TUNISNEWS
7 ème année, N° 2470 du 25.02.2007
Voix libre: URGENT PRISONNIERS EN GREVE
Association Internationale de Soutien aux Prisonniers Politiques: Communiqué la liste Maghreb des Droits de l’Homme :FMVJ : soutien aux Démocrates Tunisiens:Forum Marocain pour la Vérité et la Justice Appel – Participez à la plus grande mobilisation des citoyens contre la dic.tat.ure de Be.nA.li & Co. Salah zeghidi : A propos du groupe islamiste armé de Slimane: La clarté et la précision s’imposent Ahmed Ounaïes : EN REPONSE AU DISCOURS SUR L’ETAT DE L’UNION Abdo Maalaoui: Lion Club est une branche de la franc maçonnerie et de l’Illiminiti ! Le Temps : Des quantités de viandes rouges avariées saisies par la Douane de Sousse l’agence de presse koweitienne KUNA:After Tunisia, Vorontsov to visit Jordan soon to recuperate Kuwait spare parts — UN SEYMOUR M. HERSH: THE REDIRECTION
URGENT
Voix libre vient d’apprendre que 16 prisonniers politiques tunisiens incarcérés à la prison Mournaguiya, parmi lesquels Sadok CHOUROU, Ahmed LABIYAD, Abdelkerim HAROUNI, Sahbi ATIG, Ali CHNITER et Lotfi SNOUSSI, viennent d’entamer une grève de la faim et ce en protestation contre l’agression subite par le prisonnier politique Ridha BOUKADI.
Ce dernier s’est fait rouer de coups par un agent de l’administration pénitentiaire en réponse à sa demande du régime alimentaire prescrit par le médecin suite au diagnostic d’une insuffisance rénale.
Les coups portés au prisonnier Ridha BOUKADI sont d’une violence telle que ses yeux et son visage sont complètement couverts d’hématomes.
Encore un prisonnier politique est agressé, humilié et privé de soin.
Des informations complémentaires et plus des précisions seront données ultérieurement.
Restons vigilant et attentif afin que cette agression ne passe pas inaperçu. Voix Libre ONG oeuvrant pour les droits de l’Homme contact@voixlibre.org Tel: 06 26 37 49 29 – Fax : 01 43 63 13 52 www.voixlibre.org
Association Internationale de Soutien aux Prisonniers Politiques 33 rue Mokhtar Atya, 1001 Tunis Tel/fax : 71 354 984 Le 23 février 2007 Communiqué
** Les forces de police ont empêché la tenue de la réunion prévue le 23 février 2007 au local du Parti Démocratique Progressiste, appelée par le Comité du 18 octobre pour les Droits et les Libertés, avec la participation de l’AISPP, sous le slogan « journée du prisonnier politique en Tunisie, pour la promulgation d’une amnistie générale ».
** De nombreuses forces de police ont encerclé le siège du parti, interdisant à des figures emblématiques du mouvement du 18 octobre pour les droits et les libertés d’y pénétrer, tandis qu’étaient arrivés de nombreux invités, notamment des familles de prisonniers politiques venus en masse en bravant les entraves. Il était prévu que Maître Mohammed Nouri prenne la parole pour parler des souffrances des prisonniers politiques et de leurs familles ainsi que des brimades et provocations subies par les ex prisonniers, mais la police lui a interdit l’entrée dans le local.
** Messieurs Mohammed Néjib Laouati et Ajmi Lourimi observent une grève de la faim depuis trois jours pour protester contre les mauvais traitements auxquels ils sont soumis, l’administration pénitentiaire ayant bouché l’unique source d’aération de leur cellule. N’en pouvant plus de suffoquer, ils ont décidé de mener une grève de la faim pour que soit mis un terme à ces brimades et pour exiger leur libération. Messieurs Mohammed Néjib Laouati et Ajmi Lourimi sont incarcérés à la prison de Sfax où ils effectuent une peine d’emprisonnement à perpétuité. Ils ont déjà passé plus de seize années dans différentes prisons tunisiennes.
** Le prisonnier d’opinion Hassam Rihan a été agressé et mis au cachot à la prison de Mornaguia, rien que pour avoir voulu faire ses ablutions et sa prière. Pour le Comité directeur de l’Association Maître Mohammed Nouri
(traduction ni revue ni corrigée par les auteurs de la version en arabe, LT)
Mezri Haddad Et Sihem Bensedrine (Vidéo)
(Source : lien publié par « Lassad » le 25 février 2007 à 04h17 PM sur le forum « Taht Essour » de nawaat.org) http://www.dailymotion.com/visited-week/se…e-lislamisme-ii
Participez à la plus grande mobilisation des citoyens contre la dic.tat.ure de Be.nA.li & Co.
Je lance un appel solennel à tous les citoyens patriotes pour se mobiliser contre la mafia Be.nal.ienne (au pouvoir de pillage, de spoliation des richesses et de terrorisme contre la population) en luttant symboliquement et en préparant la résistance active et pacifique :
Eteignez vos lumières pendant 7 minutes de 21h à 21h07 (heure de Tunis, en hiver) tous les 7, 17 et 27 de chaque mois à partir du 7 février 2007.
Cette action symbolique est un avertissement du peuple prisonnier d’une dictature (mafieuse et terroriste) et refusant toute violence d’où qu’elle vienne (pouvoir politique, extrémistes religieux et autres). C’est un signe de refus et de combat contre l’ère noire du 7 novembre 1987 et ses dramatiques conséquences (politiques, économiques, sociales, culturelles) pour le pays.
Faisant de l’année 2007, l’année de la fin de la dictature par la résistance pacifique.
Citoyennes, Citoyens patriotes, n’oubliez pas : Eteignez vos lumières pendant 7 minutes de 21h à 21h07 (heure de Tunis, en hiver) tous les 7, 17 et 27 de chaque mois à partir du 7 février 2007.
Merci de diffuser très largement via les mass médias.
Importées clandestinement d’un pays frère
Des quantités de viandes rouges avariées saisies par la Douane de Sousse
Tunis – le Temps – Notre consœur « Assabah » a appris de sources informées qu’une quantité de viandes rouges avariées , ramenée clandestinement d’un pays frère, a été saisie à Sousse par les services douaniers.
Selon les mêmes sources, un camion venant dudit pays, arrêté pour un contrôle de routine, et censé transporter du poisson, s’avéra lors de sa fouille par les agents, contenir des quantités de viande rouge, planquées sous les cageots de poissons.
La vérification des documents d’importation de ces viandes, permit de dévoiler l’illégalité de cette opération qui était effectuée d’une manière clandestine. Elle ne répondait pas , en effet, aux conditions requises, pour lesquelles les quantités à importer ainsi que les intervenants sont préalablement définis. La même source précise que le problème en l’occurrence concerne notamment les conditions dans lesquelles ces viandes ont été importées et introduites dans le territoire. La Douane tunisienne a déjà commencé à instruire ce dossier qui sera soumis à la justice.
Quant aux viandes concernées, (plus d’une tonne), ce sont des viandes congelées, d’origine latino-américaine, introduites d’abord en totalité au pays voisin et dont une partie a été ramenée en Tunisie, d’une manière clandestine. Par ailleurs, il est précisé que la quantité saisie appartient au conducteur du camion (bien que d’autres personnes aient été également citées). Le même chauffeur indiqua qu’une autre quantité de ces viandes décomposées se trouvent dans une chambre frigorifique destinée pour les produits de la mer. En outre, il est également spécifié que ces viandes seraient plutôt périmées et ont été confiées pour l’analyse aux laboratoires de contrôle d’hygiène afin de se prononcer d’une manière officielle. Sachant que les viandes qui ont été distribuées dans certains points de vente ont été saisies dans leur totalité par les agents du contrôle d’hygiène. Quant au conducteur du camion, il a été déféré aux instances judiciaires dans le cadre de l’instruction dans cette affaire.
