathing, nausea, skin irritation and vomiting that are synonymous with chlorine inhalation.”

This is the sixth successful chlorine gas suicide attack in Anbar province this year. Two other trucks laden with explosives and chlorine gas were seized in Ramadi, one just last evening. It is possible last evening's captured chlorine bomb was to be used in a coordinated attack, as al Qaeda conducted a near simultaneous chlorine attack in Ramadi, Fallujah and Amiriya on March 17.

The terrorists are using chlorine as a way to expand the effects of their bombing and the results are that such attacks are proving to be far more deadly and injurious than if they simply used just explosives.

It is a worrisome trend, and the jihadis don't seem to have a problem using chemical weapons on other Muslims - who happen to be the vast majority of those injured or killed in these incidents. The terrorists are using the chemical weapons as part of an offensive against the local government in an attempt to roll back the gains made by coalition forces and the Iraqi government in the area since last year.

So, how does the US and Iraqi forces stop these attacks? Interdicting the source of the gas may be the best manner, but many chemical and industrial processes require chlorine, so it is a huge job. Going after the terrorists is the other way, but it is just as difficult. In the meantime, US forces are being told to carry around their chemical weapons gear just in case of an attack so that they do not suffer the effects of chlorine gas inhalation.

Thoughts on Israeli Preparations for Nuclear Strike Against Iran

I missed the initial uproar yesterday as the headlines blared that Israel has plans drawn up to nuke the Iranian nuclear research/development sites (and Israel has subsequently denied that they have any such plans). Frankly, this isn't the story that folks are making it out to be.

For starters, should this be this a surprise to anyone? Not to me it isn't. Indeed, Texas Rainmaker points out that the same paper made similar statements in December 2005 that Israel was preparing for strikes against Iran's nuclear capabilities.

What exactly do war planners of all countries do in their off time (when they're not actually fighting wars)? They work out scenarios that are foreseeable and game them to maximize their nation's capabilities and minimize the losses that might result. In Israel's case, that includes the potential of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel, which is an existential threat that few truly understand since it wouldn't take more than a handful of nuclear weapons to destroy Israel's major population centers and kill millions of Israelis.

Given that fact, what do you think the Israelis would do to prevent such an occurrence? Sit back and take it or launch a preemptive strike of their own? It would be irresponsible to the point of incompetence for the Israelis not to have some form of plans to deal with the existential threat posed by Iran. That includes various types of air raids on the nuclear sites, up to and including nuclear weapons in support of those strikes or as the weapon needed to strike at the hardened sites.

The Israelis have repeatedly shown themselves willing to preempt threats that were imminent. Witness the lightning attacks at the outset of the Six Day War or the raid on the Osirak reactor in Iraq that set back Saddam's nuclear weapons programs considerably. The Osirak reactor strike is a model studied around the world on how to go after nuclear weapons facilities, but also got Iran, North Korea and others in the region to reconsider how and where they built their nuclear facilities. Iran has turned to building them in reinforced bunkers and deep underground so as to reduce the likelihood of a successful air raid.

Iran has surrounded its nuclear facilities with air defense systems and isn't doing so because it wants to protect a civilian nuclear program, but because Iran's endgame is to rain hell on Israel. Iran has already said that Israel will regret any attack- and I read that to mean a resumption of Hizbullah's war in Lebanon against Israel potentially supplemented with additional weaponry (potential WMD included) smuggled in via Syria combined with an escalation of attacks from Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has been explicitly clear as to Iran's intentions: he wants Israel annihilated. He wants the West destroyed and subjugated to Iran's Islamic visions. Yet, the supposed leak of a nuclear strike against Iran's own nuclear facilities is the factor ratcheting up the tensions in the region?

Israel is playing a calculated game of showing that it is not above acting crazier than the Iranian mullahs in hopes that Iran might back down. The problem with this strategy is that Iran's visions for the region aren't based solely in politics, but in a religious ideological view that is firmly enmeshed in Iran's political structure. Blue Crab Boulevard concurs. This may simply be designed to make Ahmadinejad and the mad mullahs show their hand. It may simply force an acceleration of Iran's nuclear gambit, but that runs into the technological challenges of assembling the needed nuclear materials for weapons. Israelis believe that Iran is two years from a nuclear weapon while others give them 2-5 years before having nuclear weapons capabilities.

Some wonder whether we should support Israel if they use nuclear weapons against Iran. I wonder if they consider the possibility of supporting Israel after it has been immolated by Iranian nuclear weapons because Israel and the rest of the world refused to take action to force Iran to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs. Macranger takes that view to task. Don Surber thinks that Israel is doing the job that the UN wont do. Canaries in the mines and all that. He's right. Israel is doing the job that the West wont do because it can't or wont.

UPDATE:
Others blogging this so-called breaking news: AJ Strata, who thinks that Israel is doing the right thing; Pajamas Media wonders about the source of the news reports; Rick Moran lays into the obliviousness of Cenk Uygur's Huffpo piece referenced above; Wizbang has a great roundup of news; Outside the Beltway; Stop the ACLU; FFDB (who has lots of satellite imagery and other background); Bill's Bites; and Decision 08.

Joe Gandelman wonders about the breathless headlines associated with this story. Indeed, he doesn't think it much of a story yet.

Reliapundit has some good observations.

Memo to Israel

Memo to Israel.
From: Hizbullah and Nasrallah
Re: Lebanon and weapons transfers.

We love what you've enabled the UN and UNIFIL to do with South Lebanon. It's so much easier to bring in new and upgraded missiles and rockets for the resumption of hostilities when the infidel UN operates on the free nights and weekends plans and all you can do is watch overhead and worry about starting an international incident with peacekeepers training their anti-aircraft missiles at your fighters. Already, we've more than made up for our expended rockets and missiles, and you can't even lift a finger to stop us.

Much thanks. Allah Akbar!

----

Now, who exactly is to blame for a situation where the UN doesn't even bother with trying to enforce its own Security Council resolutions? All four of them actually. UN SCR 425, 426, 1559, and 1701. All deal with the territorial integrity of Lebanon and the disarmament and elimination of all militias in Lebanon. Annan and the Secretariat aren't enforcing the resolutions. Heck, Annan doesn't even understand cause and effect:

"As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed," Annan said.

Israel provided civil administrative control of Gaza and West Bank to the PA in 1993 under Oslo, and a full deal would have been reached in 2000 if Arafat accepted a deal offered by Barak. Instead of taking the deal, Arafat permitted and/or caused another intifada, repleat with suicide bombings and unending violence against Israel. That spurred the Israelis to clamp down on security, including the construction of a security barrier that has limited the terrorists' capability to send suicide bombers into Israel. That would not have been necessary had the Palestinians policed their own extremists. Instead, the Israelis have had to put their own security ahead of the nihlistic needs of the Palestinian terrorists. That it has inconvenienced the Palestinian people is something that the Palestinians themselves need to take up with their elected leaders.

Of course, that's not the full extent of the cluelessness at Turtle Bay. Where does Annan think Hizbullah, Hamas, and the jihadis are getting their weapons from, if not from other countries in the region that are not only opportunistic but pushing their Islamist agenda at the same time? The weapons fairy? As if.

Annan also thinks that solving the Arab Israeli conflict would do much to stop the conflict between the West and Islam. Three words: Not.Gonna.Happen. The jihadis are not simply content with eliminating Israel from the map. They want to recreate and expand the ummah. Submission to their version of Islam is paramount, and violence will ensue if you do not comply. But don't take my word for it, that's what the jihadis themselves keep saying - along with the likes of Ahmadinejad.

