Posted 5:13 PM by Dil
How could attorney general support such a weak and dismal argument? The following is an extract from Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules, by Philippe Sands Wednesday February 23, 2005The Guardian A key meeting took place in July 2002, at which various ministers, including the attorney general, were present. They were reminded that the prime minister had told President Bush that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change, so long as a coalition had been created and UN weapons inspectors had been given a further opportunity to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, complained that the case was thin, not least because Saddam Hussein was not threatening neighbours and had a lesser WMD capability than Libya, North Korea or Iran.
The meeting also considered the legal issues, including a March 2002 paper prepared by Foreign Office legal advisers. Even at this stage the British government was acutely aware of the legal difficulties. The attorney general confirmed that self-defence and humanitarian intervention were not justified, and that, as matters then stood, claiming the authorisation of the security council would be difficult.
At this stage, Lord Goldsmith's view seemed unambiguous. Michael Foster MP, an assistant to the attorney general, has confirmed that Lord Goldsmith was later "asked the question - would regime change be lawful per se, and he said no, it wouldn't".
From the July 2002 meeting, the attorney general was instructed to consider legal advice with the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The chosen route was to build up the intelligence to support the claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, which could provide a potential legal justification.
In November 2002, the security council unanimously adopted resolution 1441. The resolution warned that Iraq would face "serious consequences" for further violations of its obligations, but did not authorise states "to use all necessary means" (meaning military action).
Blair had therefore to push strongly for a second security council resolution which would give legal cover for the use of force. By the end of January, Blair had been informed that the start date for the military campaign was pencilled in for the middle of March.
The Foreign Office was the government department leading on these issues. The Foreign Office legal adviser and his colleagues were crystal clear in advising that resolution 1441 did not authorise the use of force, and that without a further resolution the UK could not lawfully use force against Iraq to ensure compliance with Iraq's WMD obligations. This conclusion was not shared by their minister, Mr Straw, who was willing to adopt a more flexible interpretation of the law.
In the circumstances, it was for the attorney general to set out a definitive view, which would be the government's formal legal advice. The ministerial code of conduct requires the attorney general to "be consulted in good time before the government is committed to critical decisions involving legal considerations". In January 2003, the Foreign Office legal advisers told the attorney general of their views and asked for his. There is nothing to indicate that he did not share the unequivocal views of the legal advisers at the Foreign Office in London.
However, it appears that he was not asked by the prime minister to provide formal advice until the last possible moment. It seems that 10 Downing Street did not want a formal legal opinion in January or February 2003. But the key point is that the attorney general did not then advise that no further resolution was needed.
If the British government had received clear advice that a further resolution was not needed it would not have been sensible to make the Herculean efforts it did during January and February 2003 to obtain such a resolution, until they finally collapsed in the first week of March. By then there had been a significant development.
On February 11 2003, Lord Goldsmith met with John Bellinger III, legal adviser to the White House's national security council. The meeting took place in the White House. An official told me later: "I met with Mr Bellinger and he said: 'We had trouble with your attorney; we got him there eventually.'"
I put this to Mr Bellinger; he reflected and then told me: "I do not recall making such a statement," adding diplomatically, "I doubt that an individual of Lord Goldsmith's eminence would adopt a legal argument based on pressure from the US government."
By the first week of March, it was becoming obvious that the prospects for the second security council resolution were grim. An alternative legal basis had to be found. By then the only argument left, the only plausible justification, would be to run the argument that the security council had somehow already authorised the use of force.
This was the context in which the attorney general finally gave his formal advice to the prime minister, set out in a minute dated March 7 2003. It was sent only to the prime minister, but was seen more widely, by the foreign secretary and defence secretary among others.
It is a 13-page document which states the various arguments on the need for a further resolution. It concludes that no further resolution is needed. It was sufficient for the prime minister - not the security council - to decide that Iraq had failed to comply with its disarmament obligations and that there was hard evidence of non-compliance and non-cooperation with resolution 1441.
But the advice was not clear-cut. It recognised that if the argument were to come before a court of law it might well be unsuccessful, so that the use of force against Iraq could be found to be illegal. It would be safer to have a second resolution. So concerned was the government about the possibility of such a case that it took steps to put together a legal team to prepare for possible international litigation.
Lord Goldsmith's advice was not sufficiently clear for Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of defence staff. On March 10, Sir Michael sought a clearer assurance of the war's legality - as he has subsequently said, a short and unambiguous note from the attorney general. He wanted to be sure that soldiers would not be "put through the mill" at the international criminal court. His concerns were "transmitted" to the attorney general through the prime minister. Sir Michael has said: "I was reassured I would get what I asked for."
On March 13, the attorney general communicated his "clearer" views - that the better interpretation of 1441 was that it was lawful to use force without another resolution - at a meeting with Baroness Morgan, director of political and government relations at 10 Downing Street, and Lord Falconer, at the time a Home Office minister. The attorney general also informed Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan that the prime minister was entitled to certify the existence of a material breach by Iraq.
On March 14, Sir Michael was provided with the written reassurance he had sought. On March 15, the prime minister confirmed in writing "unequivocally [his] view that Iraq has committed further material breaches" of security council resolutions.
No 10 Downing Street then proceeded to set out the attorney general's opinion on the legal basis for the use of force by the UK against Iraq in the form of an answer to a parliamentary question. In little more than 300 words, this statement of March 17 published the view that such authority derived from the "combined effects" of UN security council resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. The crucial line in the attorney general's statement is paragraph 7: "It is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply ... " What may have been plain to the prime minister was not plain to the rest of the world.
The attorney general's March 17 statement was not a summary of the written advice of March 7, or of any other formal legal advice. Rather, it is a recasting of a plausible argument into the succinct and decisive opinion of law which Sir Michael had requested. When the issue was addressed in a cabinet meeting on the morning of March 17, ministers were provided with just two pieces of A4 paper, the same document that was delivered in the House of Lords later that day. The ministerial code of conduct requires the full text of any advice to be made available in papers to the cabinet. None was provided. There was no discussion, and no minister raised any question as to the basis upon which the prime minister had decided that Iraq was in material breach of resolution 1441.
On March 18, the Foreign Office's deputy legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, ten dered her request for early retirement or resignation. "I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force without a second security council resolution," she wrote. After noting the evolution of the legal views, she added: "I cannot in conscience go along with advice within the office or to the public or parliament - which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law."
It is the very essence of the system of collective security in the UN charter that decision-making is collective. It is not individual, or prime ministerial. And this was the view put by the Foreign Office legal advisers in a note which was first circulated in March 2002. They concluded that since the ceasefire had been proclaimed by the security council in resolution 687, "it is for that body to assess whether any such breach of those obligations has occurred".
John Major was prime minister when resolutions 678 and 687 were adopted. In his view: "Our mandate from the United Nations was to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait, not bring down the Iraqi regime ... We had gone to war to uphold international law. To go further than our mandate would have been, arguably, to break international law." If these resolutions did not provide any basis for overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 1991, it is difficult to see that they could in 2003.
The attorney general's published opinion - that a non-existent authority to use force can "revive" at the behest of three of the 15 members of the security council -makes a mockery of the UN system. How could the attorney general have been prevailed upon to lend Britain's name to such a weak and dismal argument?