S.R (Source : « Le Temps » (Quotidien – Tunis), le 25 février 2007)
FMVJ : soutien aux Démocrates Tunisiens
Forum Marocain pour la Vérité et la Justice
Le 23 février 2007
Membre de la Coordination Marocaine de soutien aux Démocrates Tunisiens, le FMVJ apporte son soutien entier et sans réserve à la lutte des démocrates tunisiens dans leur lutte juste et acharnée contre un régime d’un autre âge dont toutes les décisions et initiatives ont pour seul but de faire souffrir la Tunisie, la claquemurer et l’isoler du monde de la liberté et du droit. Les démocrates tunisiens célèbrent aujourd’hui, pour la sixième fois, la journée internationale pour la libération des prisonniers politiques et pour réclamer une loi d’amnistie générale en faveur de toutes les victimes de la répression du régime de Ben Ali. Aux côtés des démocrates Tunisiens et avec l’ensembles des organisations de défense des Droits Humains, maghrébines ou internationales le FMVJ réclame – La libération de tous les détenus politiques et la promulgation d’une loi d’amnistie – La préservation, la protection et la garantie de tous les droits internationaux relatifs aux organisations et aux citoyens, dont les droits de réunion, d’expression et de représentation. Parmi nos préoccupations et inquiétudes, la campagne d’agression menée par les services tunisiens dirigés par Ben Ali et son groupe mafieux, contre la grande LIGUE TUNISIENNE DE DEFENSE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME. Nous saluons le long combat et le courage de toutes les organisations politiques, syndicales, humanitaires et civiles tunisiennes et exigeons du pouvoir antidémocratique tunisien qu’il respecte les textes internationaux relatifs aux droits humains. Nous appelons l’opinion publique maghrébine et internationale à agir – auprès des autorités tunisiennes et auprès de toutes les institutions qui traitent avec ce régime – fortement et très vite afin de soulager les défenseurEs des droits de la personne et afin d’obliger le régime rétrograde de BEN ALI à respecter l’immunité des citoyens et à en finir avec les agressions contre cette société sœur dont l’avenir nous concerne au premier chef. Très cherEs amiEs, Sachez combien notre lien dans le combat pour la Liberté , la Vérité et la Justice est primordial et combien nous voulons que notre lutte soit commune pour un Maghreb respectueux du droit. Pour l’avènement d’un Maghreb Démocratique. Sachez que nous avons aussi besoin de vous et de nos amis nombreux à travers le monde pour que la vigilance l’emporte dans notre pays qui traverse une période difficile où les enlèvements, tortures et emprisonnements continuent de marquer la scène politique, en dépit de toutes les déclarations fallacieuses de nos dirigeants. Le Maroc poursuit sa lutte pour l’avènement de l’Etat de Droit et compte sur tous les défenseurs des droits humains pour le soutenir dans sa quête de la démocratie, de la vérité, de la justice et de la liberté. Notre solidarité est totale. Le Bureau Exécutif du FMVJ (Source : Texte diffusé par Larbi Maaninou sur la liste Maghreb des Droits de l’Homme le 25 Février 2007 à 11h22mn 13s)
A propos du groupe islamiste armé de Slimane
La clarté et la précision s’imposent
Salah zeghidi
C’est unanimement que les diverses composantes des sociétés politique et civile se sont démarquées de l’aventure terroriste engagée par un groupe islamiste armé ayant ses soutiens politiques et logistiques auprès du G.S.P.C. basé en Algérie et devenu depuis quelques mois “la branche maghrébine” d’ “Al Qu’Aïda”..
Cette unanimité est positive et doit être appréciée à sa juste valeur. Il était essentiel que toutes les forces vives, mais surtout les mouvements démocratiques, associatifs ou politiques, expriment haut et fort leur dénonciation ferme et sans équivoque de toute velléité d’action de groupes terroristes islamistes ..
Cela n’empêche, car la rigueur est de ..rigueur .Il ne suffit pas de dénoncer ou de se démarquer.. Il faut dire très clairement et très précisément de quoi on se démarque, et qui on dénonce. Et là, les choses ne semblent pas tout à fait évidentes.
1- Il ne s’agit pas de dénoncer “la violence”, en termes génériques. Ce qui, du reste, n’a aucun sens politiquement : la violence (qui n’est pas le terrorisme) a été l’un des instruments légitimes des mouvements de libération nationale ou antifascistes.. Certaines déclarations ont parlé de “rejet de la violence”, comme s’il s’agissait de n’importe qu’elle violence. Or, la confusion n’est pas de mise. Il s’agit bel et bien de terrorisme et pas de n’importe lequel!
2- Il faut appeler un chat un chat. Or, de ce point de vue, plusieurs déclarations ont trouvé le moyen de NE PAS PRECISER QU’IL S’AGIT d’un groupe terroriste ISLAMISTE !
Le Gouvernement lui-même, et qui n’est pas à une bavure près à propos de cette affaire, a cru bon de se contenter de parler de groupe “salafiste jihadiste” comme si ses communiqués s’adressaient à des théologiens! Les partis politiques se sont-ils dits: nous n’allons pas être plus royalistes que le Gouvernement?(1) Seul celui qui refuse de se démarquer de l’intégrisme islamiste peut rechigner à dire clairement que les évènements de Slimane sont une opération politique et terroriste organisée et menée par UN MOUVEMENT ISLAMISTE INTEGRISTE..
3- Ce qui nous sépare et nous oppose à ce groupe lié au G.S.P.C. et à AL QUAÎDA, disons-le clairement, sans laisser la moindre place à l’équivoque: Ce n’est pas seulement le recours de ce groupe aux pratiques terroristes, c’est le projet fondamentalement rétrograde et obscurantiste dont il est porteur, à l’image de tous les mouvements se réclamant de l’islamisme politique intégriste, quelles que soient les nuances ou les divergences importantes qui les séparent… Et là, il est réconfortant de constater la pertinence et la grande justesse de la déclaration publiée par l’ATFD., et dans une moindre mesure, celle de la LTDH. (1) la déclaration publiée par le PND précise bien qu’il s’agit d’un groupe islamiste et -dénonce en même temps le projet rétrograde et passéiste dont il est porteur.
(Source : « Attariq Al Jadid » (Revue mensuelle – Tunis), N° 57 – Février 2007) Lien : http://fr.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-bawT19A8eqfODSt0dUg5c6DCYQU-?cq=1&p=118
EN REPONSE AU DISCOURS SUR L’ETAT DE L’UNION
Ahmed Ounaïes
Le discours sur l’Etat de l’Union prononcé par le Président Bush le 23 janvier devant le Congrès des Etats-Unis ne saurait être compris sans référence au résultat des élections de mi-mandat du 7 novembre dernier, où le parti républicain a perdu la majorité dans les deux Chambres et, d’autre part, au rapport du Groupe de Travail sur l’Irak rendu public le 7 décembre, où les co-présidents du Groupe, James Baker et Lee Hamilton, au nom des partis Républicain et Démocrate, appellent l’Administration à changer de politique en Irak et dans l’ensemble de la région. Dans son discours du 23 janvier, le Président Bush s’en tient à sa politique et pousse à l’extrême la logique de la force, aussi bien en Irak que dans sa politique arabe en général.