Meanwhile, the French and Germans are more likely to try and pick off Israeli aircraft flying over Lebanon and its coastal waters to keep tabs on the Hizbullah arms shipments coming into the country via Syria than to actually disarm Hizbullah. Lebanon wants the overflights to stop as well, but they're no better in disarming Hizbullah than UNIFIL is. And US Secretary of State Rice saying that the US wants Hizbullah to disarm isn't going to make them. Hizbullah will need to be forced to disarm, and that can only mean a resumption of hostilities because Hizbullah will not willingly disarm on its own. They'd rather watch Lebanon crash and burn than disarm.

The US and Israelis agreed to this arrangement despite knowing that the UN wouldn't do anything to actually disarm Hizbullah. Those at the State Department wanted to get a cessation of hostilities, the consequences be damned. Hizbullah got a propaganda victory, but managed to not only get disbanded, but is now in the driver's seat in Lebanese politics. They're going to determine what happens there because the Lebanese were feckless in letting the Islamists stick around and create their own little feifdom in South Lebanon and the Bek'aa Valley. Hizbullah ministers resigning and threats of a coup don't help matters either. Al Qaeda's threats against Lebanon don't help matters either.

Hizbullah's masters in Iran are again claiming that Israel's destruction is soon at hand, (and the same kind of rhetoric has flowed by Hizbullah's leaders and Hamas) but no one appears willing to do what must be done to prevent that eventuality. Israel says that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, but Olmert appears incapable of dealing with any threats these days. Israel now tolerates daily rocket attacks from Gaza and the rearmament of Hizbullah in South Lebanon. Neither situation is good for Israel's national security, and yet Israel's actions are extremely limited. They are limited because of Israel's reluctance to use all appropriate force to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure, up to and including Hamas and Fatah leadership, despite the fact that both continue to call for Israel's destruction (Hamas overtly, and Fatah via subversion and death by thousands of papercuts). Shackling the IDF and IAF to limited actions, telegraphing their moves only compounded the problems. Trying to fight a war humanely put not only more Israelis at risk, but increases the danger for a reprise of the conflict.

The war in Lebanon was only the latest round in an ongoing conflict, and the UN is simply a placeholder until Hizbullah can determine the time and place of the next round.

The US, for its part, has been caught up in the domestic political scene, and the focus on Israel, the situation in Lebanon and the Palestinians appears to be rejoining the Bush 41 view. With Bush Senior's people taking a more prominent and aggressive stance in Dubya's Administration complete with change in strategy on Iraq, Israel, and the peace process, this doesn't bode well for US foreign policy or Israel's national security for that matter.

Peace in the Middle East will not come when Israel is at peace with its neighbors. For the Islamists, peace will come when Israel is in pieces and no longer exists.

The nations that support the jihadis and Islamic terrorists know that they cannot destroy Israel directly via their own military forces, but can bide their time with their proxy forces. Getting out of Iraq will hand the Islamists significant victories that will provide a springboard to additional terrorism in the region - directed at not only US interests, but those of our allies and Israel.

The US policy aids and abets that strategy by handcuffing Israel to resume a peace process that doesn't reflect a mutual desire to end the conflict with peace between two nation states. This shift in policy reflects the reassertion of State Department Arabists - the Scowcroft realists, whose realpolik views are flawed.

Many of the current problems in the region are traceable back to decisions made by Bush 41. The failure to go to Baghdad during the first Gulf War and eliminate Saddam's regime meant that he was free to continue with the WMD programs, drain US military resources during the no-fly zones that had to be instituted following the Shi'ite and Kurdish uprisings that were harshly put down by Saddam. The US had supported the uprisings but withdrew that support, leaving our potential allies hanging. Those potential allies still haven't forgotten, nor have they forgiven. I understand that the limitations on the US at that point in 1991 were diplomatic in nature - the UN mandate was to only liberate Kuwait, and not depose Saddam Hussein, and any move on Hussein would have fractured the alliance of nations that was involved in the First Gulf War.

Bush 41 also let Israel hang out to dry - by telling Israel to basically absorb the Scud missile attacks by Saddam without reprisals. Sure, Israel got Patriot missile batteries in response to the threat, but Israel's security was undermined by this arrangement, and Iran and others took note.

Hizbullah, Hamas, Fatah and the rest of the terrorist groups know that they can inflict a certain amount of damage to Israel on a daily and ongoing basis without feeling the full wrath of the Israeli military. They now know that the Israelis are not totally capable of dealing with an entrenched guerilla proxy military because the media and world opinion constrains the Israelis from unleashing their full military power on those targets - primarily because the targets are massed in civilian and residential areas to maximize collateral civilian casualties. Hiding in plain sight, Hizbullah can fire their rockets into Israel, surrounded by men, women, and children, who will be added to the body count if Israel fires back at the rocket launchers. Hizbullah puts its command and control bunkers in hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Hizbullah used UNIFIL positions as shields against Israeli fire, and knew that UNIFIL representatives would complain loudly against Israel returning fire in such close proximity to their own positions.

Hamas and Fatah have both been paying close attention to those developments and is trying to turn Gaza into South Lebanon - complete with underground bunkers and tunnels that are difficult to assault from air operations. Hamas has already shown itself more than willing to turn unarmed women into human shields - urging them to surround their armed terrorists in mosques so that they can fire on Israeli forces unimpeded. All these moves are designed to make Israel's vaunted military dismount and fight in close quarters with the infliction of maximum casualties as the goal.

So, what can Israel do in this situation? Well, for starters they must do more to police the arms smuggling routes. That means retaking the Philadelpi corridor along the Gaza/Egypt border, and putting pressure on the UN and US to stop the inflow of weapons to Hizbullah via the Syrian border.

Those steps will only lessen the flow of new weapons into the territories; they do nothing to stop the terrorists from using them on Israel. Israel has been lucky that the terrorists have not had better aim - but if the terrorists have gotten their hands on guided missiles, the situation can quickly change. A resumption of the siege of Northern Israel is not impossible, and much of the rest of Israel could come under fire from Gaza should Hamas obtain longer range missiles as well.

UPDATE:
This article has more on Iran's nuclear intentions and this one has more on the free flow of Islamists and jihadi fighters from one theater of operations to another. This isn't good at all.

The jihadis are at the gates of Israel.

Technorati: terrorism, nasrallah, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Abbas, Regev, Goldwasser, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria

The Rabbit Hole

The New York Times is running a major story today about how the US Defense Department published online hundreds of thousands of documents captured in Iraq that required translation and hoped to utilize the distributed knowledge of Internet users to translate the information.

Well, the Times now claims that the information published online included primers on how to build nuclear weapons - information that could prove useful to the likes of Iran. That is, if the Times reporting itself is correct. If the reporting is indeed correct, that changes everything - and not for the better for Democrats.

That begs quite a few questions. Does this not show that Iraq was indeed working on nuclear weapons programs and reserving the technical know-how to produce the weapons the moment sanctions were lifted? Indeed the Times actually goes further than that:

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

For those that are still slow on the uptake, that would mean not only that Iraq had the garden variety WMDs, but was quite close to having the ultimate WMD - a nuclear weapon at its disposal.

It also raises yet more questions about the disposition of the program itself - where are the ultimate traces of the program. The papertrail deserves additional examination and it needs to be done swiftly.

Also, the rationale for shutting down the site (which the DoD did overnight) included concerns that Iran might be able to exploit the database for its own purposes. Does this not show that the world's concern about Iran's nuclear program are well-founded if this database could be used by the Iranians to aid in the development of their own nuclear program. If the Iranian program was for peaceful means, how and why would the Iraqi weapons program prove useful?