Posted 11:16 AM by Dil
If you start the fight don't complain when you get hurtMATTHEW PARRISThe unspoken reaction to this week’s barbarism is that we should never have got into Iraq

People are getting tired of hearing Mr Blair say this is a war against evil; they ask who poked the hornets’ nest.

And the damn fools? Cut and run, we say, and the sooner the better, because we will in the end.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-1278442,00.html

Posted 4:08 AM by Dil
How intelligence was bent to one will and purpose Anthony Sampson assesses the faults of Scarlett and Campbell over Iraq and says both were acting for one man - the Prime Minister Sunday July 18, 2004
 
The Observer It may seem surprising that the intelligence community, after the devastating criticisms in Lord Butler's report, should be relieved by its findings.
But the explanation becomes clear from an analysis of the report, and from intelligence sources. For they show clearly that the blame can be shifted, in each case, to the very top - to the Prime Minister.
John Scarlett
There is no doubt from the report about the shortcomings of John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligent Committee at the time, now promoted to be head of MI6. For it was Scarlett, who acknowledged 'ownership' of the discredited dossier which was used to justify the war, who was prepared to make significant changes, against all the traditions of the integrity of the JIC.
Many senior mandarins believe there is a strong case for Scarlett to resign his new post in MI6, including the outspoken Dame Pauline Nevile-Jones, a previous chair of the JIC. Butler's specific request that Scarlett should not resign - with the mandarin's instinct to defend colleagues - only attracted attention to his vulnerability, and was certainly not at Scarlett's request.
But Scarlett will remain in his job, unlike his CIA opposite number George Tenet; because there is no doubt who was exerting the pressure. It was the Prime Minister, who cannot now easily ask for his resignation.
Alastair Campbell
The man most directly responsible for the distortions of the dossier was Alastair Campbell - whom Butler mentions only once - who defied the traditional constraints about the handling of intelligence.


Advertiser links
Charity - British Red Cross
As part of the world's largest humanitarian network, the...reports.redcross.org.uk
Charity Organisations - Cancer Research
One of the UK's leading charity organisations. Conducting...cancerresearchuk.org
WaterAid Charitable Organisation
WaterAid is the UK's only major charity dedicated...wateraid.org
He described Scarlett as his 'mate', and had a close relationship with him. But we know from the evidence supplied by Lord Hutton how he brought the techniques of the tabloid editor into the presentation of a crucial document which would help determine whether Britain went to war. Any journalist could recognise, in the emails between Campbell and Scarlett, a strong resemblance to the process in tabloid journalism by which a careful reporter is persuaded by superiors to 'firm up' copy, to turn it into a scoop. But in a crucial official document, such a degradation of careful information was shockingly irresponsible and dangerous. It was surprising that Butler did not condemn this importing of tabloid techniques into the dossier which he analysed so carefully.
The extent of Campbell's influence was much clearer in the subsequent 'dodgy' dossier which received much less attention, and which contained a whole section written by Campbell's unit, including the notorious plagiarised thesis plucked from the internet, and doctored to strengthen the case - all presented as an intelligence document. It was, as Jack Straw later admitted, a 'complete Horlicks' but was conveniently forgotten in the subsequent row about the first dossier.
So how was Campbell allowed to wield such extraordinary power in Whitehall, as an ex-tabloid journalist with little experience of intelligence? Because the Government had asked for a special Order in Council, to enable him to give orders to civil servants. It was a much disputed precedent eventually approved by the Secretary of the Cabinet - who was then Sir Robin Butler, now Lord Butler.
But Campbell was largely exonerated from serious blame for misleading parliament, for there was no doubt who he was representing: he was intervening directly on behalf of the Prime Minister.
Tony Blair
It is now much clearer that it was the Prime Minister himself who had initiated all the main steps which led to the war. It was not the intelligence services which persuaded him, but he who needed them to justify the war.
Butler makes quite clear that when Blair was pressing for stronger action against Saddam in the spring of 2002, the move 'was not based on any new development in the current intelligence picture on Iraq'. And he spells out that 'there was no recent intelligence that would itself have given rise to a conclusion that Iraq was of more immediate concern than the activities of some other countries'.
MI6 had been worried about Saddam developing WMDs ever since he invaded Kuwait: Iraq's neighbouring countries were fearful that he would acquire nuclear and chemical weaponry to replace his weakened army, and Mossad, the Israeli secret service, was always warning of the dangers of Saddam. But MI6, with good reason, was more seriously worried about nuclear weapons in Iran or North Korea.
It remains an unsolved mystery as to why Blair, who had no personal experience of the Middle East, became so convinced about the immediate danger of Saddam, and so determined on war, against much advice from diplomats as well as military and political colleagues.
It was not just his desire to please Bush, strong though that was. Blair has described how when he first met Bush in early 2001, months before 11 September, it was he who warned Bush about the twin dangers of WMDs and terrorism. When Blair visited Bush on his Texas ranch in April 2002 some diplomats believe that he was actually stiffening Bush's resolve to go to war, if the UN route failed.
Yet none of the documents quoted by Butler or Hutton reflect that same urgency about Iraq. Instead they show that Number 10 was always making the running, encouraging the JIC to provide judgments which went (as Butler says) to 'the outer limits of the intelligence available'. The crucial dossier was carefully redrafted to satisfy the Prime Minister; and when a precious piece of evidence about the 45-minute weapon was later withdrawn (as we learnt last week) he was not even informed.
Butler, with a mandarin's instinct, naturally avoids any direct criticism of his former master. But his trenchant criticisms about the current style of government - the informal decision-making by a small circle, the bypassing of the Cabinet Secretary, the neglect of cabinet committees - all point to the one man who was responsible for those changes.
And however serious the shortcomings of the intelligence chiefs, they cannot be expected to take the ultimate blame for a war which, as we can now see more clearly after decoding the Butler Report, was brought about by a Prime Minister who was determined to overrule his colleagues.
The WMDs, about which Blair was so confident, may yet exist, buried in the desert. Many intelligence officials now look to the new Iraqi government to continue the search, with more ruthless interrogation and better sources than their own. But their discovery will not contradict the fact that Blair went to war on the basis of evidence which was manipulated, and proved false.
· Anthony Sampson's 'Who Runs This Place?' is published by John Murray.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1263837,00.html
 