Trois grandes conclusions dominent le rapport du Groupe de Travail bipartisan sur l’Irak. D’abord, la priorité donnée à l’action politique de préférence à l’action militaire. A ce titre, le groupe recommande une Nouvelle Offensive Diplomatique, en particulier en direction de la Syrie et de l’Iran « afin d’obtenir leur engagement dans une politique constructive à l’égard de l’Irak et des autres questions régionales. » D’autre part, « toutes les questions clés du Moyen Orient – le conflit israélo arabe, l’Irak, l’Iran, le besoin de réformes politiques et économiques, ainsi que l’extrémisme et le terrorisme – sont inextricablement liées. » De ce fait, « l’Irak ne peut pas être traité efficacement en ignorant le contexte régional. » Enfin, en contrepartie de l’engagement syrien, « les Israéliens devraient restituer le Golan, tout en obtenant de la part des Etats-Unis une garantie de sécurité qui pourrait inclure une force internationale sur la frontière, y compris des troupes américaines si les deux parties le demandent. »
Ces recommandations sont cohérentes. Elles s’appuient sur le constat que la région souffre d’une accumulation de conflits non résolus et d’une militarisation excessive qui s’est aggravée avec le déclenchement de la guerre contre l’Irak en 2003 et tout au long des trois dernières années. La guerre du Liban, en juillet-août 2007, n’a fait qu’exacerber cette logique. Les réponses politiques sont insuffisantes et, dans tous les cas, prédéterminées par la politique de la force et par le jeu des menaces militaires et des sanctions économiques. L’extrémisme et la violence sont la résultante de cette militarisation où les victoires des armes n’ont jamais été suivies d’aucune paix. L’apaisement et la paix requièrent un changement de stratégie.
Le Président Bush ne retient aucune des recommandations essentielles et ne change pas de stratégie. Il annonce un surcroît de troupes en Irak, en même temps qu’un accroissement substantiel, à l’échelle nationale, des Corps d’infanterie et de marine ainsi que la création d’un corps de réservistes civils mobilisables à des fins militaires. Il continue de diviser les pays arabes en entités alliées et entités hostiles, comme si les pays arabes n’étaient pas unis pour la même cause, n’étaient pas solidaires des pays victimes de l’occupation, solidaires des pays menacés dans leur intégrité, dans leur souveraineté et dans leur dignité. Il continue de diaboliser la Syrie et l’Iran, ignorant que ces pays sont l’objet de sanctions injustes et discriminatoires, et qu’ils sont néanmoins debout, capables de relever le défi, dévoués à la cause de la libération des peuples victimes de l’occupation, qu’ils luttent contre la perpétuation de l’occupation israélienne des territoires palestinien, libanais et syrien et qu’ils s’acquittent effectivement de cette obligation. Le Président Bush dissimule les vraies causes du rejet du soldat américain. Le tableau qu’il dresse du Moyen Orient est illusoire : le fait même de l’occupation est occulté. Il ne se soucie guère de l’embarras où il plonge ses alliés dits ‘‘modérés’’ et de l’impuissance où il les enferme pour s’acquitter à leur tour de leur obligation nationale arabe.
Le Président Bush continue de penser victoire militaire simplement parce qu’il dispose d’une armée mécaniquement puissante. C’est la même erreur et le même aveuglement qui ont conduit Israël à ignorer la doctrine de paix arabe et à dresser des plans qu’il croit pouvoir imposer par la force. Une puissance dépourvue du sens politique peut toujours détruire et ruiner, elle ne saurait remporter des victoires durables et ne saurait jouir de la paix. A son tour, le Président Bush s’obstine à ignorer le contexte régional réel, à rejeter les droits légitimes des peuples arabes et à leur opposer des plans qu’il croit pouvoir imposer par la force. L’échec de sa politique irakienne est révélateur de l’échec de sa politique arabe.
L’échec s’est symboliquement matérialisé dans une cascade de faits accablants, en novembre et décembre derniers : quand le Président Bush a enregistré la perte de la majorité républicaine dans les deux chambres du Parlement ; quand il a réalisé l’imprudence de se hasarder sur le sol irakien en dépit de la présence massive de ses soldats sur place et qu’il se résigna à rencontrer ses interlocuteurs irakiens, le Premier Ministre et le chef de la communauté chiite, à Amman et à Washington ; quand il a dû se séparer de son Secrétaire à la Défense ; quand l’Italie, après l’Espagne, décida de retirer ses troupes de la coalition ; quand, au nom des deux partis, Jim Baker et Lee Hamilton lui ont déclaré qu’il n’était plus convenable de parler de victoire militaire et qu’il suffisait d’assurer le retrait des troupes américaines d’Irak « en toute responsabilité ». En a-t-il déduit pour autant que la force militaire n’était pas tout et qu’il était nécessaire d’avoir aussi une politique ? Une politique, il est vrai, suppose le respect des principes du droit, la foi dans les valeurs de justice et d’égalité, et le respect des nations.
Le peuple américain pratique la démocratie. Quand l’Administration échoue, le vote populaire sanctionne le mauvais choix et en appelle à une nouvelle majorité pour redresser la barre. A l’intérieur même de son propre parti, le Président en exercice n’échappe pas à la critique. Grâce à la résistance arabe sur tous les fronts, en Irak, au Liban, en Palestine, en Syrie et déjà en Iran, la nation américaine découvre qu’elle a été abusée. La guerre d’Irak était absurde : elle ne reposait sur aucun fondement et n’avait aucune raison d’être. L’espèce de victoire que l’Administration Bush concevait pour le peuple irakien, nul n’en veut, encore moins le peuple irakien. Ailleurs au Moyen Orient, les plans américains se succèdent et s’embourbent sans jamais trouver la voie du succès ni parvenir à la paix.
En fait, le Président Bush ne réussit guère à relativiser le coup du 11 Septembre. Captif de cette fixation, il y voit toujours un acte fondateur, sans pouvoir saisir le long processus dramatique où il s’inscrit et dans lequel la part de responsabilité des Etats-Unis est lourdement engagée. Le Président Bush n’entend pas la voix profonde de la communauté qui s’élève contre l’agression, l’aliénation, la dépossession et la domination qui qualifient l’ingérence américaine et qui font du soldat américain tout le contraire d’un libérateur.
Si, au nom du peuple américain, un Président voulait servir la cause de la paix et de la liberté au Moyen Orient, comme Roosevelt et Truman avaient pu le faire dans l’Europe occupée, nous, peuples arabes, sommes persuadés qu’il saura parfaitement ce qu’il aura à faire. Ainsi que l’affirmait Mme Condoleezza Rice le 2 février dernier à Washington parlant de la Syrie, nous pouvons lui assurer à notre tour que les Etats-Unis savent ce qu’ils doivent faire pour être une force de paix, de liberté et de stabilité. Nos ambassades fonctionnent à Washington et ne rompent guère le contact, nous n’avons jamais cessé de rechercher le dialogue et d’attirer l’attention des Administrations successives sur ce qu’il y a lieu de faire et surtout d’éviter.
Il est vrai que nous n’avons pas une armée suffisamment compétitive avec les armées américaines, mais nous avons une politique. Nous sommes aussi soucieux d’épargner au peuple américain des échecs et des humiliations que d’épargner à nous-mêmes davantage de destructions et de catastrophes évitables. Nous sommes fondés à résister à l’agression, à défendre nos droits territoriaux et politiques, à revendiquer le respect de notre souveraineté et de notre dignité, tout en offrant par ailleurs une doctrine de paix fondée en droit et appuyée par notre capacité de lutte et de résistance. La résistance est l’expression d’une civilisation très ancienne qui force le respect mais qui ne cède pas à la force.
(Source : « Attariq Al Jadid » (Revue mensuelle – Tunis), N° 57 – Février 2007) Lien : http://fr.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-bawT19A8eqfODSt0dUg5c6DCYQU-?cq=1&p=119
OPINION
Lion Club n’est pas une association humanitaire :
Lion Club est une branche de la franc maçonnerie et de l’Illiminiti !