Why does the New York Times now suddenly realize that this database contains sensitive information that must be shut down, when only weeks and months earlier found no problem highlighting the NSA and SWIFT programs designed to hunt down terrorists around the world via their communications and financial transactions. The sudden shift cannot possibly be because of an election coming up, would it? Allah questions the timing. The sudden interest in national security just days before an election does seem most curious. Michelle Malkin concurs. It is curious alright.

Ed Morrissey, who has been on top of the publication of data from this database of documents notes that the nature of these documents must be legit if the Times is running the story in this fashion. He, among others, wonders now if everyone who has called the Administrations liars will now admit that they themselves were wrong since Bush appears to have been vindicated based on this Times story.

Now, if the Times got its reporting wrong, and tried to claim that the database information wasn't as important as they claim - trying to stress that the Administration's hold on classified information is flawed right before an election based on inaccurate reporting itself becomes the story: The Times itself would be trying to swing the election based on shoddy reporting.

That's why this story should be a win-win for the GOP. Not only would one outcome be that the GOP and Bush are vindicated by the Administration going into Iraq, but the flipside is that the Times pushing a bogus story right before the election would further seal its fate - and that of Democrats who hope this story might hurt the GOP right before an election.

Others blogging: Stop the ACLU (and here), Macranger, AJ Strata, and more to come.

UPDATE:
For a good review on the NYT duplicity at election time, and how they may have completely sabotaged Democrat chances going forward, see this piece by Doug Ross.

UPDATE:
Don Surber makes an interesting observation about the publication of the information from which this Times story was culled. If this information was so valuable, how come no one from the Times bothered to check it out and publish a story on it until the Friday before the midterm elections.

Now, the website repository has been taken down, and the lefty websites are all atwitter over the fact that the Bush Administration provided information that would help Iran with its weapons program (that Iran itself says it doesn't have). What information was provided? And if this information helps provide the Iranian with key details that further its nuclear weapons program (that the Iranians keep saying they don't have), what exactly would it be doing for the Iraqi program? Collecting dust? That's what we're supposed to believe?

Would anyone have known that the Iraqis were as far along on their reconstitution of a nuclear weapons program if this repository wasn't public? Does anyone think that the Iranians need our help more than we're providing simply by giving them time to work out the kinks in their program. The Iranians continue to obtain crucial information and technologies from China and North Korea, and Russia is running interference. Iran's participation in the AQ Khan network is also known.

So, if the documents are supposed to be giving the Iranians the bomb, that would mean that Iraq was already there (since these documents are the ostensible missing links to getting the bomb that Iran so desperately wants but denies having interest therein).

Tom Maguire points out that the Iranians also got a wee bit of assistance from the Clinton Administration, who provided details about the nuclear triggers. That piece of equipment is the part that enables the nuclear weapon to fire off correctly and efficiently (or else you end up with a fizzle).

James Joyner provides a nice capsule summary - along with reaction from both sides of the aisle. He doesn't think the story as significant as others, but is open to being convinced.

For those wanting to see how far down the rabbit hole this goes, check out the following bloggers: Flopping Aces, QandO, Decision 08, and Argghhh!

UPDATE:
Still further down the rabbit hole. Ray Robison, who has been translating these documents and publishing them on his website (and via Ed Morrissey) has more to say about the latest from the Times. He thinks that his contacting the IAEA might have triggered this reporting in the first place. Confederate Yankee has more.

UPDATE:
Still others wandering down the rabbit hole: Jim Geraghty, Hyscience, Coalition of the Swilling, Cold Fury, Fausta, Small Dead Animals, and Kobiyashi Maru.

UPDATE:
Jason Smith notes some of the documents that had been translated in the past, along with some photographic evidence accompanying one of the documents. If you spot Zarqawi, you'd be correct.

Technorati: UNSCAM, Oil for Food, and Kofi Annan, iraq, saddam hussein, and bush lied, united states, atomic bomb, and nuclear weapons, politics.

Just How Much Digging Did Media Do?

Yesterday, I wondered just how much digging did the Senate committee do in its research and publication of a report that the media claimed found no links between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Today, I wonder just how much did the media read of that same report. Ed Morrissey has gone through a searchable pdf of the report and found that the media missed quite a bit. Like the fact that Saddam Hussein retained the ability to produce biological weapons, and while large scale production ceased after 1996, the ability to ramp up production was retained.

Saddam also refused to accept limitations on missile ranges.

Postwar findings of the ISG confirm the Intelligence Community’s assessment that Iraq developed the Al Samud II and Al Fat’h (formerly Ababil- 100) missiles with procurements prohibited by UN sanctions, or subject to UN verification, and the missile ranges exceeded 150&m, in violation of UN prohibitions. The ISG found numerous instances where Iraq disregarded UN prohibitions and sought to improve its missile capabilities. The ISG found that Saddam did not consider ballistic missiles to be WMD and he never accepted the missile range restrictions imposed by the UN, although in late February 2003, he ultimately acquiesced to UN demands that the Al Samud II inventory be destroyed. Additionally, flight test data recovered by the ISG confirm that both the Al Samud II and the Al Fat’h had ranges in excess of 150~km. These findings support the Intelligence Community’s assessment that Iraq was developing and testing SRBMs which were capable of flying beyond the UN-administered 150~km range limit.

AJ Strata also takes the media to task for their reading comprehension skills. The report states that there was no way to definitively ascertain the terrorist links and that it did not have the capability to investigate the situation in post-war Iraq. Big Lizards further notes the careful parsing of AP articles on the report and makes the following observation that can be easily distilled to the enemy of my enemy is my friend:

I am utterly persuaded that Saddam Hussein saw al-Qaeda, and especially Musab Zarqawi up in Ansar al-Islam, as a "threat" to his regime. But that does not mean Hussein made any attempt to remove Zarqawi, nor that he did not harbor Zarqawi, nor even that he did not have an operational relationship with Zarqawi.

For heaven's sake, many Americans in the 1940s saw Communism as a threat to the United States (though the president did not)... but that did not stop FDR, with the support of the entire political establishment, from allying with Josef Stalin against Adolf Hitler. There is an old proverb: Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Thus, the central dichotomy of the AP story is a canard: there is no inherent conflict between fearing an enemy and allying with that same enemy.

Just because some intel revealed that Saddam thought al Qaeda as a rival or potential enemy doesn't mean that they didn't work together at both the micro or macro levels of politics. It's not as though Democrats don't work with Republicans in Congress even though they're rivals. It's not as though FDR and Churchill worked with Stalin despite their knowing that Stalin had earlier alligned himself with Hitler. It's not as though that we repeatedly see the US alligning itself with shady regimes, including Saddam's Iraq in the early 1990s because of who else was in the neighborhood (Iran).

The report was a political document, and the media picked up only those bits that satisfy the political edge, not those inconvenient bits that show the US was right to be concerned about Iraq's ongoing violations of UN resolutions, the 1991 cease fire agreement, and support of terrorism.

Diplomacy and the Hounds of Hell, Part XII

The French are busy complaining that Israel isn't going to take up a 72 hour ceasefire proposed by the diplomats. Why should they? Any ceasefire will only enable Hizbullah time to redeploy and reequip. Right now, Hizbullah is fighting for its life, despite the claims of Walid Jumblatt who says Hizbullah has won this war. Why has Hizbullah won, may you ask? Because they've lasted longer than entire countries did in the Six Day War? Appearances and perceptions count more than facts to these folks. That's why half measures and limited ground campaigns are not going to work. If Israel is going to improve its security position, they must do more than simply eliminate terrorists along its border. It must crush them entirely.