Posted 6:25 AM by Dil
http://www.emjournal.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/aajune007.html
 
http://www.independentbias.com/iyad_allawi.htm
 
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Iyad-Allawi
v good biography of allawi
 
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1163935/posts
allawi friend UK ambassador

Posted 6:16 AM by Dil
Prime Minister of Terror: Who is Allawi?
Ghali Hassan June 21 2004
On 30 June 2004, Mr. Iyad Allawi will switch his position from the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) to be come the Iraq’s new Prime Minister in the new named Iraqi Interim Government (IIG), another creature of the U.S. Nothing will change for the Iraqi People. The Iraqi people are very sceptical and despised those expatriates the U.S. piggybacked to Baghdad. For Mr. Allawi and his clique, they will be richer and brutal. Mr. Allawi will appear on American TV screens as often as possible, simply to legitimise the occupation of Iraq.
Mr. Allawi is a secular of prominent Moslem merchant family. He was a former member of the Baath Party underground movement, and was in Saddam’s regime unti1 1979. His wealthy family was close to the royal family that ruled before Saddam Hussein took power. After falling out of favour with Saddam, Allawi sought exile in London, where he developed a relationship with Britain's MI-6 intelligence service during the 1980s, and eventually he also formed a relationship with the CIA. Allawi and Chalabi are related by marriage, have been alternately rivals and allies. Chalabi had a bitter break-up with the CIA in the 1990s but became close with the Pentagon. Meanwhile, Allawi and his Iraqi National Accord (INA) organization have solid relationships with the CIA and State Department.
In 1991, Allawi with Salih Omar Ali Al-Tikriti founded the INA as an opposition to Saddam’s Baath Party. Both were ex-Baathist and former supporters of Saddam’s regime. Salih Al-Tikriti viewed as unsavoury by the U.S. The INA constituted of disillusioned former Baathists from the military and security fields. With support from the CIA and MI-6, the INA instigated a coup d’étate within the Iraqi Army, the attempt ended disastrously. In London, Allawi’s job was to keep an eye on Iraqi students studying in the UK. After moving to London in 1971 as a medical student he received payment from the Iraqi embassy there. It is also alleged that he did not quit the Baath party until 1975, and that he escaped an assassination attempt on his life in 1978.
According to Patrick Cockburn of The Independent of London, “[Allawi] is the person through whom the controversial claim was channelled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be operational in 45 minutes”. This lie, helped prepare the British citizens to support Tony Blair messianic war on Iraq. In January 2004 a New York spokesman for Allawi acknowledged this was in fact “a crock of shit.” Almost sounds like the new Prime Minister has learned his skill of lying from his masters in London and Washington.
The Iraqi Girl Blog, Baghdad Burning, wrote on 18 June 2002: “Iyad Allawi is completely America and Britain’s boy. He has been on the CIA’s payroll for quite some time now and I don’t think anyone was particularly surprised when he was made Prime Minister. The cabinet of ministers is an interesting concoction of exiled Iraqis, Kurdish Iraqis who were in the northern region and a few Iraqis who were actually living inside of Iraq”.
Like Chalabi, Allawi too was appointed to the IGC. He has been responsible for overseeing the council's security committee of the IGC. His position in the IGC was to recruit new army, police and intelligent members, a job he had under Saddam. Allawi was a member of Hunein, a security apparatus headed by Saddam Hussein. He has always opposed to the purging of members of the Baath party from senior government posts. I wonder if Mr. Allawi is not able to resurrect some of “Saddam’s doubles”. The mainstream media and particularly the BBC used to be obsessed with Saddam’s doubles. Where on earth are Saddam’s famed look-alikes?
The choice of Iyad Allawi as Iraq’s prime minister of the upcoming IIG was “forced by the United States as a fait accompli on the UN and the Iraqi people. He was an American candidate than one of the UN or the Iraqis themselves. “When we first heard the news today, we thought that the [IGC] had hijacked the process”, a senior U.N. official said. Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy to Iraq resigned as a result of his failure to stand up to the U.S. and show some credibility in Iraq. Once again, the UN failed the Iraqi people and denied them their legitimate human rights. Allawi’s choice and his close ties with the U.S. came in a country where public opinion has grown almost universally hostile to the Americans. Recent polls reveal that Mr. Allawi has almost 5 percent supports, just below the president, with a 7 percent approval rating.
In Washington and London, Mr. Allawi is well connected, but in Iraq everyone mistrusts Mr Allawi. Extensive PR campaign last year to built support in Washington rather than in Baghdad seemed to pay off. Danielle Pletka, a Middle East analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, said: “It was a bid for influence, and it was money well spent”. "Allawi has always assumed, in many ways correctly, that he didn't need a constituency in Iraq as long as he had one in Washington”, Pletka added.
According to report by Jim Drinkard of USA Today: “Lobbying records show that the law firm of Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds and the New York public relations firm of Brown Lloyd James engaged in a flurry of contacts on Allawi's behalf beginning in late October. Most were aimed at setting up meetings with influential members of Congress and their staffs, administration officials, think tanks and journalists”. The money paid by a wealthy Iraqi expatriate in London.
Dr. Haifa al-Azawi, a California-based gynaecologist and a U.S. citizen who went to school with Allawi in Baghdad in the 1960s, remembered Mr. Allawi as: “big, husky man. The Baath party union leader, who carried a gun on his belt and frequently brandished it terrorizing the medical students, was a poor student and chose to spend his time standing in the school courtyard or chasing female students to their homes. His medical degree is bogus and was conferred upon him by the Baath party, soon after a World Health Organization (WHO) grant was orchestrated for him to go to England and study public health accompanied by his Christian wife, whom he dumped later to marry a Muslim woman. In England he was a poor student, visiting the Iraqi embassy at the end of each month to collect his salary as the Baath party representative. According to his first wife and her family members, he spent his time dealing with assassins doing the dirty work for the Iraqi government, until his time was up and he became their target”. It is not uncommon in Iraq during the Baath Party rule to give special favours for those who choose to serve its agenda.