Abdo Maalaoui,
Montréal, Canada
Un grand merci à l’équipe de Tunisnews qui n’a jamais cessé de nous informer sur les bizarreries de ce qu’il se passe en Tunisie et à l’étranger.
Maryam OMAR, jeune journaliste intègre de Webmanagercenter a marché inconsciemment sur la queue d’un cobra. Maryam, n’est pas islamiste, ni capitaliste, ni gauchiste, elle est jeune journaliste tout court. Elle voulait involontairement dénoncer des actes qu’elle a trouvé «politically incorrect» et voilà l’ouragan Katrina s’abat sur elle et peut-être elle perdra son emploi dans un avenir proche parce qu’elle a touché sans le savoir au temple mafieux du pouvoir politique et financier en Tunisie.
Je fais appel à la solidarité et le soutien urgent à Melle Maryam OMAR, ils vont faire d’elle un exemple de sacrifice et de mobilisation, les Clubs Lions, Rotary ainsi que les Jeunes chambres sont pire que les KKK. Je suis témoin de leurs méfaits et la puissance politique et financière qu’ils ont eu en Afrique centrale, ils sont capables des pires crimes crapuleux. Ce sont des loges sataniques et pour accéder au top du pouvoir, le futur candidat doit obligatoirement faire un sacrifice devant les membres de sa loge «Club» même au prix d’un de ses enfants ou de sa femme. Je vous certifie que Melle Maryam Omar sera dans l’œil du cyclone parce que je parle en connaissance de cause.
Seulement notre solidarité de militants pour la liberté d’expression peut la sauver, il est de notre devoir de se mobiliser pour dénoncer publiquement ces «Loges – Clubs» et de les faire déloger de la Tunisie. Est-ce que nous avons besoin d’eux pour nous apprendre comment s’entraider ?
Pourquoi Monsieur Rejeb Elloumi, «le Satanique gouverneur du District 414» ne dit pas la vérité sur la mission camouflée du Lion Club Tunisie ? Monsieur Rejeb Elloumi, tu es un simple traître à ton pays, tu travailles les intérêts des organisations occultes qui te commandent de l’étranger.
Pourquoi tu ne nous écris pas un petit résume de l’histoire de ta franc maçonnerie ?
Le roi Hassan II, Bourguiba, étaient franc-maçon, et aujourd’hui presque la grande majorité des présidents et politiciens influents africains (du Nord, de l’Ouest, de l’Est, du Centre ou du Sud) sont des francs maçons, les noms des maçons africains les plus connus publiquement sont les ou ex- présidents Idriss Deby du Tchad, Denis Sassou Nguesso du Congo, Mamadou Tandja du Niger, Gnassingbé Eyadéma du Togo, Paul Biya du Cameroun, Blaise Compaoré du Burkina Faso, Joseph Kabila de la RCD, Omar Bongo du Gabon et consorts sont francs-maçons, tous membres de la Grande Loge Nationale Française (Glnf) ou d’obédiences africaines affiliées à cette dernière. Le général Robert Gueï, auteur du coup d’État de décembre 1999 en Côte d’Ivoire, était également initié.
Les autres obédiences françaises, Grand Orient de France (Godf) et Grande Loge de France (Glf) sont aussi implantées en Afrique francophone, soit directement soit par obédiences africaines affiliées ou alliées.
Ainsi, l’ancien président du Congo, Pascal Lissouba, avait été initié au Grand Orient. La Glnf a opéré une percée spéciale en Afrique francophone. Si la franc-maçonnerie est fortement implantée au Maghreb par l’intermédiaire des «Lions clubs», «Rotary Clubs», «Jeunes chambres» et autres soit disant associations charitables. En Afrique francophone, mais aussi en Amérique latine (Pinochet et tous les membres des juntes militaires latino-américaines) étaient des francs-maçons et aux Etats-Unis, le président Franklin Roosevelt l’était également, Reagan, Bush père et fils et tous les membres de l’Illuminati, sont des franc-maçons sans parler du réseau européen.
La création de la première loge en Afrique francophone, par le Grand Orient, remonte à 1781, à Saint-Louis du Sénégal. En sont membres des Français expatriés, pour la plupart militaires et commerçants liés à la Compagnie du Sénégal, aucun Africain n’y figure. Il s’agit d’une franc-maçonnerie « coloniale » et non pas d’une franc-maçonnerie africaine.
L’objectif primordial de Lion Club de Tunisie ou d’ailleurs est d’être introduit un jour dans les hauts sphères du pouvoir afin de le contrôler et de s’en servir pour préserver leur influence politique et financière. Beaucoup de simples membres ne sont pas au courant de la réalité de leur soi-disant haut dirigeant de leur club, ces jeunes sont membres par arrivisme, intérêt professionnel et émotif mais la direction est très active auprès du pouvoir qui l’appui et le finance occultement pour mieux le contrôler. Les grandes décisions ne se prennent pas en Tunisie, malheureusement, elles se prennent au Pentagone (USA) ou à sa branche francophone aux Quais d’Orfèvres (France).
Lions clubs, Rotary clubs ainsi que les Jeunes chambres sont des nids propices pour recruter des jeunes hauts cadres diplômés, dociles et obéissant au quart de tour aux ordres d’en haut et de l’étranger. Les hauts dirigeants de ces clubs rendent des services énormes en contre partie, ils n’ont aucun problème d’obtenir un visa ou trouver les frais de séjour à l’étranger ou devenir un membre très influent auprès du pouvoir de son pays. Ce sont eux qui sont entrain de nous gouverner, les politiciens, députés ou sénateurs ou ministres ou gouverneurs, maires ne sont que des pions à leur service, ils peuvent les interchanger ou les éjecter.
Abdo Maalaoui
Montréal, Canada
maalaoui@yahoo.com
Good Directions in Tunisia
Op-ed columnist Anne Applebaum’s perspective on developments in Tunisia [“A Good Place to Have Aided Democracy,” Feb. 13] is flawed. Home-grown reforms introduced during the past two decades by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali have incrementally anchored the bases of democratic pluralism, the rule of law and human rights in Tunisia. There are today nine opposition political parties that express themselves freely on all issues. Opposition candidates regularly take part in presidential and legislative elections. Comprehensive development policies have also allowed Tunisia, despite its limited natural resources, to achieve constant economic growth of about 5 percent a year since 1987 and to ensure progress and prosperity for all. It is no coincidence that about 80 percent of Tunisian society belongs to the middle class, that poverty has been reduced to less than 4 percent of the population, and that more than 99 percent of school-age children of both sexes go to school. Such efforts, along with the promotion of the rights of women, the pursuit of educational reform, and the dissemination of the values of tolerance and dialogue have made it possible to curtail extremism. Tunisia has repeatedly called for awareness and concerted action by all nations to combat extremism and terrorism effectively. TAOUFIK CHEBBI Press Counselor Embassy of Tunisia Washington (Source : « Courrier des lecteurs » in The Washington Post (Quotidien – USA), le 24 février 2007) Lien : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301687.html
After Tunisia, Vorontsov to visit Jordan soon to recuperate Kuwait spare parts — UN
official UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 (KUNA) — UN Coordinator Yuli Vorontsov will soon lead a Kuwaiti-Iraqi delegation to Jordan to recuperate a number of spare parts belonging to Kuwait aboard six Iraqi planes stationed in Jordan since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a UN official told KUNA late Saturday. Vorontsov is the UN’s high-level coordinator for the return of Kuwaiti detainees and property. “Preparations are underway,” the official said, who preferred to remain unnamed, adding that the delegation would travel to Jordan in the next seven to ten days. Vorontsov led a similar delegation to Tunisia late last year where Kuwaiti spare parts were flown back home while the Iraqi planes were still stationed in Tunisia. Iraqi planes were grounded by the Governments in Tunisia, Jordan and other countries in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions which ordered member states to impose a freeze on Iraqi assets abroad to punish the Saddam regime at that time for invading neighbouring Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Vorontsov’s bi-annual report on both the detainees and property issues is scheduled for next June. (Source : l’agence de presse koweitienne KUNA, le 25 février 2007) Lien : http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=955566
THE REDIRECTION Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH Issue of 2007-03-05 Posted 2007-02-25
A STRATEGIC SHIFT
In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of Israel and his country’s right to pursue its nuclear program, and last week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on state television that “realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”
After the revolution of 1979 brought a religious government to power, the United States broke with Iran and cultivated closer relations with the leaders of Sunni Arab states such as Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. That calculation became more complex after the September 11th attacks, especially with regard to the Saudis. Al Qaeda is Sunni, and many of its operatives came from extremist religious circles inside Saudi Arabia. Before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, Administration officials, influenced by neoconservative ideologues, assumed that a Shiite government there could provide a pro-American balance to Sunni extremists, since Iraq’s Shiite majority had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. They ignored warnings from the intelligence community about the ties between Iraqi Shiite leaders and Iran, where some had lived in exile for years. Now, to the distress of the White House, Iran has forged a close relationship with the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,” separating “reformers” and “extremists”; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the other side of that divide.” (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, “have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.”
Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.
A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee told me that he had heard about the new strategy, but felt that he and his colleagues had not been adequately briefed. “We haven’t got any of this,” he said. “We ask for anything going on, and they say there’s nothing. And when we ask specific questions they say, ‘We’re going to get back to you.’ It’s so frustrating.”
The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney’s office and the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon did not respond to specific queries but said, “The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran.”)
The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.
The new strategy “is a major shift in American policy—it’s a sea change,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. The Sunni states “were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,” he said. “We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it.”
“It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what’s the biggest danger—Iran or Sunni radicals,” Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has written widely on Shiites, Iran, and Iraq, told me. “The Saudis and some in the Administration have been arguing that the biggest threat is Iran and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is a victory for the Saudi line.”
Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that “the Middle East is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War.” Indyk, who is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of the strategic implications of its new policy. “The White House is not just doubling the bet in Iraq,” he said. “It’s doubling the bet across the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is upside down.”
The Administration’s new policy for containing Iran seems to complicate its strategy for winning the war in Iraq. Patrick Clawson, an expert on Iran and the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued, however, that closer ties between the United States and moderate or even radical Sunnis could put “fear” into the government of Prime Minister Maliki and “make him worry that the Sunnis could actually win” the civil war there. Clawson said that this might give Maliki an incentive to coöperate with the United States in suppressing radical Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
Even so, for the moment, the U.S. remains dependent on the coöperation of Iraqi Shiite leaders. The Mahdi Army may be openly hostile to American interests, but other Shiite militias are counted as U.S. allies. Both Moqtada al-Sadr and the White House back Maliki. A memorandum written late last year by Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser, suggested that the Administration try to separate Maliki from his more radical Shiite allies by building his base among moderate Sunnis and Kurds, but so far the trends have been in the opposite direction. As the Iraqi Army continues to founder in its confrontations with insurgents, the power of the Shiite militias has steadily increased.
Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that “there is nothing coincidental or ironic” about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. “The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when—if you look at the actual casualty numbers—the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude,” Leverett said. “This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”
President George W. Bush, in a speech on January 10th, partially spelled out this approach. “These two regimes”—Iran and Syria—”are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq,” Bush said. “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We’ll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”
In the following weeks, there was a wave of allegations from the Administration about Iranian involvement in the Iraq war. On February 11th, reporters were shown sophisticated explosive devices, captured in Iraq, that the Administration claimed had come from Iran. The Administration’s message was, in essence, that the bleak situation in Iraq was the result not of its own failures of planning and execution but of Iran’s interference.
The U.S. military also has arrested and interrogated hundreds of Iranians in Iraq. “The word went out last August for the military to snatch as many Iranians in Iraq as they can,” a former senior intelligence official said. “They had five hundred locked up at one time. We’re working these guys and getting information from them. The White House goal is to build a case that the Iranians have been fomenting the insurgency and they’ve been doing it all along—that Iran is, in fact, supporting the killing of Americans.” The Pentagon consultant confirmed that hundreds of Iranians have been captured by American forces in recent months. But he told me that that total includes many Iranian humanitarian and aid workers who “get scooped up and released in a short time,” after they have been interrogated.
“We are not planning for a war with Iran,” Robert Gates, the new Defense Secretary, announced on February 2nd, and yet the atmosphere of confrontation has deepened. According to current and former American intelligence and military officials, secret operations in Lebanon have been accompanied by clandestine operations targeting Iran. American military and special-operations teams have escalated their activities in Iran to gather intelligence and, according to a Pentagon consultant on terrorism and the former senior intelligence official, have also crossed the border in pursuit of Iranian operatives from Iraq.
At Rice’s Senate appearance in January, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, of Delaware, pointedly asked her whether the U.S. planned to cross the Iranian or the Syrian border in the course of a pursuit. “Obviously, the President isn’t going to rule anything out to protect our troops, but the plan is to take down these networks in Iraq,” Rice said, adding, “I do think that everyone will understand that—the American people and I assume the Congress expect the President to do what is necessary to protect our forces.”
The ambiguity of Rice’s reply prompted a response from Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, who has been critical of the Administration: Some of us remember 1970, Madam Secretary. And that was Cambodia. And when our government lied to the American people and said, “We didn’t cross the border going into Cambodia,” in fact we did.
I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee. So, Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the President is talking about here, it’s very, very dangerous.
The Administration’s concern about Iran’s role in Iraq is coupled with its long-standing alarm over Iran’s nuclear program. On Fox News on January 14th, Cheney warned of the possibility, in a few years, “of a nuclear-armed Iran, astride the world’s supply of oil, able to affect adversely the global economy, prepared to use terrorist organizations and/or their nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors and others around the world.” He also said, “If you go and talk with the Gulf states or if you talk with the Saudis or if you talk with the Israelis or the Jordanians, the entire region is worried. . . . The threat Iran represents is growing.”
The Administration is now examining a wave of new intelligence on Iran’s weapons programs. Current and former American officials told me that the intelligence, which came from Israeli agents operating in Iran, includes a claim that Iran has developed a three-stage solid-fuelled intercontinental missile capable of delivering several small warheads—each with limited accuracy—inside Europe. The validity of this human intelligence is still being debated.
A similar argument about an imminent threat posed by weapons of mass destruction—and questions about the intelligence used to make that case—formed the prelude to the invasion of Iraq. Many in Congress have greeted the claims about Iran with wariness; in the Senate on February 14th, Hillary Clinton said, “We have all learned lessons from the conflict in Iraq, and we have to apply those lessons to any allegations that are being raised about Iran. Because, Mr. President, what we are hearing has too familiar a ring and we must be on guard that we never again make decisions on the basis of intelligence that turns out to be faulty.”
Still, the Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year, at the direction of the President. In recent months, the former intelligence official told me, a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours.
In the past month, I was told by an Air Force adviser on targeting and the Pentagon consultant on terrorism, the Iran planning group has been handed a new assignment: to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq. Previously, the focus had been on the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities and possible regime change.