The UN is trying to line up potential contributors to an international peacekeeping force. The EU is confident that the UN will push such a force. No problems there other than the fact that there are so few countries who would send forces, and then there's the question of the mandate and force capability to actually disarm Hizbullah (not that they'd willingly part with their weapons).

And yet, there's word that Hizbullah might agree to a ceasefire that includes the disarming of militias. I'm wary and dubious of such a move, although that shows just how badly Hizbullah has been hit. If they were in a good position strategically and tactically, they would reject such a move out of hand. Another possibility is that they have no intention of doing so, and are simply posturing to put additional international pressure on the Israelis to force them into a ceasefire that Hizbullah has no intention of complying with.

The Israelis have determined that the rockets fired into Afula were of Syrian origin, not Iranian.

Meanwhile, Hizbullah continues to fire rocket barrages into Israel. The battle at Bint Jbeil continues, with Israel exacting heavy casualties on Hizbullah, but taking casualties all the same. The Israelis are also maintaining the pressure on Hamas in Gaza, with continued attacks against weapons caches and other targets. Despite claims that Shalit would be released soon, there's no movement on that front.

Bloggers to check in with for daily updates are Blue Crab Boulevard, Carl in Jerusalem, Israellycool, Dave Bender, Meryl Yourish, Euphoric Reality, Pajamas Media, Hot Air, Jameel at the Muqata, Greetings from the French Hill, R'Lazer, and Live from an Israeli Bunker. Check back with them regularly for updates.

UPDATE:
Salon's Mitch Prothero would like you to believe that Hizbullah hiding among civilian populations is a myth ("almost always false" - note the modifier to provide sufficient wiggle room), and that the terrorist group is fearful of civilian populations. What planet is Prothero living on? Can you tell a Hizbullah terrorist apart from a civilian? No one can, unless the terrorists dying are holding guns, bombs or RPGs in their hands. And that's what the UN itself said. As did locals who have seen the terrorists operating between their homes. And there are repeated reports showing that Hizbullah is operating in and among civilian populations using them as human shields. Mark at USS Neverdock takes Prothero to task. So does Econopundit and Hot Air.

Meanwhile, UN officials are worried that the Israelis might flatten much of Southern Lebanon to root out Hizbullah. Well, that's what you get when the UN fails to do its job and disarm all militias in Lebanon under UN SCR 1559 to maintain and enforce Lebanon's territorial integrity. South Lebanon became Hizbullahland, where they were free to develop bunkers, weapons caches, and prepare for a conflict with Israel at the time and place of their choosing.

At UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqaura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hizbullah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Haifa.

"I have no doubt that Israel will flatten Tyre if civilian casualties continue in Haifa. Tyre will be taken off neighborhood by neighborhood," Morczynski warned. "I think Israel is contemplating flattening villages, flattening every single house to deny Hizbullah any advantage of urban fighting in the streets."

He estimated that 80 percent of the roughly half-million people who live in Southern Lebanon, demarcated by the Litani River, have already fled the embattled area. He also said he feared the civilian death toll in Lebanon was more than 600, well more than the official count of 400-plus.

"Hizbullah are still strong" 17 days into the conflict, peacekeeping chief, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini told The Associated Press.

Again, we see so much concern for those living in Southern Lebanon, and not so much concern for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have fled Northern Israel or the million living in bunkers and bomb shelters because of the incessant rocket attacks. The UN's myopia is extreme and dangerous to Israel's existence. The UN is also estimating a death toll based on, well not much. Pulling figures out of thin air.

Paul at Powerline takes apart the so-called ceasefire deal that Hizbullah would supposedly agree to.

The key elements are: (1) an immediate cease fire, (2) the release of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners, (3) Israeli withdrawal behind the border, (4) resolution of the status of Chebaa Farms, a small piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon, in favor of Lebanon, and (5) the "disarming" Hezbollah, and (6) the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, with the strengthening and increasing of the small, lightly armed U.N. peacekeeping force currently there.

A cease fire under these terms would represent a clear victory for Hezbollah. They began the hostilities for the stated purpose of obtaining the release of its prisoners. The deal would not only enable them to accomplish this, but Israel would lose territory (Chebaa Farms) in the process.

There's no way Israel would agree to these terms, and Hizbullah knows it - so this is nothing more than an expansion on the original terms they set forth. In fact, these terms are more extravagent than the original terms.

Heck, even Andrew Sullivan sees this conflict for what it is - war imposed on Israel by Iran and Syria.

This is a war Iran started. I fear it has just begun. Its ultimate end is simple: the eradication of Israel and the murder of every Jew in the Middle East. Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad are very, very clear about this. And they are playing the p.r. game brilliantly. The president's press conference with Blair today struck me as revealing - and not in a good way. Bush is right on the basic issue. He grasps the nature of the enemy. But he is so out of his depth - rhetorically, strategically, politically, intellectually - that it is hard to have much confidence in his leadership.

After that, Sullivan veers off into claiming that Bush is out of his league and incapable of leading us through this conflict. Never mind that there's no one on the other side of the aisle capable of leading since they're all invariably waffling or otherwise seeking out the partisan political advantage of any move instead of doing the right thing (aka pandering instead of leading). The Iranians have indeed started this war against the West, and for Sullivan to claim that Bush isn't able to lead, one has to wonder whether all the complaints against the Administration that turned out to be exaggerated or unfounded have kneecapped the Administration's ability to deal with this threat more aggressively. After all, the Administration was correct on the WMD issue, correct about those 16 words, and terrorists were operating in Iraq all along with Saddam's consent and approval. Those three memes have been pushed by the Left and anyone in the Democrat party who believed that the Administration did the right thing is being forced out in an ideological purge (e.g. Joe Lieberman).

So, Sullivan has identified the problem, but provides no solution. Engagement and diplomacy are insufficient given that Iran is already at war with us. We must wage war back or else face attack after attack here and abroad.

UPDATE:
Is Abbas trying to distance himself from Nasrallah and Hizbullah. It sure seems that way.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday his government has no intention of teaming up with Shi'ite Hizboullah on negotiating the release of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.

Israel launched attacks in Gaza after Palestinian Hamas-linked operatives crossed from Gaza into Israel and snatched Cpl. Gilad Shalit on June 25. As that conflict raged, Hizbullah grabbed two soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid, sparking the current violent conflict raging in the North of Israel and in Lebanon.

Hamas had raised the possibility this week of teaming up with Hizbullah to negotiate terms to release of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel in exchange for the three IDF soldiers.

But Abbas said the situations were too different to coordinate a release.

Now why would Abbas do that at a time when other terrorist groups are and public opinion are supposedly flocking to Hizbullah's cause - like al Qaeda and Hamas example? Could it be that Abbas sees the writing on the wall he's trying to play the peacemaker, hoping that he'll come out ahead when all is said and done? Or maybe he realizes that backing Hizbullah is a losing cause and doesn't want to get sucked into a prolonged conflict where Fatah is tremendously disadvantaged against the Israelis, despite the Israeli unwillingness to unleash the full force of its military against the terrorists, instead opting for a piecemeal approach.

The rockets keep flying towards Israel as the sirens go off. More than 40 were fired today.

Ed Morrissey thinks that the Hizbullah peace offering is legit and that the Israelis should call their bluff - especially due to the inclusion of a call to disarm the militias. I'm not so sure, as I posted above. Rick Moran is also dubious of the deal, which is anything but.

UPDATE:
Anyone else find this troubling? The UN will have an observer in the IDF control room to oversee the humanitarian aid convoys to ensure their safety. No word on whether the UN will do the same with Hizbullah. This comes as two more UN peacekeepers were wounded by Israeli airstrikes. Have no doubt that there will be yet more cries for Israel to cease and desist, all while Hizbullah continues to take advantage of positioning itself adjacent to UN positions as shields.