A report in The New York Times described the INA (funded by the CIA of course), as “a terrorist organization. In the early 1990's the INA sent agents into Baghdad to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say, they also bombed movie theatres and school buses full of children”. Furthermore, the Times reported “[i] n 1996, Amneh al-Khadami, who described himself as the chief bomb maker for the Iraqi National Accord and as being based in Sulaimaniya, in northern Iraq, recorded a videotape in which he talked of the bombing campaign and complained that he was being short-changed money and supplies. Two former intelligence officers confirmed the existence of the videotape.”[W]e blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000 but got only $1,000’ Mr. Khadami alleged told The Independent in 1997”. Who the Americans are fighting in their “war on terror”?
The Iraqi born novelist and artist, Haifa Zangana wrote in The Guardian of London: “The CPA also ignores the violent activities of the four militias in Iraq, which have taken the law into their own hands: the peshmergas of the two Kurdish parties; the Badr brigade of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq; Ahmed Chalabi's troops; and the ex-Ba'athist Mukhabarats under Iyad A[l]lawi's national accord. These militias are run by members of the IGC and no one can touch them. No high-ranking official of Saddam's regime has yet been prosecuted either, despite the wish of most Iraqis that they be bought to justice”.
In September 2003, Akila Al-Hashimi, a female member of the council, was shot and died later of her wounds. A rotating president of the U.S.-appointed council was assassinated on May 17 in a car-bomb attack on his convoy west of Baghdad. At least 1000 professionals and intellectuals have been murdered. “Many academics fear a deliberate brain drain is now being executed through murder. The mukhabarat (secret intelligence) of all the surrounding countries are active here: Mossad, the Iranians, Turks, Kuwaitis, Jordanians, Syrians,” said an unnamed academic. “They are settling scores with each other, with the Americans and the Americans with them”. “Why are they still detaining university professors if they are re-analysing their own intelligence on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction?” Gulshan Husayn, wife of Dr Ali al-Zaak, detained dean of Genetic Engineering at Baghdad University told Al-Jazeera.
The U.S. is not interested in genuine democracy, the democracy of one citizen, one vote. In fact, the U.S. refused to allow local elections in Iraq last summer. The U.S. administration is interested in a U.S-controlled democracy. The kind of democracy enforced on the people of Latin America. In Allawi’s Iraq, if he survived, elections will be an open contest but that candidates have to be vetted in an opaque process achieved by the return of many thugs of the old regime.
After more than thirty years in exile (London and Washington) and a “bogus” medical degree, the Iraqi people expected “their” Prime Minister to speak their language, not broken English. Unfortunately, Dr. Allawi has failed the Iraqi people. How can Dr. Allawi and those around him watch their compatriots (the Iraqi people) abused, tortured, raped and murdered by the same occupying forces they are collaborating with. He should learn to speak the language of the vast majority of the Iraqi people. He should learn to say: End the occupation; free the Iraqi people from America’s violent militarism.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2004/062104whoisallawi.htm
 

Posted 6:08 AM by Dil
Exiled Allawi was Responsible for 45-Minute WMD Claim


by Patrick Cockburn

 


The choice of Iyad Allawi, closely linked to the CIA and formerly to MI6, as the Prime Minister of Iraq from 30 June will make it difficult for the US and Britain to persuade the rest of the world that he is capable of leading an independent government.




Iyad Allawi, a former member of Saddam Hussein 's Baath party who worked with the CIA to topple him, was chosen as prime minister of Iraq May 28, 2004. (Sergio Perez/Reuters) He is the person through whom the controversial claim was channeled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be operational in 45 minutes.
Dr Allawi, aged 59, who trained as a neurologist, is a Shia Muslim who was a member of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Iraq and in Britain, where he was a student leader with links to Iraqi intelligence. He later moved into opposition to the Iraqi leader and reportedly established a connection with the British security services. His change of allegiance led to Dr Allawi being targeted by Iraqi intelligence. In 1978 their agents armed with knives and axes badly wounded him when they attacked him as he lay asleep in bed in his house in Kingston-upon-Thames.
Dr Allawi became a businessman with contacts in Saudi Arabia. He was charming, intelligent and had a gift for impressing Western intelligence agencies. After the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraq National Accord (INA) party, which he helped to found, became one of the building blocks for the Iraqi opposition in exile. The organization attracted former Iraqi army officers and Baath party officials, particularly Sunni Arabs, fleeing Iraq.
In the mid-1990s the INA claimed to have extensive contacts in the Iraqi officer corps. Dr Allawi began to move from the orbit of MI6 to the CIA. He persuaded his new masters that he was in a position to organize a military coup in Baghdad.
With American, British and Saudi support, he opened a headquarters and a radio station in Amman in Jordan in 1996, declaring it was "a historic moment for the Iraqi opposition". After a failed coup attempt that year there were mass arrests in Baghdad. Abdul-Karim al-Kabariti, the Jordanian prime minister of the day, said that INA's networks were "all penetrated by the Iraqi security services".
Dr Allawi and the INA returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam and set up offices in Baghdad and in old Baath party offices throughout Iraq.
There were few signs that they had any popular support. During an uprising in the town of Baiji, north of Baghdad, last year, crowds immediately set fire to the INA office.
Dr Allawi was head of the security committee of the Iraqi Governing Council and was opposed to the dissolution of the army by Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq. He stepped down in protest as head of the committee during the US assault on Fallujah. But his reputation among Iraqis for working first with Saddam's intelligence agents and then with MI6 and the CIA may make it impossible for them to accept him as leader of an independent Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0529-02.htm
 