Two carrier strike groups—the Eisenhower and the Stennis—are now in the Arabian Sea. One plan is for them to be relieved early in the spring, but there is worry within the military that they may be ordered to stay in the area after the new carriers arrive, according to several sources. (Among other concerns, war games have shown that the carriers could be vulnerable to swarming tactics involving large numbers of small boats, a technique that the Iranians have practiced in the past; carriers have limited maneuverability in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, off Iran’s southern coast.) The former senior intelligence official said that the current contingency plans allow for an attack order this spring. He added, however, that senior officers on the Joint Chiefs were counting on the White House’s not being “foolish enough to do this in the face of Iraq, and the problems it would give the Republicans in 2008.”
PRINCE BANDAR’S GAME
The Administration’s effort to diminish Iranian authority in the Middle East has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Prince Bandar, the Saudi national-security adviser. Bandar served as the Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them. Senior White House officials have made several visits to Saudi Arabia recently, some of them not disclosed.
Last November, Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia for a surprise meeting with King Abdullah and Bandar. The Times reported that the King warned Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back its fellow-Sunnis in Iraq if the United States were to withdraw. A European intelligence official told me that the meeting also focussed on more general Saudi fears about “the rise of the Shiites.” In response, “The Saudis are starting to use their leverage—money.”
In a royal family rife with competition, Bandar has, over the years, built a power base that relies largely on his close relationship with the U.S., which is crucial to the Saudis. Bandar was succeeded as Ambassador by Prince Turki al-Faisal; Turki resigned after eighteen months and was replaced by Adel A. al-Jubeir, a bureaucrat who has worked with Bandar. A former Saudi diplomat told me that during Turki’s tenure he became aware of private meetings involving Bandar and senior White House officials, including Cheney and Abrams. “I assume Turki was not happy with that,” the Saudi said. But, he added, “I don’t think that Bandar is going off on his own.” Although Turki dislikes Bandar, the Saudi said, he shared his goal of challenging the spread of Shiite power in the Middle East.
The split between Shiites and Sunnis goes back to a bitter divide, in the seventh century, over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis dominated the medieval caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, and Shiites, traditionally, have been regarded more as outsiders. Worldwide, ninety per cent of Muslims are Sunni, but Shiites are a majority in Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain, and are the largest Muslim group in Lebanon. Their concentration in a volatile, oil-rich region has led to concern in the West and among Sunnis about the emergence of a “Shiite crescent”—especially given Iran’s increased geopolitical weight.
“The Saudis still see the world through the days of the Ottoman Empire, when Sunni Muslims ruled the roost and the Shiites were the lowest class,” Frederic Hof, a retired military officer who is an expert on the Middle East, told me. If Bandar was seen as bringing about a shift in U.S. policy in favor of the Sunnis, he added, it would greatly enhance his standing within the royal family.
The Saudis are driven by their fear that Iran could tilt the balance of power not only in the region but within their own country. Saudi Arabia has a significant Shiite minority in its Eastern Province, a region of major oil fields; sectarian tensions are high in the province. The royal family believes that Iranian operatives, working with local Shiites, have been behind many terrorist attacks inside the kingdom, according to Vali Nasr. “Today, the only army capable of containing Iran”—the Iraqi Army—”has been destroyed by the United States. You’re now dealing with an Iran that could be nuclear-capable and has a standing army of four hundred and fifty thousand soldiers.” (Saudi Arabia has seventy-five thousand troops in its standing army.)
Nasr went on, “The Saudis have considerable financial means, and have deep relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis”—Sunni extremists who view Shiites as apostates. “The last time Iran was a threat, the Saudis were able to mobilize the worst kinds of Islamic radicals. Once you get them out of the box, you can’t put them back.”
The Saudi royal family has been, by turns, both a sponsor and a target of Sunni extremists, who object to the corruption and decadence among the family’s myriad princes. The princes are gambling that they will not be overthrown as long as they continue to support religious schools and charities linked to the extremists. The Administration’s new strategy is heavily dependent on this bargain.
Nasr compared the current situation to the period in which Al Qaeda first emerged. In the nineteen-eighties and the early nineties, the Saudi government offered to subsidize the covert American C.I.A. proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young Saudis were sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up religious schools, training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then, as now, many of the operatives who were paid with Saudi money were Salafis. Among them, of course, were Osama bin Laden and his associates, who founded Al Qaeda, in 1988.
This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”
The Saudi said that, in his country’s view, it was taking a political risk by joining the U.S. in challenging Iran: Bandar is already seen in the Arab world as being too close to the Bush Administration. “We have two nightmares,” the former diplomat told me. “For Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I’d rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed.”
In the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush Administration have developed a series of informal understandings about their new strategic direction. At least four main elements were involved, the U.S. government consultant told me. First, Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran.
Second, the Saudis would urge Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian party that has received support from Iran, to curtail its anti-Israeli aggression and to begin serious talks about sharing leadership with Fatah, the more secular Palestinian group. (In February, the Saudis brokered a deal at Mecca between the two factions. However, Israel and the U.S. have expressed dissatisfaction with the terms.)
The third component was that the Bush Administration would work directly with Sunni nations to counteract Shiite ascendance in the region. Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms to Hezbollah. The Saudi government is also at odds with the Syrians over the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, in Beirut in 2005, for which it believes the Assad government was responsible. Hariri, a billionaire Sunni, was closely associated with the Saudi regime and with Prince Bandar. (A U.N. inquiry strongly suggested that the Syrians were involved, but offered no direct evidence; there are plans for another investigation, by an international tribunal.)
Patrick Clawson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, depicted the Saudis’ coöperation with the White House as a significant breakthrough. “The Saudis understand that if they want the Administration to make a more generous political offer to the Palestinians they have to persuade the Arab states to make a more generous offer to the Israelis,” Clawson told me. The new diplomatic approach, he added, “shows a real degree of effort and sophistication as well as a deftness of touch not always associated with this Administration. Who’s running the greater risk—we or the Saudis? At a time when America’s standing in the Middle East is extremely low, the Saudis are actually embracing us. We should count our blessings.”
The Pentagon consultant had a different view. He said that the Administration had turned to Bandar as a “fallback,” because it had realized that the failing war in Iraq could leave the Middle East “up for grabs.”
JIHADIS IN LEBANON
The focus of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, after Iran, is Lebanon, where the Saudis have been deeply involved in efforts by the Administration to support the Lebanese government. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is struggling to stay in power against a persistent opposition led by Hezbollah, the Shiite organization, and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah has an extensive infrastructure, an estimated two to three thousand active fighters, and thousands of additional members.
Hezbollah has been on the State Department’s terrorist list since 1997. The organization has been implicated in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed two hundred and forty-one military men. It has also been accused of complicity in the kidnapping of Americans, including the C.I.A. station chief in Lebanon, who died in captivity, and a Marine colonel serving on a U.N. peacekeeping mission, who was killed. (Nasrallah has denied that the group was involved in these incidents.) Nasrallah is seen by many as a staunch terrorist, who has said that he regards Israel as a state that has no right to exist. Many in the Arab world, however, especially Shiites, view him as a resistance leader who withstood Israel in last summer’s thirty-three-day war, and Siniora as a weak politician who relies on America’s support but was unable to persuade President Bush to call for an end to the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. (Photographs of Siniora kissing Condoleezza Rice on the cheek when she visited during the war were prominently displayed during street protests in Beirut.)
The Bush Administration has publicly pledged the Siniora government a billion dollars in aid since last summer. A donors’ conference in Paris, in January, which the U.S. helped organize, yielded pledges of almost eight billion more, including a promise of more than a billion from the Saudis. The American pledge includes more than two hundred million dollars in military aid, and forty million dollars for internal security.