The Israelis are going after border crossings from Syria into Lebanon, hitting Masnaa today. Israel had been going after scattered convoys entering Lebanon from Syria, but today's attack shut down the border crossing. More of this has to be done if the Hizbullah resupply routes are to be eliminated.

The senior Islamic Jihad leader in Nablus was killed by the IDF today.

Nasrallah, meanwhile, says that Israel is a temporary country. Well, what we've got here is another not so thinly veiled threat of genocide. This is with whom the Israelis are supposed to make a deal to end the fighting?

And those who are outraged over the violence done to Lebanon have continued to remain silent over the death and destruction in Israel due to the Hizbullah rockets and ongoing terrorism. Can you say double standard? I knew you could.

Chirac recognizes the obvious: No peacekeeping force in Lebanon until ceasefire. Well, considering that Hizbullah isn't going to lay down their arms willingly (despite their so-called offer to do so), the peacekeeping force is DOA until further notice.

Here's anouther thought on peacekeeping and disarming Hizbullah. Trust but verify. I wouldn't trust Hizbullah to disarm at all. There's no reason to trust or believe them. So, whoever ends up drawing peacekeeping duties must engage in vigorous inspections to ensure that Hizbullah would indeed be keeping to its word.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Rains, Summer, cavaliers, wrath, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.

Diplomacy and the Hounds of Hell, Part X

So, al Qaeda feels like everyone is forgetting about them, so Zawahiri had to make a video showing that he's still relevant and that he's calling for worldwide jihad in support of his 'brothers' in Lebanon. Never mind that the moment the jihadis would win against the West, they'd go back to slaughtering each other en masse (and witness that they've got no problems killing each other in Iraq). And never mind that the jihadis have been getting defeated everywhere you look - despite the media reports, Hizbullah, Hamas, PIJ, and al Qaeda have all been losing men and materials, which limits their capabilities to conduct mass casualty attacks abroad. This isn't to say that they can't strike, only that we're taking the fight to the jihadis - hence the pep talks to the jihadis from Nasrallah.

Meanwhile, the Israelis continue pushing ahead albeit in a limited fashion and the thought occurred to me - what if the West simply isn't ruthless enough to win. We know the terrorists are ruthless - they'll blow up themselves, civilians, and everything around them to win. The West does everything possible to avoid blowing up everything around their targets, and will even call off missions to avoid hitting anything but the target.

Do we need to be more ruthless to win against a ruthless enemy? I think the answer is yes, as troubling as it sounds. The terrorists know that they can hide behind civilians - and know that the media will carry water for them - blaming the nations defending themselves from the terrorism for civilian casualties. That mindset must be broken once and for all.

Ed Morrissey has more details on the Canadian soldier killed at the UN outpost and his emails to superior officers.

The penultimate paragraph of Major Hess-von Kruedener's e-mail is prophetic, to say the least: "The closest artillery has landed within two metres of our position and the closest 1,000-pound aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."

This is what we call "veiled speech" in military jargon. It means hiding the truth in lingo that outsiders would not necessarily understand. What he is saying translates roughly as: "We have Hezbollah fighters all over our position engaging the IDF and using us as shields. They will probably stay, hoping that the IDF won't target them for fear of hitting us."

This reinforces and supports the contentions of many here - that Hizbullah was operating at, near, and alongside UN positions hoping to use them as shields against Israeli forces.

Israel engaged the terrorists near the UN outpost out of tactical necessity. You want to investigate, let's start with the UN investigating how and why they'd permit a terrorist group to overrun their outposts on a regular basis. Is this blaming the victims? Nope. It's blaming the UN leadership who while claiming to be a neutral observer, was neither neutral nor an observer. The use of UN positions without complaint shows tacit approval of such behaviors, knowing that the consequences could include Israeli strikes.

Meanwhile, the terrorists have managed to hit an Israeli chemical plant in Kiryat Shimona. Massive rocket barrages hit all along Northern Israel. All the same, the Israeli cabinet declined to expand Israeli operations beyond their current limits. I think that's a bad idea. Hizbullah is fighting with no such constraints, and apparently can still cross the border between Lebanon and Syria without too much trouble. Nasrallah is in Damascus, which means he was able to run the gauntlet. I guess he's too important to die a martyr by blowing himself up in front of Israeli troops or to sacrifice himself in a bunker somewhere in Lebanon leading his terror minions. Coward.

That he was able to run the gauntlet suggests that the Syria/Lebanon border isn't sealed, and that's got to be a priority for the Israelis. Securing Israel's northern border might limit the rocket attacks, but sealing Lebanon off from Syria will eliminate them altogether when combined with efforts to stamp out Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon.

Also, Debka is reporting that Israeli airstrikes paid dividends again -

DEBKAfile’s military sources: The huge explosions that struck South Beirut Tuesday evening were caused by 20 Israeli airborne missiles dropping on large, newly-discovered Hizballah subterranean arms caches, part of this tunnel network.

The force of the secondary blasts attested to their contents and the accuracy of the Israeli intelligence pinpointing of previously unknown weapons bunkers in S. Beirut.

Lots of secondaries means that someone had a whole bunch of buried treasure that got blown up before it could be used. Much of the damage to the surrounding area wasn't due to the Israeli bombs, but the Hizbullah arms caches that were hit. Terrorists were storing those weapons under and in residential areas, knowing that if they were discovered, their detonations would likely result in civilian casualties.


Meanwhile, Jan Egeland is back at it - saying that Israel has created a generation of hatred.

United Nations humanitarian chief Jan Egeland accused Israel on Wednesday of committing "catastrophic mistakes" in its attack on Hizbullah, which have caused civilian casualties and alienated the Lebanese public.

"It will create a generation of hatred," he said in an interview held with The Jerusalem Post after he had concluded tours of northern Israel, Gaza and Lebanon.

Never mind the hatred that thousands of rockets fired into Israel and followed by the silence of the UN has stirred among Israelis who are tired of dealing with terrorists who seek their very annihilation.

Israel's existence is an anathema to Islamists - and those groups seek Israel's destruction. They do not want accomodation. They seek elimination. The only mistake Israel has made is accepting a certain level of violence for years without taking decisive action. That made the terrorists believe that they could strike with impunity and obtain their objectives relatively bloodlessly - killing Israel with thousands of little papercuts.

Israel has disabused them of that notion. The Israelis are taking the fight to Hizbullah, and their entrenchment throughout South Lebanon shows what they've been up to for the past six years - preparing for their war with Israel.

There are tactical differences between fighting a guerilla war - which Hizbullah will engage in, and fighting against an actual army. You can plink tanks, destroy artillery units, and eliminate APCs. Those are assets that can't easily be hidden from the eyes in the sky.

The same can't be said of tunnels and bunkers buried underground and guys with a couple of anti-tank weapons and rockets playing hit and run. Those that are standing and fighting are liable to do so to the death.

Not saying it can't be done, because it can, but that the costs will be high for the Israelis if they are putting the lives of Lebanese civilians ahead of their own soldiers.

Bloggers to check in with for daily updates are Blue Crab Boulevard, Carl in Jerusalem, Israellycool, Dave Bender, Meryl Yourish, Euphoric Reality, Pajamas Media, Hot Air, Jameel at the Muqata, Greetings from the French Hill, R'Lazer, and Live from an Israeli Bunker. Check back with them regularly for updates.