Posted 5:17 AM by Dil
Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses

By Paul McGeough in Baghdad
July 17, 2004
Paul McGeough:
 
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.
They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".
The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.
But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence.

Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when the job was done. Mr al-Naqib's office has issued a verbal denial.
The names of three of the alleged victims have been obtained by the Herald.
One of the witnesses claimed that before killing the prisoners Dr Allawi had told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.
"The prisoners were against the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot. Allawi said that they deserved worse than death - but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them."
Re-enacting the killings, one witness stood three to four metres in front of a wall and swung his outstretched arm in an even arc, left to right, jerking his wrist to mimic the recoil as each bullet was fired. Then he raised a hand to his brow, saying: "He was very close. Each was shot in the head."
The prisoners were against the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot. Allawi said that they deserved worse than death - but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them.
The witnesses said seven prisoners had been brought out to the courtyard, but the last man in the line was only wounded - in the neck, said one witness; in the chest, said the other.
Given Dr Allawi's role as the leader of the US experiment in planting a model democracy in the Middle East, allegations of a return to the cold-blooded tactics of his predecessor are likely to stir a simmering debate on how well Washington knows its man in Baghdad, and precisely what he envisages for the new Iraq.
There is much debate and rumour in Baghdad about the Prime Minister's capacity for brutality, but this is the first time eyewitness accounts have been obtained.
A former CIA officer, Vincent Cannisatraro, recently told The New Yorker: "If you're asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence] agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff."
In Baghdad, varying accounts of the shootings are interpreted by observers as useful to a little-known politician who, after 33 years in exile, needs to prove his leadership credentials as a "strongman" in a war-ravaged country that has no experience of democracy.
Dr Allawi's statement dismissed the allegations as rumours instigated by enemies of his interim government.
But in a sharp reminder of the Iraqi hunger for security above all else, the witnesses did not perceive themselves as whistle-blowers. In interviews with the Herald they were enthusiastic about such killings, with one of them arguing: "These criminals were terrorists. They are the ones who plant the bombs."
Before the shootings, the 58-year-old Prime Minister is said to have told the policemen they must have courage in their work and that he would shield them from any repercussions if they killed insurgents in the course of their duty.
The witnesses said the Iraqi police observers were "shocked and surprised". But asked what message they might take from such an act, one said: "Any terrorists in Iraq should have the same destiny. This is the new Iraq.
"Allawi wanted to send a message to his policemen and soldiers not to be scared if they kill anyone - especially, they are not to worry about tribal revenge. He said there would be an order from him and the Interior Ministry that all would be fully protected.
"He told them: 'We must destroy anyone who wants to destroy Iraq and kill our people.'
"At first they were surprised. I was scared - but now the police seem to be very happy about this. There was no anger at all, because so many policemen have been killed by these criminals."
Dr Allawi had made a surprise visit to the complex, they said.
Neither witness could give a specific date for the killings. But their accounts narrowed the time frame to on or around the third weekend in June - about a week before the rushed handover of power in Iraq and more than three weeks after Dr Allawi was named as the interim Prime Minister.
They said that as many as five of the dead prisoners were Iraqis, two of whom came from Samarra, a volatile town to the north of the capital, where an attack by insurgents on the home of Mr Al-Naqib killed four of the Interior Minister's bodyguards on June 19.
The Herald has established the names of three of the prisoners alleged to have been killed. Two names connote ties to Syrian-based Arab tribes, suggesting they were foreign fighters: Ahmed Abdulah Ahsamey and Amer Lutfi Mohammed Ahmed al-Kutsia.
The third was Walid Mehdi Ahmed al-Samarrai. The last word of his name indicates that he was one of the two said to come from Samarra, which is in the Sunni Triangle.
The three names were provided to the Interior Ministry, where senior adviser Sabah Khadum undertook to provide a status report on each. He was asked if they were prisoners, were they alive or had they died in custody.
But the next day he cut short an interview by hanging up the phone, saying only: "I have no information - I don't want to comment on that specific matter."
All seven were described as young men. One of the witnesses spoke of the distinctive appearance of four as "Wahabbi", the colloquial Iraqi term for the foreign fundamentalist insurgency fighters and their Iraqi followers.
He said: "The Wahabbis had long beards, very short hair and they were wearing dishdashas [the caftan-like garment worn by Iraqi men]."
Raising the hem of his own dishdasha to reveal the cotton pantaloons usually worn beneath, he said: "The other three were just wearing these - they looked normal."
One witness justified the shootings as an unintended act of mercy: "They were happy to die because they had already been beaten by the police for two to eight hours a day to make them talk."
After the removal of the bodies, the officer in charge of the complex, General Raad Abdullah, is said to have called a meeting of the policemen and told them not to talk outside the station about what had happened. "He said it was a security issue," a witness said.
One of the Al-Amariyah witnesses said he watched as Iraqis among the Prime Minister's bodyguards piled the prisoners' bodies into the back of a Nissan utility and drove off. He did not know what became of them. But the other witness said the bodies were buried west of Baghdad, in open desert country near Abu Ghraib.
That would place their burial near the notorious prison, which was used by Saddam Hussein's security forces to torture and kill thousands of Iraqis. Subsequently it was revealed as the setting for the still-unfolding prisoner abuse scandal involving US troops in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.
The Herald has established that as many as 30 people, including the victims, may have been in the courtyard. One of the witnesses said there were five or six civilian-clad American security men in a convoy of five or six late model four-wheel-drive vehicles that was shepherding Dr Allawi's entourage on the day. The US military and Dr Allawi's office refused to respond to questions about the composition of his security team. It is understood that the core of his protection unit is drawn from the US Special Forces units.
The security establishment where the killings are said to have happened is on open ground on the border of the Al-Amariyah and Al-Kudra neighbourhoods in Baghdad.
About 90 policemen are stationed at the complex, which processes insurgents and more hardened offenders among those captured in the struggle against a wave of murder, robbery and kidnapping in post-invasion Iraq.
The Interior Ministry denied permission for the Herald to enter the heavily fortified police complex.
The two witnesses were independently and separately found by the Herald. Neither approached the newspaper. They were interviewed on different days in a private home in Baghdad, without being told the other had spoken. A condition of the co-operation of each man was that no personal information would be published.
Both interviews lasted more than 90 minutes and were conducted through an interpreter, with another journalist present for one of the meetings. The witnesses were not paid for the interviews.
Dr Allawi's office has dismissed the allegations as rumours instigated by enemies of his interim government.
A statement in the name of spokesman Taha Hussein read: "We face these sorts of allegations on a regular basis. Numerous groups are attempting to hinder what the interim Iraqi government is on the verge of achieving, and occasionally they spread outrageous accusations hoping they will be believed and thus harm the honourable reputation of those who sacrifice so much to protect this glorious country and its now free and respectable people.
"Dr Allawi is turning this country into a free and democratic nation run by the rule of law; so if your sources are as credible as they say they are, then they are more than welcome to file a complaint in a court of law against the Prime Minister."
In response to a question asking if Dr Allawi carried a gun, the statement said: "[He] does not carry a pistol. He is the Prime Minister of Iraq, not a combatant in need of any weaponry."
Sabah Khadum, a senior adviser to Interior Minister Mr Naqib, whose portfolio covers police matters, also dismissed the accounts. Rejecting them as "ludicrous", Mr Khadum said of Dr Allawi: "He is a doctor and I know him. He was my neighbour in London. He just doesn't have it in him. Baghdad is a city of rumours. This is not worth discussing."
Mr Khadum added: "Do you think a man who is Prime Minister is going to disqualify himself for life like this? This is not a government of gangsters."
Asked if Dr Allawi had visited the Al-Amariyah complex - one of the most important counter-insurgency centres in Baghdad - Mr Khadum said he could not reveal the Prime Minister's movements. But he added: "Dr Allawi has made many visits to police stations ... he is heading the offensive."
US officials in Iraq have not made an outright denial of the allegations. An emailed response to questions from the Herald to the US ambassador, John Negroponte, said: "If we attempted to refute each [rumour], we would have no time for other business. As far as this embassy's press office is concerned, this case is closed."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757.html?oneclick=true
 