The United States has also given clandestine support to the Siniora government, according to the former senior intelligence official and the U.S. government consultant. “We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence, and we’re spreading the money around as much as we can,” the former senior intelligence official said. The problem was that such money “always gets in more pockets than you think it will,” he said. “In this process, we’re financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended consequences. We don’t have the ability to determine and get pay vouchers signed by the people we like and avoid the people we don’t like. It’s a very high-risk venture.”
American, European, and Arab officials I spoke to told me that the Siniora government and its allies had allowed some aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.
During a conversation with me, the former Saudi diplomat accused Nasrallah of attempting “to hijack the state,” but he also objected to the Lebanese and Saudi sponsorship of Sunni jihadists in Lebanon. “Salafis are sick and hateful, and I’m very much against the idea of flirting with them,” he said. “They hate the Shiites, but they hate Americans more. If you try to outsmart them, they will outsmart us. It will be ugly.”
Alastair Crooke, who spent nearly thirty years in MI6, the British intelligence service, and now works for Conflicts Forum, a think tank in Beirut, told me, “The Lebanese government is opening space for these people to come in. It could be very dangerous.” Crooke said that one Sunni extremist group, Fatah al-Islam, had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon. Its membership at the time was less than two hundred. “I was told that within twenty-four hours they were being offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government’s interests—presumably to take on Hezbollah,” Crooke said.
The largest of the groups, Asbat al-Ansar, is situated in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp. Asbat al-Ansar has received arms and supplies from Lebanese internal-security forces and militias associated with the Siniora government.
In 2005, according to a report by the U.S.-based International Crisis Group, Saad Hariri, the Sunni majority leader of the Lebanese parliament and the son of the slain former Prime Minister—Saad inherited more than four billion dollars after his father’s assassination—paid forty-eight thousand dollars in bail for four members of an Islamic militant group from Dinniyeh. The men had been arrested while trying to establish an Islamic mini-state in northern Lebanon. The Crisis Group noted that many of the militants “had trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.”
According to the Crisis Group report, Saad Hariri later used his parliamentary majority to obtain amnesty for twenty-two of the Dinniyeh Islamists, as well as for seven militants suspected of plotting to bomb the Italian and Ukrainian embassies in Beirut, the previous year. (He also arranged a pardon for Samir Geagea, a Maronite Christian militia leader, who had been convicted of four political murders, including the assassination, in 1987, of Prime Minister Rashid Karami.) Hariri described his actions to reporters as humanitarian.
In an interview in Beirut, a senior official in the Siniora government acknowledged that there were Sunni jihadists operating inside Lebanon. “We have a liberal attitude that allows Al Qaeda types to have a presence here,” he said. He related this to concerns that Iran or Syria might decide to turn Lebanon into a “theatre of conflict.” The official said that his government was in a no-win situation. Without a political settlement with Hezbollah, he said, Lebanon could “slide into a conflict,” in which Hezbollah fought openly with Sunni forces, with potentially horrific consequences. But if Hezbollah agreed to a settlement yet still maintained a separate army, allied with Iran and Syria, “Lebanon could become a target. In both cases, we become a target.”
The Bush Administration has portrayed its support of the Siniora government as an example of the President’s belief in democracy, and his desire to prevent other powers from interfering in Lebanon. When Hezbollah led street demonstrations in Beirut in December, John Bolton, who was then the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., called them “part of the Iran-Syria-inspired coup.”
Leslie H. Gelb, a past president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the Administration’s policy was less pro democracy than “pro American national security. The fact is that it would be terribly dangerous if Hezbollah ran Lebanon.” The fall of the Siniora government would be seen, Gelb said, “as a signal in the Middle East of the decline of the United States and the ascendancy of the terrorism threat. And so any change in the distribution of political power in Lebanon has to be opposed by the United States—and we’re justified in helping any non-Shiite parties resist that change. We should say this publicly, instead of talking about democracy.” Martin Indyk, of the Saban Center, said, however, that the United States “does not have enough pull to stop the moderates in Lebanon from dealing with the extremists.” He added, “The President sees the region as divided between moderates and extremists, but our regional friends see it as divided between Sunnis and Shia. The Sunnis that we view as extremists are regarded by our Sunni allies simply as Sunnis.”
In January, after an outburst of street violence in Beirut involving supporters of both the Siniora government and Hezbollah, Prince Bandar flew to Tehran to discuss the political impasse in Lebanon and to meet with Ali Larijani, the Iranians’ negotiator on nuclear issues. According to a Middle Eastern ambassador, Bandar’s mission—which the ambassador said was endorsed by the White House—also aimed “to create problems between the Iranians and Syria.” There had been tensions between the two countries about Syrian talks with Israel, and the Saudis’ goal was to encourage a breach. However, the ambassador said, “It did not work. Syria and Iran are not going to betray each other. Bandar’s approach is very unlikely to succeed.”
Walid Jumblatt, who is the leader of the Druze minority in Lebanon and a strong Siniora supporter, has attacked Nasrallah as an agent of Syria, and has repeatedly told foreign journalists that Hezbollah is under the direct control of the religious leadership in Iran. In a conversation with me last December, he depicted Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, as a “serial killer.” Nasrallah, he said, was “morally guilty” of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the murder, last November, of Pierre Gemayel, a member of the Siniora Cabinet, because of his support for the Syrians.
Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said.
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir’s father. In 1982, the Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people. Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel. Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door to effective Syrian opposition.”
There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
Jumblatt said he understood that the issue was a sensitive one for the White House. “I told Cheney that some people in the Arab world, mainly the Egyptians”—whose moderate Sunni leadership has been fighting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for decades—”won’t like it if the United States helps the Brotherhood. But if you don’t take on Syria we will be face to face in Lebanon with Hezbollah in a long fight, and one we might not win.”
THE SHEIKH
On a warm, clear night early last December, in a bombed-out suburb a few miles south of downtown Beirut, I got a preview of how the Administration’s new strategy might play out in Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, who has been in hiding, had agreed to an interview. Security arrangements for the meeting were secretive and elaborate. I was driven, in the back seat of a darkened car, to a damaged underground garage somewhere in Beirut, searched with a handheld scanner, placed in a second car to be driven to yet another bomb-scarred underground garage, and transferred again. Last summer, it was reported that Israel was trying to kill Nasrallah, but the extraordinary precautions were not due only to that threat. Nasrallah’s aides told me that they believe he is a prime target of fellow-Arabs, primarily Jordanian intelligence operatives, as well as Sunni jihadists who they believe are affiliated with Al Qaeda. (The government consultant and a retired four-star general said that Jordanian intelligence, with support from the U.S. and Israel, had been trying to infiltrate Shiite groups, to work against Hezbollah. Jordan’s King Abdullah II has warned that a Shiite government in Iraq that was close to Iran would lead to the emergence of a Shiite crescent.) This is something of an ironic turn: Nasrallah’s battle with Israel last summer turned him—a Shiite—into the most popular and influential figure among Sunnis and Shiites throughout the region. In recent months, however, he has increasingly been seen by many Sunnis not as a symbol of Arab unity but as a participant in a sectarian war.
Nasrallah, dressed, as usual, in religious garb, was waiting for me in an unremarkable apartment. One of his advisers said that he was not likely to remain there overnight; he has been on the move since his decision, last July, to order the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid set off the thirty-three-day war. Nasrallah has since said publicly—and repeated to me—that he misjudged the Israeli response. “We just wanted to capture prisoners for exchange purposes,” he told me. “We never wanted to drag the region into war.”
Nasrallah accused the Bush Administration of working with Israel to deliberately instigate fitna, an Arabic word that is used to mean “insurrection and fragmentation within Islam.” “In my opinion, there is a huge campaign through the media throughout the world to put each side up against the other,” he said. “I believe that all this is being run by American and Israeli intelligence.” (He did not provide any specific evidence for this.) He said that the U.S. war in Iraq had increased sectarian tensions, but argued that Hezbollah had tried to prevent them from spreading into Lebanon. (Sunni-Shiite confrontations increased, along with violence, in the weeks after we talked.)