UPDATE:
Lebanon claims that about 600 people have been killed in their country. Never mind that figure because there's no way to know how many of them were terrorists and who were genuine civilians. But if Israeli strikes in Gaza are a guide, the ratio of terrorists to civilians is quite high.

Michelle Malkin's readers reach into history to pull out a cartoon from the 1970s that shows the UN was just as ineffectual against terrorism then as it is today. The problem remains the same.

Israel continues to try and devise a strategy for dealing with the situation in Gaza. They declined to have a mass callup of units, which shows that some have an eye towards the ongoing economic disruptions as a result of extended high intensity military operations. At the same time, some ministers are calling for more usage of airpower and artillery to turn terrorist strongpoints into rubble before sending in ground forces - reducing the risks to Israeli troops on the ground. Hizbullah will not be able have their flags fly in South Lebanon.

The diplomats keep trying to show that they are somehow relevant. The Aussie PM says that an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon is suicide. At least someone remembers what happened the last time there was a significant peacekeeping force in Lebanon and whose rules of engagement prevented attacking terrorists.

Kofi Annan might have gone way too far in claiming that Israel purposefully attacked the UN outpost, but that wont stop him and his cohorts from making preposterous statements. They only have a few months left before their terms are up, so they think that they can say whatever they want. That should not be allowed to stand. They are not free to make baseless accusations that affect the diplomatic postures of the various countries, but undermine the UN directly. Benny Avni has more.

There were reports earlier today about how the Palestinian terrorists might be on the verge of releasing Gilad Shalit. Well, not so fast. The Palestinians are backtracking furiously. The AP claims that the translation of Abbas' earlier statements were incorrect. No word on when the AP will issue corrections on the many stories claiming Israel is killing civilians in Lebanon and Gaza although no one knows just how many terrorists were killed who were operating in the midst of residential areas.

Meanwhile, Lebanese doctors are claiming that they're seeing wounds that they've never encountered before and that the Israelis are using chemical weapons - no proof. No photos. Nothing to support the accusations. But the media reports this nonetheless and it's repeated as fact by a willing media. Outside the Beltway notes this story as well. But it's not like this story hasn't been played before - it has. Security Watchtower notes that the same accusations were made against the US and coalition members in Iraq when some casualties were hit with phosphorous rounds. And the same media lapped it up knowing full well that these munitions are not chemical weapons, which are a special class of weapons known as WMD. Liberty and Justice looks at the claims with skepticism.

UPDATE:
Israpundit takes the LAT to task for their coverage of Annan's statements about Israel, Hizbullah, and the UN outpost.

From the UN daily briefing comes these tidbits:

There were three incidents of firing close to UN positions in the last 24 hours from the Israeli side. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Marwahin, Alma Ash Shab, Brashit, and At Tiri. The UNIFIL Engineering Contingent from China successfully disposed of one mortar bomb inside the Ghanaian battalion position, in the area of Marwahin.

In plain English, the Israelis were engaging in Hizbullah targets located near UN positions, and the Hizbullah were operating in the vicinity of UN positions - and hoping that UN positions would take fire from Israel, knowing that world reaction would come down on Israel, not Hizbullah. Kofi really should read these briefs more often. He'd see that his peacekeepers are being used as cannon fodder by Hizbullah, not Israel who is trying to eliminate the threat.

Kofi has no intention to retract his claim that the Israeli attack was 'apparently deliberate.' Of course he doesn't. He couldn't care less about the facts and has made his mind up. That's all there is to it.

Newsweek wonders whether a UN peacekeeping force would work in Lebanon. My answer is a most emphatic no. UNIFIL is an international force that was supposed to prevent this from happening - preventing Hizbullah from operating, from crossing the border and attacking Israel, and otherwise enforce UN SCR 1559. It has done none of that since it was formed. There's absolutely no reason to believe that yet another UN force would be any more successful. The countries that would support such a peacekeeping force are reluctant to send troops. Israel is wary of the UN, especially considering its inability to police the Lebanese border and their inability or incapability to thwart a Hizbullah buildup of weapons and fortifications along the border.

Hizbullah has no qualms about hitting peacekeepers, and will likely do so again. They're already showing a willingness to operate in the vicinity of UNIFIL operations, so to either shield themselves from direct fire, or to hope that the UN positions themselves come under fire from Israel.

Hizbullah also has no intentions to leave the battlefield under any circumstances, and will not put down their weapons, which is a precondition for any Israeli agreement on the matter. The world shouldn't accept a continued presence of an armed militia in Lebanon that can destabilize the situation in the country at the drop of a hat (or at the behest of Syria and Iran).

Ha'aretz notes that every few years another person rises up in the Arab World who claims to have the power and backing to stamp out Israel and save the Palestinians. Ha'aretz thinks that it's Nasrallah. I think they're close, but the real deal is Ahmadinejad, who already has a country, is seeking nuclear capabilities, and is funding Nasrallah and pulling the strings.

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee takes apart the 'chemical weapon' claims, and cites back to nearly identical claims made against the US in the Fallujah campaign.

Kesher Talk demands that Kofi release the UNIFIL documents. Seems that the UN is engaging in a bit of CYA and projection to boot. If Hizbullah was indeed operating from UNIFIL positions, the UN would be in a very precarious position.

Others blogging: Fausta, Wretchard, neo-neocon, and Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.

UPDATE:
Still more UN nonsense. They issued a statement at the shock of the Israelis firing at a UN position. The US blocked any language that might be even more harsh than that. Meanwhile, the UN produced no such statement condemning or expressing shock at Hizbullah operating in the vicinity of UNIFIL positions, attacking UNIFIL positions, or drawing Israeli fire onto UNIFIL positions. Nor did the UN issue a statement thanking Israel for providing humanitarian support to the UNIFIL personnel injured in two separate Hizbullah attacks on UNIFIL positions or convoys. Again, it doesn't look like anyone at the UN reads their own pressers.

A Jerusalem Post reporter ventured into Lebanon and found some curious things. The UNIFIL personnel stationed at some of these outposts haven't heard from the UN superiors and only gain their news from the television.

The current contingent from Ghana has been in Lebanon for three months. The soldiers at the post are charged with patrolling and monitoring, with their single jeep, the area where the heaviest fighting has been going on for the last 10 days. The fact that Hizbullah has been well entrenched in the area ever since Israel's withdrawal six years ago - with hundreds of fighters, well stocked ammunition depots and extensive fortifications - seemed to have escape the Ghanaians notice. "I have never seen one of them," says the soldier. "You cannot easily identify them in the population."

Hear no evil, see no evil. It's easier for these peacekeepers, and sounds rediculously familiar to the way the UN operated in Rwanda in 1994 - where UN peacekeepers stood by while more than 800,000 were slaughtered.

At the beginning of the fighting, a number of bombs exploded around the UNIFIL post, including one 150 meters from the gate. Two weeks later, the area around the post is quiet, except for the distant thud of artillery fire. Hizbullah has been banished from this small part of Lebanon. IDF Merkava tanks roar through a nearby opening in the border fence. There isn't even a guard at the border and Israeli and foreign journalists pass in and out unhindered.

The Ghanaian soldiers weren't even aware of the breach in the fence they are supposed to monitor, by mandate of the United Nations.

And there are those who think that the UNIFIL operations should be extended? They weren't doing their job before the fighting erupted, and they're not doing it now.

Hizbullah continues to fire rockets into Israel, and they're now firing mortars as well.

The IDF is surrounding more buildings in Ramallah. You can bet that they're not there to exchange pleasantries. They're there to seize terrorists.

Ahmadinejad says that the US will not have its way in the Middle East. Sorry to break it to you pal, but your genocidal aspirations aren't going to come to pass as long as the US is around.

Tigerhawk has an interesting analysis of the situation in Hizbullahland and compares it to the miscalculations by the Argentinians in the leadup to the Falklands War with the British.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Rains, Summer, cavaliers, wrath, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah,
lebanon, syria.

Diplomacy and the Hounds of Hell, Part VIII

CNN is being used by Hizbullah to spread its message, and no one in CNN thought that odd? Actually, that's standard operating procedure for CNN, which had no problem trading access for journalistic integrity in Iraq and who knows where else. Newsbusters has the details. It isn't pretty. And one shouldn't think that this is limited to CNN. Other news outlets operating in Lebanon are similarly uncritically touting the Hizbullah line without saying as much.

You can bet that the media bias from these stories has an effect on world opinion and the opinions of those diplomats and politicians who are following the issue closely and are trying to determine foreign policy. If they're utilizing these media reports, they'd be coming to the precisely wrong conclusions. Rob at Say Anything has more. A transcript showing just how in bed CNN was with Hizbullah is here.

No one wants to commit troops to an international peacekeeping force, including the US. The US doesn't want to do it, and other European nations are reluctant to send troops because they are stretched too thin with committments elsewhere. That, and they know that Hizbullah has no problem targeting peacekeepers as easily as Israelis. There's also concern that the peacekeepers would be seen as allies to Israel, which is understandable. Israel is a country defending its very existence against Islamic terrorists. Many of the European countries are similarly fighting Islamic terrorists abroad and at home.

So, who would that leave as potential peacekeepers? Middle Eastern countries that have no relations with Israel or would conspire to assist the terrorists destroy Israel? China? Russia? That international peacekeeping force seems far less international when you start excluding countries that have interests antithetical to Israel's existence, or whose interests are something less than honorable here.

Has Hamas thrown in the towel? While some reports suggest that it looks like Hamas is on the verge of accepting a plan proposed by the Egyptians that would save Hamas from the war that they craved so badly, other reports suggest Hamas will not agree to any deal unless they get prisoner exchanges up front. From Ha'aretz:

All groups in Gaza, including Hamas, would now accept a cease-fire deal with Israel which would include releasing Gilad Shalit, according to the Palestinian Agriculture Minister, who also heads the coordinating committee of Palestinian organizations there.

Ibrahim Al-Naja said the factions were ready to stop the Qassam rocket fire if Israel's ceased all military moves against the Palestinian factions in Gaza. They are also ready to release Shalit in exchange for guaranteeing the future release of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas leaders did not confirm this report yesterday, but if it is true, then this is the first time that Hamas has indicated its acceptance of the Egyptian proposal to solve the crisis.

Egypt's proposal did not include an Israeli commitment to the immediate release of Palestinian prisoners, only guarantees for their future release.

Al-Naja said the Palestinian faction's conditions were that the cease-fire would be mutual and Israel would stop all its actions against the Palestinians.

He also said Israel must provide clear guarantees to free veteran prisoners, minors and female prisoners incarcerated in Israel.

I'm not sure Israel would agree to these terms, but that Hamas is even proposing terms that are at least worthy of a second look shows that the Israelis have taught at least some Hamas a lesson. The problem is that Meshaal isn't going to like this one bit, and they'll claim victory for outlasting the Israelis, despite all the damage done by the Palestinians to their own cause. Dan Riehl also notes that Hamas is talking the talk for the first time because they're getting their butts kicked in a huge way. If he had his way, he'd want to see the Israelis eliminate Hizbullah and Hamas in toto, and not wait for a ceasefire. You do not make deals with terrorist groups that seek to annihilate you.

Secretary of State Rice is meeting with Prime Minister Olmert today, and you can be sure that they'll be discussing a timeline for how long the Israelis think they'll need to eliminate the Hizbullah threat from Northern Israel and what they're looking for in the long term.

Bloggers to check in with for daily updates are Blue Crab Boulevard, Carl in Jerusalem, Israellycool, Dave Bender, Meryl Yourish, Euphoric Reality, Pajamas Media, Hot Air, Jameel at the Muqata, Greetings from the French Hill, R'Lazer, and Live from an Israeli Bunker. Check back with them regularly for updates.

One Israeli was killed and 48 wounded in rocket attacks today. Some in the media are wondering whether the ongoing violence will somehow temper the Israeli reaction and break their will to survive against the existentialist threat, though they're not framing the question that way. They simply want to know if the politicians in Israel will cave to international calls for a ceasefire. And yet, it appears that the current crisis has united Israelis in a way that hasn't happened in more than 30 years.

Israel continues to grind away at Hizbullah, killing more than 40 Hizbullah in and around Bint Jbiel. They're also destroying the rocket launchers used by Hizbullah to hit targets inside Israel, including Haifa.

Several Israelis thus far have been hit by 'friendly fire,' and the IDF is examining whether the helicopter that crashed yesterday was hit by an artillery barrage. Another potential friendly fire incident was averted in Bint Jbiel when controllers realized a mistake in coordinates being used by a UAV to direct fire.

UPDATE:
Via Ha'aretz, the first US aid shipments to Lebanon are arriving today. Israel will let the UN airlift humanitarian aid into Lebanon as well. So why is Saudi Arabia pledging $500 million? To offset the Iranian influence. Sunni v. Shi'ite. This conflict is revealing not for its renewal of the Israeli-Arab conflict, but for how Sunni and Shi'a governments throughout the Middle East and beyond are influencing the events.

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight and expect the gunslinger to put down his gun to engage you with a knife. Yet, that's exactly what Eugene Robinson thinks Israel is doing. He thinks Israel is engaging in disproportionate force against Hizbullah. His proof? Lots of buildings and infrastructure damaged or destroyed, along with civilian casualties. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. Hizbullah is part of the Lebanese government, controls Southern Lebanon with a tight grip, and purposefully hides in plain sight - putting its military resources squarely within residential areas so as to invite civilian casualties in an Israeli reprisal. Hizbullah came to a gunfight with a knife, and now hopes that the world will call on Israel to put down its gun to deal with it in a knifefight. Sorry, but Nasrallah doesn't know the Chicago rules. And he and his terrorist minions are going to pay dearly for that miscalculation. Even Richard Cohen (yes, that Richard Cohen) gets it.

Perhaps Robinson should get his news from sources other than media outlets enthralled with getting footage in Beirut chaparoned by Hizbullah who are pushing their agenda at the cost of the facts. Quite a few of those buildings, and many of those so called civilians were anything but civilian targets. They were Hizbullah buildings, Hizbullah minions, and their infrastructure was going up in smoke because the IDF pinpointed where they were operating.

Israel will continue fighting to eliminate Hizbullah as a threat. As it must. And the world continues to look at an international peacekeeping force, though how it will look and be composed are up in the air. Are Western Democratic countries too nice to win?

What if Israel's caution about casualties among its own soldiers and Lebanese civilians has demonstrated to Hezbollah and Hamas that as long as they can duck and cover when the missiles fly and the bombs fall, they can survive and possibly even thrive?

What if Israel has every capability of achieving its aim, but cannot unleash itself against a foe more dangerous, more unscrupulous, more unprincipled and more barbaric than even the monstrous leaders of the Intifada it managed to quell after years of suicide attacks?

And as for the United States, what if we have every tool at our disposal to win a war - every weapons system we could want manned by the most superbly trained military in history - except the ability to match or exceed our antagonists in ruthlessness?

Is this the horrifying paradox of 21st century warfare? If Israel and the United States cannot be defeated militarily in any conventional sense, have our foes discovered a new way to win? Are they seeking victory through demoralization alone - by daring us to match them in barbarity and knowing we will fail?