 

Posted 4:33 AM by Dil
The news came as another blow to the US forces on the same day that a senior general in Iraq has been suspended and put under investigation over the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was suspended after six soldiers were indicted for the mistreatment of Iraqis being held at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The suspension was ordered in January, but has only just beeen made public by the US military.

America is currently rushing tanks to the country, including the besieged city of Fallujah, where sporadic overnight clashes followed PresidentBush's promise to do whatever was needed to retake the town.

Residents reported sporadic clashes but said there had been no resumption so far of the shellfire and air strikes that shook the town of 300,000 on Wednesday.

US soldiers are also reported to have fired on a minibus full of civilians near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the town, setting the vehicle on fire.

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/10489520?source=TiL

Posted 8:11 PM by Dil
April 29, 2004

Rebel diplomats advised by Baghdad envoy
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor



THE Prime Minister?s personal envoy to Baghdad gave advice to the 52 eminent former diplomats who launched this week?s devastating attack against Tony Blair?s ?doomed? Iraq and Middle East policies.
The diplomats? letter accusing Mr Blair of slavishly following President Bush?s lead was written after consultations with Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was Ambassador to the UN before the war and spent six months as Britain?s most senior coalition representative.



The disclosure to The Times suggests that dissent over Iraq now permeates the highest levels of the Government. Sir Jeremy, who last month refused Mr Blair?s request to stay on in Baghdad until the handover of power on June 30, had been handpicked by the Prime Minister to oversee Iraq?s postwar reconstruction.

Sir Jeremy was not available for comment yesterday, and the Foreign Office insisted that he never had any intention of putting his name to the letter. But Oliver Miles, the former Ambassador to Athens and Tripoli who drafted the text, said that he had consulted Sir Jeremy as it was being written. ?He quite understandably thought it would be a bit two-faced for him to join (the other signatories). But he had some interesting views on Iraq. These were reflected in the letter,? Mr Miles said.

The letter accused the coalition of having ?no effective plan for a post-Saddam settlement?. It criticised the US operations in Fallujah and Najaf, saying the Iraqi opposition was being strengthened rather than isolated by heavy-handed military operations. It also said that without a ?fundamental reassessment? efforts to rescue Iraq were ?doomed to failure?.

Inspired by the British diplomats? protest, a former US ambassador to Qatar was last night circulating a letter to other officials criticising the Bush Administration?s Middle East policy. Andrew Killgore, now publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, has received up to 40 signatures for the open letter, which he plans to deliver to President Bush tomorrow.

?We are telling the President, ?Isn't it a pity you are going to give the Israelis five settlement blocks on the West Bank that belong to the Palestinians, and you are telling the Palestinians they cannot go back home?. I would think every diplomat who has served in the Middle East, other than Israel, would sign the letter.?