Nasrallah said he believed that President Bush’s goal was “the drawing of a new map for the region. They want the partition of Iraq. Iraq is not on the edge of a civil war—there is a civil war. There is ethnic and sectarian cleansing. The daily killing and displacement which is taking place in Iraq aims at achieving three Iraqi parts, which will be sectarian and ethnically pure as a prelude to the partition of Iraq. Within one or two years at the most, there will be total Sunni areas, total Shiite areas, and total Kurdish areas. Even in Baghdad, there is a fear that it might be divided into two areas, one Sunni and one Shiite.”
He went on, “I can say that President Bush is lying when he says he does not want Iraq to be partitioned. All the facts occurring now on the ground make you swear he is dragging Iraq to partition. And a day will come when he will say, ‘I cannot do anything, since the Iraqis want the partition of their country and I honor the wishes of the people of Iraq.’ “
Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.” Nasrallah told me that he suspected that one aim of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon last summer was “the destruction of Shiite areas and the displacement of Shiites from Lebanon. The idea was to have the Shiites of Lebanon and Syria flee to southern Iraq,” which is dominated by Shiites. “I am not sure, but I smell this,” he told me.
Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.” In fact, the Bush Administration has adamantly resisted talk of partitioning Iraq, and its public stances suggest that the White House sees a future Lebanon that is intact, with a weak, disarmed Hezbollah playing, at most, a minor political role. There is also no evidence to support Nasrallah’s belief that the Israelis were seeking to drive the Shiites into southern Iraq. Nevertheless, Nasrallah’s vision of a larger sectarian conflict in which the United States is implicated suggests a possible consequence of the White House’s new strategy.
In the interview, Nasrallah made mollifying gestures and promises that would likely be met with skepticism by his opponents. “If the United States says that discussions with the likes of us can be useful and influential in determining American policy in the region, we have no objection to talks or meetings,” he said. “But, if their aim through this meeting is to impose their policy on us, it will be a waste of time.” He said that the Hezbollah militia, unless attacked, would operate only within the borders of Lebanon, and pledged to disarm it when the Lebanese Army was able to stand up. Nasrallah said that he had no interest in initiating another war with Israel. However, he added that he was anticipating, and preparing for, another Israeli attack, later this year.
Nasrallah further insisted that the street demonstrations in Beirut would continue until the Siniora government fell or met his coalition’s political demands. “Practically speaking, this government cannot rule,” he told me. “It might issue orders, but the majority of the Lebanese people will not abide and will not recognize the legitimacy of this government. Siniora remains in office because of international support, but this does not mean that Siniora can rule Lebanon.” President Bush’s repeated praise of the Siniora government, Nasrallah said, “is the best service to the Lebanese opposition he can give, because it weakens their position vis-à-vis the Lebanese people and the Arab and Islamic populations. They are betting on us getting tired. We did not get tired during the war, so how could we get tired in a demonstration?”
There is sharp division inside and outside the Bush Administration about how best to deal with Nasrallah, and whether he could, in fact, be a partner in a political settlement. The outgoing director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, in a farewell briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee, in January, said that Hezbollah “lies at the center of Iran’s terrorist strategy. . . . It could decide to conduct attacks against U.S. interests in the event it feels its survival or that of Iran is threatened. . . . Lebanese Hezbollah sees itself as Tehran’s partner.”
In 2002, Richard Armitage, then the Deputy Secretary of State, called Hezbollah “the A-team” of terrorists. In a recent interview, however, Armitage acknowledged that the issue has become somewhat more complicated. Nasrallah, Armitage told me, has emerged as “a political force of some note, with a political role to play inside Lebanon if he chooses to do so.” In terms of public relations and political gamesmanship, Armitage said, Nasrallah “is the smartest man in the Middle East.” But, he added, Nasrallah “has got to make it clear that he wants to play an appropriate role as the loyal opposition. For me, there’s still a blood debt to pay”—a reference to the murdered colonel and the Marine barracks bombing.
Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites.
“The most important story in the Middle East is the growth of Nasrallah from a street guy to a leader—from a terrorist to a statesman,” Baer added. “The dog that didn’t bark this summer”—during the war with Israel—”is Shiite terrorism.” Baer was referring to fears that Nasrallah, in addition to firing rockets into Israel and kidnapping its soldiers, might set in motion a wave of terror attacks on Israeli and American targets around the world. “He could have pulled the trigger, but he did not,” Baer said. Most members of the intelligence and diplomatic communities acknowledge Hezbollah’s ongoing ties to Iran. But there is disagreement about the extent to which Nasrallah would put aside Hezbollah’s interests in favor of Iran’s. A former C.I.A. officer who also served in Lebanon called Nasrallah “a Lebanese phenomenon,” adding, “Yes, he’s aided by Iran and Syria, but Hezbollah’s gone beyond that.” He told me that there was a period in the late eighties and early nineties when the C.I.A. station in Beirut was able to clandestinely monitor Nasrallah’s conversations. He described Nasrallah as “a gang leader who was able to make deals with the other gangs. He had contacts with everybody.”
TELLING CONGRESS
The Bush Administration’s reliance on clandestine operations that have not been reported to Congress and its dealings with intermediaries with questionable agendas have recalled, for some in Washington, an earlier chapter in history. Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration attempted to fund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of secret arms sales to Iran. Saudi money was involved in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal, and a few of the players back then—notably Prince Bandar and Elliott Abrams—are involved in today’s dealings.
Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.
I was subsequently told by the two government consultants and the former senior intelligence official that the echoes of Iran-Contra were a factor in Negroponte’s decision to resign from the National Intelligence directorship and accept a sub-Cabinet position of Deputy Secretary of State. (Negroponte declined to comment.) The former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration, when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. “Negroponte said, ‘No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. running operations off the books, with no finding.’ ” (In the case of covert C.I.A. operations, the President must issue a written finding and inform Congress.) Negroponte stayed on as Deputy Secretary of State, he added, because “he believes he can influence the government in a positive way.”
The government consultant said that Negroponte shared the White House’s policy goals but “wanted to do it by the book.” The Pentagon consultant also told me that “there was a sense at the senior-ranks level that he wasn’t fully on board with the more adventurous clandestine initiatives.” It was also true, he said, that Negroponte “had problems with this Rube Goldberg policy contraption for fixing the Middle East.”
The Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of oversight, was accounting for covert funds. “There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions,” he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence official and the retired four-star general. “This goes back to Iran-Contra,” a former National Security Council aide told me. “And much of what they’re doing is to keep the agency out of it.” He said that Congress was not being briefed on the full extent of the U.S.-Saudi operations. And, he said, “The C.I.A. is asking, ‘What’s going on?’ They’re concerned, because they think it’s amateur hour.”
The issue of oversight is beginning to get more attention from Congress. Last November, the Congressional Research Service issued a report for Congress on what it depicted as the Administration’s blurring of the line between C.I.A. activities and strictly military ones, which do not have the same reporting requirements. And the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Senator Jay Rockefeller, has scheduled a hearing for March 8th on Defense Department intelligence activities. Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, a Democrat who is a member of the Intelligence Committee, told me, “The Bush Administration has frequently failed to meet its legal obligation to keep the Intelligence Committee fully and currently informed. Time and again, the answer has been ‘Trust us.’ ” Wyden said, “It is hard for me to trust the Administration.”
(Source: “The New Yorker (Magazine Mensuel – USA), Mars 2007, mis en ligne le 25 février 2007) Lien : http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh
