Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • Mediators Tell Palestinians to Reform or Lose Aid

    Middle East mediators threaten funding and support of the Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority unless true reforms are implemented, according to Reuters.

    Sapped by years of corruption and disorder as well as Israeli raids, Arafat’s Palestinian Authority needs foreign help to fill a power vacuum when Israel quits the Gaza Strip next year or if it hopes to revive peace talks with the Jewish state.

    But envoys from the United States, United Nations and European Union and Russia told Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie that the world had run out of patience with Arafat’s “empty promises” of reform.

    “If security reforms are not done, there will be no (more) international support and no funding from the international community,” a senior diplomat close to the talks in the West Bank city of Ramallah told Reuters.

    Arafat’s removal from the Palestinian Authority would, ideally, be the best reform possible and the best step towards peace. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if these are just empty threats, as I see no reform of any consequence occurring under Arafat.

  • France, Iraq to Re-Establish Relations

    The AP is reporting that France and Iraq will renew diplomatic ties shortly.

    After a 13-year interruption, France and Iraq (news – web sites) intend to re-establish diplomatic relations within the next few days, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi met Monday with Bernard Bajolet, France’s highest diplomatic representative in Iraq, and discussed restoration of ties that Saddam Hussein (news – web sites) broke off in 1991 during the Gulf War (news – web sites), a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

    “Mr. Allawi said he wanted to do it as fast as possible so that France can participate in the reconstruction of Iraq,” the spokesman said. “We welcomed that very positively.”

    France, always there for the Francs. Nevertheless, this is a good move for the fledgling Iraqi government and its efforts to establish legitimacy.

  • Wash. Post: No Sarin in Rounds Found by Poles

    Just back from my Independence Day weekend in Amarillo, Texas, and I find the Washington Post has stated the artillery rounds claimed by the Poles to have cyclosarin (see my entry on July 2) were not , in fact, chemical rounds.

    Sixteen rocket warheads found last week in south-central Iraq by Polish troops did not contain deadly chemicals, a coalition spokesman said yesterday, but U.S. and Polish officials agreed that insurgents loyal to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorist fighters are trying to buy such old weapons or purchase the services of Iraqi scientists who know how to make them.

    The Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad said in a statement yesterday that the 122-millimeter rocket rounds, which initially showed traces of sarin, “were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals.” The statement came just hours after two senior Polish defense officials told reporters in Warsaw, based on preliminary reports, that the rocket rounds contained deadly sarin and that actions by the Polish unit in Iraq kept them from being purchased by militants fighting coalition forces.

    I find it interesting that FoxNews and BBC, where I originally read the story, have printed no such correction. I also find it interesting that what the Washington Post and the Coalition Press Information Center refer to as “preliminary reports” were described by the Poles as “Laboratory tests …. done by U.S. experts” only hours earlier.

    However I may wonder about both sides of the story, I felt I had to post it.

  • Polish Troops Find Sarin Warheads

    It seems more WMD has surfaced in Iraq.

    “We were mortified by the information that terrorists were looking for these warheads and offered $5,000 apiece,” Dukaczewski said. “An attack with such weapons would be hard to imagine. All of our activity was accelerated at appropriating these warheads.”

    Dukaczewski refused to give any further details about the terrorists or the sellers of the munitions, saying only that his troops thwarted terrorists by purchasing the 17 rockets for a Soviet-era launcher and two mortar rounds containing the nerve agent for an undisclosed sum June 23.

    There’s a lot of scary aspects to this story. First, these were almost in terrorist hands, so what do they already have? Second, I see no way that we will ever be able to account for all of Iraq’s WMD, leaving us to never have a good knowledge of the scope of the danger we face. Third, the left still refuses to acknowledge the existence of WMD.

    The warheads all contained cyclosarin, multinational force commander Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek said.

    “Laboratory tests showed the presence in them of cyclosarin, a very toxic gas, five times stronger than sarin and five times more durable,” Bieniek told Poland’s TVN24 at the force’s Camp Babylon headquarters.

    “If these warheads, which were still usable, were used on a military base like Camp Babylon, they would have caused unforeseeable damage.”

    The tests were done by U.S. experts, who were conducting more.

    The munitions were found in a bunker in the Polish sector, but Polish officials refused to be more specific.

  • Palestinian militants publicly execute suspected informant

    Palestinian “militants” gunned down a man accused of collaborating with the Israelis. Machine gunned him. Publicly. In the town square. In the middle of a crowd of Palestinians chanting for his death.

    Four gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade carried out the killing in the town square of the West Bank town of Qabatiya.

    They machine-gunned the Hamad Rafiq Abdel Razek, 42, as hundreds of onlookers called for him to die.

    I find it interesting to compare the Palestinian concept of justice with the concepts we are working to instill in Iraq. Sad that Abdel Razek died in the street without a trial a day after Saddam began making his aquaintances with the Iraqi court system.

  • A Letter to the American People

    The Iraq-America Freedom Alliance took out a full-page ad in the USA Today, extending their hands “in friendship and gratitude to the American people.”

    When freedom is born where it has never existed, the desire of all people to live in peace and dignity will only grow. With America’s support, we know that someday Iraqi children will dare to dream the same dreams as American children.

    I believe the children are the future … damn you, Whitney Houston, get out of my head!

  • Reaping the whirlwind

    USNews.com: Fouad Ajami: Reaping the whirlwind (6/28/04)An intriguing look at what the Saudis face now that the terror they allowed to be loosed upon the world comes home.

    You can’t bless terror in the streets of Jerusalem and condemn it in Arabia: Once emboldened, as they have been in recent years, the religious extremists were bound to think that the battle for Arabia itself might yet be won.

  • Iraq to Get Legal Custody of Hussein Wed.

    Well, it looks like the Iraqis will officially be taking control of Saddam.

    Saddam Hussein (news – web sites) will be transferred to Iraqi legal custody and face charges in an Iraqi court this week — but he won’t go on trial for months and he will stay in a U.S.-run jail because the country doesn’t have a suitable prison, the prime minister said Tuesday.

    Unfortunately, I’m sure he’ll be treated better than the Italians treated Mussolini.

  • Iraq Handed Sovereignty Two Days Early

    Breaking news all over the place that the Coalition Provisional Authority has handed power over to Iraq, catching the world (and probably some terrorists) off guard.

    The handover of sovereignty took place earlier in the day, at 10:26 a.m. Baghdad time. The transfer of power came two days before the June 30 deadline previously announced by the U.S.-led coalition.

    It’s like I’ve always said, sovereignty handoffs are always more pleasant sans the carbombs.