Since the diplomats? letter was made public on Monday, Whitehall has attempted to play down the importance of the signatories, deriding them as middle-ranking ?Arabists?. But it was clear yesterday that the groundswell of discontent is certainly wider than the 52 names on the letter. Many more diplomats, who never reached ambassadorial rank, were also ready to sign.

Lord Wright of Richmond, head of the Foreign Office from 1986 to 1991, said he ?agreed totally with the letter?. He had not signed it because he had already tabled questions in the Lords.

Posted 3:27 PM by Dil
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nearly half the Iraqis polled in a survey conducted primarily in March and early April said they believed the U.S.-led war had done more harm than good, but 61 percent of respondents said Saddam Hussein's ouster made it worth any hardships.

The CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll showed conflicted feelings among Iraqis over the war and its impact at the time of the survey.

Most interviews were done between March 22 and April 9 -- before the latest flare-up of violence that brought some of the deadliest fighting since the end of major combat nearly a year ago.

Iraqi interviewers conducted face-to-face surveys with 3,444 adults in Arabic and Kurdish in respondents' homes. The poll covered urban and rural areas throughout Iraq, representing about 93 percent of the population. It has a sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Nearly half -- 47 percent -- said they believed attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq could not be justified, while 52 percent said those attacks could be justified some or all of the time.

Thirty-three percent of those polled said the war had done more good than harm, while 46 percent said it had done more harm than good.

Forty-two percent said Iraq was better off because of the war, while 39 percent said it was worse off. Given the sampling error, those figures indicated a dead heat.

On a personal level, Iraqis appeared more optimistic, according to the poll. More than half of those surveyed -- 51 percent -- said they and their families were better off than they were before the invasion, while 25 percent said they were worse off.

Fifty-four percent said conditions for creating peace and stability had worsened in the three months before they were questioned for the poll. Twenty-five percent said conditions improved during that time before the upsurge in violence.

Those polled were virtually united in opposition to attacks against Iraqi police, the survey found. Ninety-two percent said those attacks could not be justified.

But the Iraqis surveyed were split on whether ongoing U.S.-led military action in the country was justified. Fifty-two percent said it was not, while 47 percent said it could be justified.

Asked about when they wanted U.S. and British forces to leave, 57 percent chose immediately, as in the next few months, the poll said; 36 percent said troops should stay longer.

At the time the question was asked, 53 percent said they would feel less safe if the U.S.-led coalition left immediately. About half as many -- 28 percent -- said they would feel more safe. Sixty-nine percent said they or their families would be in danger if they were seen cooperating with the coalition.

The respondents were split in their opinions of L. Paul Bremer, the U.S civilian administrator in Iraq. Forty-two percent said they held a unfavorable opinion, while 31 percent rated him favorably. He proved more popular than President Bush, disliked by more than half the respondents.

Forty-four percent gave Bush a very unfavorable rating and 11 percent somewhat unfavorable; 24 percent said they held a favorable opinion of the U.S. president. But Bush proved more popular than Saddam in the survey, with eight of 10 respondents viewing the ousted Iraqi leader unfavorably at the time the poll was done.

Negative view of U.S. forces

U.S. soldiers man a checkpoint Wednesday in Baghdad.
The poll suggested more than half of Iraqis had a negative impression of U.S. forces in general before the current wave of violence.

Twenty-nine percent said troops had conducted themselves very badly, while another 29 percent said fairly badly; 24 percent chose fairly well, and 10 percent said troops had acted very well.

Among those who said the troops acted badly, 54 percent said their opinions were based on things they had heard. Thirty-nine percent said they decided based on things they had seen, while 7 percent said they were judging from personal experience.

Two-thirds -- 67 percent -- said troops were not trying at all to keep ordinary Iraqis from being killed in exchanges of gunfire, while 18 percent said the Americans were trying only a little and 11 percent said they were trying a lot.

Sixty percent of those surveyed said U.S. soldiers sometimes or often showed disrespect for Iraqis during home searches; 29 percent said that the troops did not. Forty-six percent said the troops sometimes or often showed disrespect for Iraqi women during such operations, while 39 percent said the soldiers did not.

Asked whether U.S. troops showed disrespect for Islam during such operations, respondents were split -- 42 percent said often or a little, while 43 percent said not at all.

Those polled gave the troops low marks for reconstruction efforts. Asked about the restoration of basic services such as electricity and clean drinking water, 41 percent said the troops were trying only a little and 44 percent said they were not trying at all.

Seventy-one percent surveyed said they saw troops mostly as occupiers, while 19 percent said they viewed them as liberators. Asked how they viewed troops at the time of the invasion a year ago, the respondents were split, with 43 percent saying they saw the coalition forces as occupiers and another 43 percent saying they considered them liberators at the time.

But asked, "Thinking about any hardships you might have suffered since the U.S.-Britain invasion, do you personally think that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth it or not?" Sixty-one percent said it was worth it. Twenty-eight percent said it was not, while 9 percent said they were not sure.

Posted 3:13 PM by Dil
Posted 4/28/2004 4:55 PM






RELATED STORIES
Latest news
Iraqi flag colors change
New fighting in Fallujah
Analysis: Winning Fallujah risks losing Iraq
U.N. envoy sees full sovereignty for June 30
Wis. sister soldiers won't return to Iraq
Japan assigns blame to freed hostages
Britain: We have enough troops in Iraq
Negroponte hearings begin




BEYOND WORDS
Multimedia

Graphic: The AC-130
Video: Al-Sadr spokesman speaks
Video: Spanish troops come home
Gallery: 1 year after fall of Baghdad
Gallery: Fighting on two fronts
Graphic: Political/religious regions of Iraq



IRAQ IN PERSPECTIVE
The Iraqi conflict
Profile: Who are the Shiites?
Challenges to US effort
US looks to moderate Shiites
Q&A: June 30 power transfer
Memoir: The road to Baghdad
List: US casualties
Graphic: Most-wanted deck
Text: Interim constitution








Today's Top News Stories

• Poll: Iraqis out of patience - 4:22 PM
• Battle continues in Fallujah, but negotiations continue - 4:41 PM
• Starbucks may have to raise prices as milk costs rise - 10:36 AM
• Specter ekes out win in Pa. Senate race - 9:17 AM
• Comcast gives up $48 billion play for Disney - 3:30 PM
Add USATODAY.com headlines to your Web site







E-Mail Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free Daily Briefing e-newsletter and get the top news of the day in your inbox.