Are we becoming unwitting participants in their victory and our defeat? Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is endangering the future of our civilization as well?

So, if the dovish approach doesn't work, the hawkish approach doesn't work, what are the alternatives?
There are no good alternatives. Stoic acceptance of terror attacks wont cut it, not when the threat of unconventional terror attacks with WMD is increasingly likely especially as Iran and North Korea pursue and extend their WMD capabilities. It doesn't leave any good options, which means one must choose the least bad option. To me, that's taking the fight to the terrorists.

John Podhoretz asks the question that keeps lurking. Can Israel win in the face of inflicting high casualties?

UPDATE:
As I first noted yesterday, Israel has more than its fair share of refugees from the fighting. More than 1 million Israelis are living in bunkers and bomb shelters because of the Hizbullah attacks (Israeli Ambassador Ayalon on Whiffleball with Matthews) A video report from Martin Fletcher has the details on the Israeli refugee situation (can access from here - follow link to Israel handling refugees and the recitation of the 300,000 comes about a minute+ into the video).

Meanwhile, Israel is fully in control of Bint Jbeil, and claims that many residents of Northern Israel will no longer come under fire of low trajectory rocket attacks, and that the IDF will soon surpress high trajectory rocket attacks.

The IDF Northern Command reported relative quiet on Tuesday, with few exchanges of fire. They posit that the deployment of artillery, infantry and armored brigades, which created "a finger hold" in southern Lebanon, is having the desired effect. IDF sources say that forces are working in a ways that utilize their relative advantage – they operate primarily at night, for example. According to the sources, Hizbullah casualties are very high.

At least one senior Hizbullah member operating in the Maroun al-Ras/Bnit Jbeil area was killed Tuesday as a result of IDF activities in the area. An IDF source told ynet that the operative was staying in a house serving as an operations room. He further reported that, while searching the houses, forces found many weapons, including light arms, Katyushas, and various kinds of missiles.

This is good news. Also good news: Israel terminated a Hizbullah regional commander. More buildings were targeted in Beirut, and while you can be sure that Hizbullah and some in the media will claim that only civilians were targeted, the fact is that Hizbullah is operating in these residential areas and that their infrastructure is getting hammered. The IDF is also attacking Hizbullah's communications infrastructure.

For a change, I agree with Ahmadinejad - those that caused this conflict will pay.

Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressed the current crisis on the Israeli-Lebanese border, saying, "The middle eastern storm is approaching.

Ahmadinejad added that "those who created the winds of the storm will pay the consequences." (AFP)

Only I think that my definition of who caused the conflict and his differs. Iran will suffer for its terrorist funding and support, and its role in spreading jihadis throughout the Middle East, turning Lebanon into a warzone, and its ongoing calls for Israel's annihilation.

The Saudis, meanwhile, continue flapping their jaws. They're worried that the situation might turn into a wider war. Here's a suggestion - have the Saudis stop funding Islamic terrorists and we might just avoid that wider war. They're also concerned about Lebanese sovereignty. Perhaps the Lebanese should have paid more attention to that subject before they ceded South Lebanon to Hizbullah and made the terrorist group part of the government. While that might have kept the country from sliding into yet another civil war, letting the terrorists and their backers in Syria and Iran pull strings meant that Lebanon was not fully in control of its territory - a violation of UN SCR 1559.

Syria has raised the alert level of its military, quite possibly because Hizbullah has been getting pasted by Israel. The Syrians may be weighing how to intervene, but they've got to know that if they do so, they'll receive a harsher pounding than the Israelis are dishing out to Hizbullah. Maybe they're hoping that if Israel does attack Syrian forces, it will get Iran into the act - unleashing one of their surprises. Either way, Israel has to honor the threat and work along the Syrian/Lebanese border to make it next to impossible for Syria to intervene within Lebanon.

In a minor flying pig moment, Russia's Vladamir Putin says the conflict in Lebanon shows the ineffectiveness of the UN.

UPDATE:
Olmert says that Israel has the stamina for a long fight. That remains to be seen. I hope that's true, but one shouldn't lay your strategy and tactics on hope. You need something more substantial than hope. The US says that the Israeli window for their ongoing efforts in Lebanon is 10-14 days. I doubt that's sufficient to finish the job, but it might give Northern Israel a break for a while - although it will do nothing to ensure the release of the Israeli soldiers being held by Hizbullah.

The UN continues to show that it is a failure. They claim that Israel used disproportionate force in Gaza. I refer you to the aforementioned Chicago rule - never bring a knife to a gunfight, especially when you're the one starting the fight with a knife. Hamas, that means you lose. At least the UN isn't trying to claim that Israel has no right to defend itself; a tact that it has tried in the past.

Iran says that it will protect Syria. That's nice, but who's going to protect Iran? It's not like Israel's enemies have a successful track record of beating Israel in any conflict.

UPDATE:
In another NBC video from yesterday's news, there's a curious scene. At 1:07-1:08 into the video featuring Richard Engel, there's an appearance of uncut US currency at what Engel describes as a financial center in Sidon. Doesn't that seem strange to anyone else? It did to some other folks. Why would uncut US currency be present at a bombed out financial services site? It's not like those uncut bills would be there unless someone was, ummm, what's the word I'm looking for, counterfeiting US currency?

There's good reason to believe that Hizbullah is using counterfeit bills to fund their operations, and the US Secret Service has been keeping tabs on this development as well. One has to believe that the Israelis just did the US a big favor in breaking a counterfeiting ring in addition to eliminating a source of funding for Hizbullah.

The NYT had an expose on counterfeit supernotes and among those involved and suspected of producing them: North Korea and Iran. One theory has Iran producing notes via intaglio presses obtained by the Shah from the US, and now passes them on to Lebanon via Syria.

It's always good to follow the money...

UPDATE:
Hizbullah is threatening attacks beyond Haifa, even as they say they were surprised by the Israeli response to their brazen invasion of Israel, the killing of eight Israeli soldiers, and their taking of two others into Lebanon. They have the audacity to say that they wont accept humiliating terms of a ceasefire? Gee, getting none of your demands isn't humiliation, but reality. You started a war you couldn't hope to win, you and your terror backers miscalculated bigtime, and you can still get out with your lives if you simply hand over the two Israeli soldiers and disarm. Hizbullah can even call that a victory. They survived longer than Israel's enemies did in 1967.

Meanwhile, four UN soldiers were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a UN outpost. Israel is investigating the matter. Expect the usual suspects to use this incident as grounds to call Israel to heel and stop their operations against Hizbullah.

Some are also throwing accusations that Israelis are utilizing human shields in their operations. Never mind that we repeatedly see Hizbullah and Hamas operating in civilian areas, these human rights groups are complaining about Israel and aren't complaining about Hamas or Hizbullah.

Israeli troops entered Gaza City. The IDF also surrounded a building in Ramallah. Rockets are still being fired into Israel.

The counterfeiting story is being discussed at LGF.

Others blogging the conflict: Jeff Weintraub, Boker Tov, Boulder, Gates of Vienna, Wizbang (and here), Blackfive, Powerline, The Jawa Report (and here), and AJ Strata.

UPDATE:
Texas Rainmaker wonders whether he's been operating under the wrong defintion of peace all these years based on the kind of pablum coming from various circles these days. Dr. Sanity notes that Israel's actions have had a clarifying effect on separating the decent Left from the indecent Left.

Others blogging: Jihad Watch, Pajamas Media, Soccer Dad, and Crossing the Rubicon2.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Rains, Summer, cavaliers, wrath, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, lebanon, syria.