E-mail:
Select one: HTML Text







CBS to air photos of alleged GI abuses
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. soldiers stacked Iraqi prisoners in a human pyramid, and attached wires to one detainee to convince him he might be electrocuted, according to photographs obtained by CBS News which led to criminal charges against six Americans.
CBS said the photos, to be shown Wednesday night on 60 Minutes II, were taken late last year at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, where American soldiers were holding hundreds of prisoners captured during the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-04-28-cbs-prisoner-abuse_x.htm

Posted 11:06 AM by Dil
Iraqi pipeline attacks go unreported
By Richard Sale
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
Published 4/27/2004 12:43 PM


Insurgent attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure, added to the damage caused by U.S. forces during the war last year, are helping to cripple economic and other reconstruction efforts in that strife-torn country, U.S. intelligence officials told United Press International.

The result is that Iraq's oil production, which was projected by the Bush administration to double and be used to pay for the costs of the war, has not served that purpose because exports are down from 2.5 million barrels a day to around 1.5 million barrels a day, according to these sources.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has disputed this. In recent congressional testimony, he declared, "Today Iraqi oil revenues go to the Development Fund for Iraq, where it helps to build new infrastructure and a new future for the Iraqi people."

And he gave the current Iraqi export level as 2.5 million barrels a day, or "pre-war levels."

"Simply not accurate," said Gal Luft, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and publisher of the online newsletter, Energy Security.

"Iraq's oil exports are not up at pre-war levels because of incessant pipeline attacks."

He said that the prevention of pipeline sabotage has been a top priority of the Coalition Provisional Authority and that currently about 14,000 security workers have taken up positions along important pipeline routes or critical oil installations. Contract security workers are equipped with the latest electronic motion sensors, advanced surveillance equipment, night vision equipment, and that mobile security patrols have increased "six-fold."

None of this is working, he said.

Luft provided UPI with a list of some of the sabotage onslaughts. Beginning with June 12, 2003, there were attacks on a pipeline near Kirkuk that carries oil to the Turkish port of Cayhan on the Mediterranean; on June 19, an explosion at the Bayji refinery complex about 125 miles north of Baghdad; on June 24, an explosion near Barwanah that carries crude oil to the al Dawrah refinery.

In August last year, there were three very damaging attacks, two near Bayji, according to Luft's data. On Sept. 8, an attack ripped through a pipeline from the Jabour oil field 20 miles from Kirkuk to the main originating pipeline, according to the data.

The list, by no means complete, reports 35 major and severely damaging attacks from June 12 to the end of the year and gives a total of eight major attacks from January 2004 through April, a major attack taking place on March 25, when there was a blast at the main oil well in northern Iraq that feeds exports through Qazzaz, a chief installation of the Northern Iraqi Oil Company that caused "massive damage," according to a company official quoted by Luft.

An executive of Hess Oil, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed this: "These security arrangements of ours aren't working, nor are they preventing sabotage. The pipelines remain very vulnerable, and the attacks on pipelines simply aren't being reported.

In fact, Luft claimed that the pipeline attacks are on the increase. After staging more than 100 major attacks on pipelines in northern Iraq, terrorists last month began to hit pipelines in southern Iraq, near Basra.

Another problem besetting the system is the slowness on the part of U.S. authorities in repairing wartime damage to the system, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The Hess executive claimed that in April of last year, U.S. Air Force planes bombed the Al Fatha Bridge over a tributary of the Tigris River near the Iraqi oil center of Kirkuk.

According to the Hess executives, whose account was confirmed in general by U.S. intelligence officials, U.S. Air Force bombs destroyed "a key mass of crude oil and liquid petroleum gas pipes" that were part of a "critical node" of the oil industry in that area.

No effort was made by CPA officials to repair the pipes until three weeks ago, when it was decided to begin, the Hess Oil executive said.

Before the U.S. bombing, the installation was pumping at full capacity - 670,000 barrels per day to 690,000 barrels per day, but after makeshift repairs, its output was "barely a trickle" -- around 300,000 barrels a day, this oil official said.

Even now, the source said, a quarrel over whether the Iraqi Ministry of Oil or the Ministry of Public Works should restore the pipes have stalled repair efforts.

The Pentagon did not return repeated phone calls.

On Saturday, suicide bombers attacked Iraqi oil facilities in the Gulf, costing the country between $40 million to $150 million in lost revenues, according to newspaper reports.

According to a report in the U.K. Guardian, three U.S. sailors were killed and five wounded near Khawr al Amaya, when a suicide boat flipped over the 8-man U.S. Navy craft that was approaching it.

The Khawr al Amaya Oil Terminal was damaged and at least 1 million barrels of oil lost in the attack, the paper said.

A U.S. intelligence official told UPI: "This was an extremely serious attack, perhaps the worst so far on an Iraqi oil installation." He added that it was designed to distract U.S. military efforts from quelling insurgents in Fallujah and Najaf and demonstrated that the terrorists "are flexible in their targets and tactics."

He also noted that the attacks appeared "to have been in conjunction with and support of the Fallujah and Najaf insurgency."

He said new safeguards and countermeasures were being put in place "even as we speak" and that some progress has been made.

Luft said Iraq's northern pipeline to the Turkish oil installation at Ceyhan has been reopened after months of repeated sabotage, but that its current output of 160,000 barrels a day is "way below its full capacity."

Luft also observed that pipeline attacks are not simply a tactic but part "of a sustained and orchestrated effort" to destroy a valuable strategic target, increase the Iraqi people's sense of insecurity and boost resentment of the U.S. presence there.